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Home Opinion Whose 'systems change' are we talking about? Whose 'systems change' are we talking about? May 6, 2024 Facebook Twitter Pinterest WhatsApp Email Print Viber tdi_2:not(.td-a-rec-no-translate){transform:translateZ(0)}.tdi_2 tdi_2 img{margin:0 auto 0 0}@media tdi_2{text-align:center}}
By N Sathiya Moorthy
Ever since the Arayalaya protests in 2022 or even before it for long, the JVP used to demand 'systems change'. So did the breakaway FSP, but there was/is no knowing if both of them meant one and the same.
Then came the demand or suggestion for systems change from none other than Colombo Archbishop, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith. Again, there was no knowing if the Catholic Church and the one-time left-militant groups, since democratised and mainstreamed, meant one and the same.
Clarification in the matter is more important as the general perception is that the Catholic faith and Communism shall never ever meet. Maybe, it remains the same way. If so, the Church, which however has not repeated its position since, should clarify what kind of 'systems change' it meant and intended. Both have their own consequences for the upcoming presidential polls, and even more for the future of Catholic faith in the country.
After all this came Namal Rajapaksa, the chip of the old clan, who too called out for 'systems change', again without explaining what he had in mind. He too has not repeated his statement – or, so it seems.
Government-in-waiting
All of them are vague. That is despite the fact that the JVP and also the FSP as ideological twins have been mouthing such phraseology for long. It is one thing for them to say what they are saying earlier – more so in the case of the JVP.
That was when no one saw them as coming closer to the power-centre. Now after a series of 'mood-of-the-nation' polls, even if by the same agency, has put JVP's Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) as the front-runner in presidential polls, if held on the day of each opinion poll, the party has to act like a 'government-in-waiting'.
The JVP cannot just continue with its ideological mumbo-jumbo. Nor can it stop with saying that they would give power to the people, and that they will have people's committees from grassroots-level upwards, to input policies and decide on governmental programmes. These are easier said than done.
What if, for instance, people's committees from two adjoining villages decide exactly the opposite way on an irrigation project or such other things? More importantly, are these people's committees going to be outside the realm of the existing elected bodies from local government institutions to Provincial Councils to Parliament?
If so, what are you going to do with the existing elected constitutional bodies? If not, what do they then mean by People's Committees? And where does the power of the People's Committees end? Are they going to include the judiciary, too, where the JVP, in a bygone era, had set up 'kangaroo courts' to punish those that they declared 'anti-people'?
Politico-electoral consequences
Say, if the JVP and the Catholic Church are on the same page as far as broader aspects of 'systems change' are concerned, maybe they should sit down and talk. For a left-leaning party, and earlier militant/insurgent outfit, the JVP has not taken after the global left's faithlessness as a compelling creed. They are Buddhists first and last. They are Sinhala nationalists, first and last. Rather, they are Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists like any other, many others. The list should include discredited sections of the Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists of the centre-right variety.
The JVP leaders do visit Kandy and pay obeisance to the four prelates, no questions asked. They too present their political proposals and manifestos to the Buddhist clergy on occasions, like any other Sinhala-Buddhist political party, however much they may call themselves 'Sri Lankan nationalists'.
If so, are there any meeting points in the 'systems change' talk of the JVP and the Catholic clergy? If they were to talk, leave alone identify common points to build upon, is the Buddhist clergy going to like it? What would be the politico-electoral consequences for the JVP in such a case?
Pure and puritanical
It is worse still in the case of an SLPP-JVP chit-chat on 'systems change', even if to see if they are on the same page. Remember, the SLPP is a later-day political product of the failed SLFP. The latter's failure early on to live up to the undefined aspirations that it had kindled but was unable to live up to from inception in the early fifties alone caused the birth of a militant socialist, in the form of the JVP in the mid-fifties.
Hence, they still have many things in common on the ideological, hence programme-orientation, as far as their political mandates are concerned. They too can talk, but they won't. That is because the JVP sees itself as the only pure and puritanical party in the country, branding the rest of 'em all as corrupt, nepotistic and worse.
The JVP's self-perception owes to the fact that for much of its political existence, it was not in power – for them to be corrupted beyond recognition, like the rest of them. They still should look themselves up in the mirror, to convince themselves and the nation if their self-perception is correct, after all!
The few years the JVP formed a part of SLFP-led governments under Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa, they did produce ministers like Wimal Weerawansa, whom the parent party called 'corrupt' and more. If they jumped the Rajapaksa bandwagon in 2008, it did not owe exclusively to such party propaganda, leading to the exit of Weerawansa and nine other MPs, to form their own politico-electoral outfit.
Does the JVP want to believe that there are no Weerawansas in the party to be branded corrupt if AKD won the presidential poll, and they have ministers to call their own? Anyway, how do parties like the JVP, too, meet their massive election expenses? Is it from charity collections at railway-stations and bus-stands? Or, from the membership fee paid by JVP trade unions? If not, where does the party get its funds from?
If the answer does not satisfy the upright among the JVP leaders, then the party may become no better than the SLPP, SLFP or UNP/SJB ministers if and when they have access to the government and governmental spending. It is the crass reality in any democracy, and Sri Lanka is no exception.
Hence, it is time for the JVP to define what it means by 'systems change', how it intends operationalising if elected to power, and what results can be expected after one, two and five years in office. Still, it would only be a starting point, but some starting point, it would still be!
(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: [email protected] )
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