-By Virgil
(Lanka-e-News -05.Dec.2024, 11.00 PM) “I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more... the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires... too soon, too soon....before life itself”
~Joseph Conrad
Samagi Jana Balavegaya and New Democratic Front are not separate from the original United National Party (UNP). They were born having broken from the same umbilical cord of the mother Party- UNP. In fact, New Democratic Front is the Party of Ravi Karunanayake, the Deputy Leader of the UNP. Ravi was a disciple of the late Lalith Athulathmudali, one-time great follower of the JR Jayewardene government. What are the connections these three gentlemen, Ranil, Sajith and Ravi, have to the UNP?
Ranil is a close relative of JRJ. JR's mother was D R Wijeywardene's sister. D R Wijeywardene's eldest daughter is Ranil's mother. Sajith is R Premadasa's, son. Senior Premadasa was one time President of the country. Ravi was a close associate of Lalith Athulathmudali and after Srimani Athulathmudali entered parliament, she brought in Ravi as her party's National List MP. The United National Party was once called the 'Attygalle Inheritance' and quite rightly so. It was so named because Attygalle's three daughters married John Kotelawala ( Sir John's father), F R Senanayake, DS's brother and Dudley's uncle and Col. T F Jayewardene (JR's uncle) respectively. Origins of nepotism could be easily traced to the Attygalle Inheritance.
The current nepotistic nature of these three parties maybe different, but its combined feature is one of unadulterated and undiluted nepotism. JR, Premadasa and Athulathmudali are not related to each other, yet their closeness to the leadership of the UNP and their close kith and kin are still wielding decision-making power in the Party is a sickening feeling. The United National Party (UNP) has not graduated from that anachronistic (mal)practice of nepotism. However much Sajith Premadasa shrieks from the bowels of his being, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya cannot shed itself of this unpopular veneer.
The real 'common man' is seeing the world in a newer way. One cannot disregard the obvious screening of the old in different colors. There is nothing much to say about Ranil Wickremasinghe. He is planning to bequeath the UNP to his own cousin Ruwan (Ruwan is the son of Ranil's mother's younger bother Ranjit). If there were any who is solely responsible for the destruction the UNP, it is Ranil Wickremasinghe.
The Yahapalanaya government began its downward spiraling after the so-called 'bond-scam' episode. Unfortunately for Ravi, he was alleged to have been directed by Ranil, Prime Minister at the time. Yahapalanaya government which was voted into the seat of power by the people who had the collective audacity to defeat Mahinda Rajapaksa, the so-called Yuddhaye Veeraya' (war hero), was exposed of its hypocrisy and unwillingness to do away with blatant corrupt practices which were the order of the day during the Rajapaksa regime.
The Attygalle Inheritance has met its twin- a lamentable legacy of an orphan, which is the combination of the UNP, SJB and DNF. The people had no choice but to unseat them in the 2019 Presidential Elections. What was unseen and latent during the Maithri/Ranil regime came into limelight under the Gotabhaya regime. Reinstallation of Nivad Cabral as the Governor of the Central Bank sealed not only the issue for Gotabhaya, that sealed the progress of the country's economy beyond any recovery. Utterly unscientific and uneconomic policy pursuit under the tutelage of Cabral paved the way for the country's bankruptcy. Running a deficit-finance economy without a relatable GDP growth ultimately produced its most undesirable results. When the country's foreign currency reserves ran dry, the cruel symptons of a declining economy sprang up as long lines for petrol, diesel and cooking gas.
Then the Aragalaya-22 happened and the rest, as they say, is history. Family rule from 1947 up to 2024 that continued and replaced one family dynasty with another did not serve the people any better. As a matter of fact, it became progressively worse. Dependence on one family dynasty may have been in the DNA of Lankans, but it too seemed to have had only a prescribed time-frame. With the dawn of self-expression as a collective mindset of an ignored segment of the citizenry and its large numbers which, in fact, comprised of a majority of the people, Sri Lanka showed it to the world that a total breakaway from the status quo without a violent armed revolution is more than possible. And at the Presidential Elections held on 21st of September, 2024 it was made a reality. Followed by a clean sweep in the Parliamentary Elections, the National People's Power (NPP), may have driven the last nail on the coffin of the then UNP.
If the UNP is dead as a credible political entity, can its substitute which is Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) survive as a realistic political force in the country. That depends on more than a few factors, which are political, social, economic and cultural. The supporters of both, UNP and SJB, identify themselves as center-right politically and conservative culturally, socially and economically. Ever since its constitution in 1946, it has remained as such. At the very formation, UNP was, in fact, the chief mainstream party whereas its rivals comprised of the then far-left, Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP).
However, when the first fissures opened up in 1951 with the departure of Bandaranaike, the resultant Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) became the UNP's alternative, but it occupied space in the Center-Left of the political spectrum. The middleclass and the lower middleclass found a new refuge under the protective umbrella of the SLFP. What began as a quasi anti-capitalist movement led by Bandaranaike reached its peak in 1970 with a resounding victory for Bandaranaike's widow, Sirimavo.
Nevertheless, the the JVP which openly backed the coalition led by Sirimavo's SLFP could not wait even one and half years. In April, 1971, they launched what has gone into history's pages as 'April Insurrection'. Although the United Left Front government led by Sirimavo and Felix Dias ruthlessly crushed the JVP militants; and Rohana Wijeweera and his close comrades were sentenced to long term imprisonment. We all may have concluded that the JVP died. No, it did not. A movement started by some amateurish youth could be crushed and annihilated. But an idea cannot die. The idea went under the ashes; beneath the fragments of ember and it remained so until the Aragalaya-22 lent accelerated progress to it. AKD and his NPP saw an emerging force behind the Aragalaya-22.
The vast vacuum that was created by the collapse of the government of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa aided and abetted by the catastrophic performance of the country's economy was an open invitation for any educated and clever politician to fill it with not only haste but also with finesse and acumen. Where Ranil Wickremasinghe and Sajith Premadasa failed, AKD excelled. In short, what really materialized on September 21, 2024 in Sri Lanka was the culmination of that political process.
Nothing was born on the first day of the Aragalaya-22. Nevertheless Aragalaya-22 gave impetus to the movement that had its crawling stages in 1971 and 1987-1988. A violent movement that was really born in 1971 shed its armory and arms. It adapted itself to the moving drama of modern-day sociopolitical dynamics. Modern economic realities not only changed the country's depth's of its coffers. It changed the thinking pattern of the JVP/NPP. It had to adopt new policies and principles in order to come to power. And the NPP did change. The results of the recently concluded Presidential and Parliamentary Elections displayed the effects of that change.
New generations not only see the current socioeconomic and political realities in fresh light, they are also eager to adopt newer methods and embrace fresher ideas and ideals that could be related to them directly. Ascension of the NPP to power is a remarkable story. Such dreamlike episodes in history happen only sparsely and only rarely in a couple of generations. We are utterly fortunate have witnessed such an occurrence.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]
Virgil's Collection
https://www.lankaenews.com/category/21
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by (2024-12-05 18:01:13)
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