The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) is becoming an important topic in political circles. Eulogies written by the JVP spokesperson about its correctness and its perfectness seem to appear in newspapers not occasionally but frequently now. In an article sent to Ravaya one of those writers condemned the policies of all other parties and declared that the JVP was the only party which had a correct and strong programme of principles. Another who had contributed an article to Yukthiya about the hartal of 1953 had boastfully said that the only political party that inherited the great legacy of the hartal was the JVP.
The JVP’s murderous hartal of 1989 cannot be identified with the hartal of 1953. The hartal of 1953 was not an uprising that took place on the arbitrary orders of a militant political organisation. It was a genuine uprising of the people against several measures taken by the Government in a way that oppressed the people economically. It was also not a campaign that used violence as a weapon. There was no killing or harassing of those who didn’t agree to participate in it. However, the JVP’s tradition of hartal was different. They followed a reckless policy of murdering employees who did not agree with its call to strike. The JVP mercilessly killed even those who went to work under threat to their lives from the Army. The hartals of 1989 were not spontaneous uprisings of the people. Each of them was staged by the JVP by using force. People complied with their calls due to fear that they themselves would be killed if they failed. In none of these instances could the legacy represented by the JVP be identified with that of the 1953 hartal. The legacy of the JVP represented by their hartal could to some extent be identified with the murderous legacies of Pol Pot and Prabhakaran.
The boast that the JVP, unlike all other parties, had a correct and strong declaration of policies is not second to the earlier one. Although it is true that all political parties in Sri Lanka have reached a state of bankruptcy so far as their policies are concerned, the JVP cannot be said to have been in a strong and correct position just because it has an utopia and rhetorical declaration of policy. It may almost be said that the declaration of policy put out by the JVP claiming that it was capable of solving all the problems of the country was the most bankrupt and empty one put forward by any political party in Sri Lanka. The ideas put forward by it were very beautiful but they were suited only to a utopia and not to the real world in which we live. Among the utopian ideas contained it were that everybody would be given a real job that if there were any persons who could not be given, one they would be given a dole. The problem of unemployment cannot be wished away simply because a group who really wants to give jobs to all comes to power. For new jobs to be available, there has to be speedy economic development and that requires new capital investments commensurate with the requirements.
This simply means that each new job involves a price depending on the number of jobs planned to be created. In the heavy or modern industrial sector, creation of one employment opportunity costs about Rs. 1 million at present rates, while in the industrialised and agricultural sectors it may cost Rs. 2 or 3 hundred thousand. When unemployment in the island is reckoned at 2 million persons and the cost of an employment opportunity is three hundred thousand, the cost of full employment will be about Rs. 600 billion. How would the JVP find the greater amount of money required for full employment?
It may be that the JVP thinks that it can find the funds by depriving the capitalist class of the wealth concentrated in their hands. Although the capitalists have industries and business establishments worth hundreds of millions, they have not saved hundreds of millions. They have become capitalists not by merely exploiting surplus value but because they follow a policy of reinvesting their profit after using part of it for consumption. Although it is possible to take over their industrial and business establishments under a policy of destabilising the capitalist class, they do not have any great wealth saved by them. Opportunities for employment will not increase greatly because the ownership of industrial and business establishments changes. Although it is possible to increase the number of those who work in them several fold, the salaries that the workers will receive will fall below sustenance level because the amount allocated for salaries will have to be divided among a larger number of persons. Otherwise the prices of the products of those establishments will have to be increased so much that the cost of living will become unbearably high. If both these options are no solutions to the problem, they will have to seek capital from abroad to create more jobs. However, the socialist world which they could have relied on for such aid is non-existent today. Even if it had existed the JVP could not have expected that much of money from that world. A party which says that all connections with the World Bank will be severed cannot expect assistance from that too. Even a party which is loyal to the World Bank cannot get such a big sum of money for a small country like Sri Lanka.
All policies and promises in the JVP manifesto are like that. That is to say its policies can be implemented in a world of dreams rather than in the world of reality. The manifesto is an empty boast and only displays the JVP leader’s ignorance. The JVP’s talk of democracy and human rights is also absolutely meaningless. The right to hold and propagate any opinion and the right to be organised in support of that opinion without infringing on laws and regulations are accepted principles of democracy. But the JVP did not follow a policy of adhering even to that basic principle to say nothing of subtler, complex and modern concepts. The JVP considered anybody opposed to its political views as its enemy and followed a policy of killing such persons. There is no greater nonsense than the talk of human rights and democracy by such a party. Although the JVP’s terrorism can to some extent be explained as a reaction to the Government’s terrorism, a party which shouts about its purity and perfectness cannot be justified in following such a vicious policy even as a reaction against the Government’s terrorism. It is true that the JVP has shown extraordinary capability in rallying round itself a specific young social stratum. However, it must be said that the party has not at all performed its duty by those young people who had rallied round it. The JVP must be held responsible for causing the death of those young persons of remarkable courage, devotion and heroism by driving them along a path of violence and for ruining the lives of large number of others. If these courageous people had come into the hands of an enlightened and restrained political movement with a current vision rather than into the hands of a violent movement like the JVP, and an intelligent and sober leader rather than a reckless one like Rohana Wijeweera, they would not have succumbed to an untimely death, and their future as well as that of the country would have been better and more fortunate.
All this does not means that there is no room for a political organisation like the JVP which commits very serious mistakes to correct itself. A person or an institution, however serious his or its mistakes may be, has the capacity to free himself or itself of these mistakes and to follow a correct path if he or it gains an understanding of reality and genuinely repents. But the statements of the JVP spokesperson and their flamboyant declarations do not indicate that any change has taken place in them. In fact they have not so far been able to admit that the violent and murderous policies followed by them have been wrong. What it means is that no deep transformation has occurred in their political soul and that they have no honest intention of breaking away from their violent and murderous policies. In the circumstances, such a party is only capable of causing another massive catastrophe.