බැරැක්ක සංවර්ධනය
Unlike after 1971 and 1989, when troops returned quickly to barracks, the defeat of the LTTE brought glorification of the forces and a steady military creep into civilian life: officers as governors and secretaries, soldiers running what they build, principals given military ranks. Ivan argues that soldiers and rulers who ended the war did their paid duty and the public owes them thanks, not debt. Command without question suits armies, not societies. The army’s shooting of unarmed villagers protesting polluted water at Rathupaswala, Weliweriya, shows the cost of barrack rule.
රජිව් ගාන්ධි ලංකාවේ වීරයෙක්ද? ද්රෝහියෙක්ද?
After a brief tribute to the Elections Commissioner for requiring asset declarations with nominations, Ivan marks the Accord’s 26th anniversary by defending Rajiv Gandhi against the Sinhala view of him as a scheming invader. Drawing on J.N. Dixit, he recounts Rajiv’s insistence on signing amid riots, his calm after a sailor’s rifle-butt blow, his concessions to Prabhakaran and the IPKF operations that led to his assassination. The IPKF, he argues, saved the state from two simultaneous insurgencies until Premadasa armed the LTTE; Sri Lanka should honour Rajiv with a statue.
අන්තෝ ජටා බහි ජටා
Ivan asks why more than a hundred thousand deaths in two insurrections have left so little mark on Sri Lankan thought and literature, recalling conversations with Simon Navagattegama and Ediriweera Sarachchandra and a sharp exchange with Sugathapala de Silva. He argues that caste, not only race and class, drove both rebellions: Wijeweera and Prabhakaran came from parallel non-dominant castes and drew their foot soldiers from oppressed ones. Only Premadasa grasped this, and the chance to rebuild society after the LTTE’s defeat has been squandered.
පෙරටුගාමී පක්ෂයේ ස්වයං විවේචනය
Amid the decay of every party, Ivan reviews the newly formed Frontline Socialist Party through its 445-page book on the JVP’s path from 1978 to 2012, billed as a self-criticism but really a critique of its parent party. Its young members are committed, he says, but their thinking still lives before the fall of the Berlin Wall, ending with Lenin on the dictatorship of the proletariat. The book romanticises JVP culture without asking why idealistic youth became executioners in 1988–89. He traces a thread through the JVP’s history: after Wijeweera’s disappointing 273,248 votes in 1982, the party never found a leader the public would accept, backing Rajapaksa in 2005 and Fonseka in 2010 for want of its own candidate — a dilemma rooted in race, caste and religion. The FSP must put knowledge before action.
25 වැනි සමරුව හා ව්යාකූලතා
Ivan reflects on objections, among a few readers and staff, to inviting the President and other leaders to Ravaya’s 25th anniversary. Ravaya’s readers have never held one view, he says: during 1988–89 it refused to use the insurrection to topple the UNP; it helped defeat that government in 1994 but refused to profit from the new one, learning that changing governments does not change the system. The deepest split came over the war against the LTTE, which Ravaya opposed in a way Ivan now calls sometimes unfair and extreme, while he himself saw a just and winnable war; he argues that the UNP obstructed it hoping for regime change, that Prabhakaran and Wijeweera both chose guns over politics, and that the 2010 election left a hatred between the two camps that now blocks reform.
සටන් කිරීම හා අවසාන සටන
Ivan sets out the principles that let him win most of his battles: a just cause, a clear philosophy and plan, careful assessment and preparation, and knowing when not to fight, as Gandhi refused to hamper the Allies in wartime. He recalls how J.R. Jayewardene ordered him to stop his ‘Kalinga’ column during the second JVP insurrection and how a calm reply won the President’s respect; how he refused JVP requests for help and armed protection, backed the state against the rebels though opposed to the UNP, and saw every such crisis as no time for regime change. He contrasts Gandhi’s respect for his opponents with the hatred driving Sri Lankan struggles, then tells how he defeated the parliamentary privileges committee’s power to punish journalists by refusing its summons, enlisting Mrs Bandaranaike and international pressure, until the committee adjourned indefinitely.
25 වැනි සංවත්සරය
Ahead of Ravaya’s 25th anniversary, Ivan answers Sarvodaya leader A.T. Ariyaratne, who told Mawbima that he had spent millions on Ravaya, that the name was his idea and that Ivan later attacked him in the paper. Ivan sets out the founding story: the plan and the name were his, Sarvodaya’s Vishvalekha press printed the magazine at twice market rates and handled all the money, and so profited from Ravaya, not the other way round. He describes his differences with Ariyaratne’s outward Gandhianism, while crediting his service to rural youth, and explains the break: Ariyaratne switched from Premadasa to backing the JVP insurrection and Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1988, then tried to placate the victorious Premadasa by stopping Ravaya’s printing. Ivan closes with the paper’s 25-year ‘journey against the current’ and plans for the anniversary, including a documentary.
අනුරුද්ධ රත්වත්ත
Anuruddha has died, and as a man who was close to him for a time Ivan thinks it important to set down a note about him. What follows is a personal account, including the plain observation that neither Anuruddha nor Chandrika appears to have had full confidence in the other when she was brought into the SLFP.
උගත් පාඩම් කොමිසම හා උගතයුතු පාඩම්
The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s report has been handed to the president, and what it finds and recommends is not yet clear. It is a commission that drew international attention: the British foreign secretary said Sri Lanka should show its honesty by making the report public, and the government says it will be put before parliament in December.
හෘදය සාක්ෂියේ වික්ෂෝභය (3)
What Ivan sets out to analyse here is the moral crisis facing a society that has to live crushed between the two naked powers of an armed struggle for state power, when both sides stand level with each other — and specifically how that worked on the Sinhala society of the south during the JVP’s second insurrection.