India’s move to name the Jaffna Cultural Centre after the Tamil poet-philosopher, Thiruvalluvar, is a symbolic gesture by New Delhi to reinforce the unbreakable bond with Sri Lanka. When sections of Sri Lankan Tamils were agitated originally over the omission of ‘Jaffna’ in the Centre’s nomenclature, the Indian authorities were swift in their course correction. It is now called the “Jaffna Thiruvalluvar Cultural Centre”, a recent landmark, built by the Indian government. No one needs to emphasise the significance of bilateral ties between the two south Asian neighbours, which have a shared history and culture.

In the last 40-odd years, the nature of political relations has undergone significant changes ever since the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka drew India in to play the role of a mediator, initially, and that of an active player, later, in the attempt to resolve the vexatious ethnic problem. It was such a complex relationship that led to the signing of the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 and the consequent 13th Amendment (13A) to Sri Lanka’s Constitution, creating a new layer of government — Provincial Councils — and granting it limited autonomy. At that time, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) — the party to which Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake belongs — was among those which opposed the Accord and the Amendment. According to critics, the two were considered to be impositions of India on Sri Lanka.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was another critic and then the most important Tamil force, was not happy with the settlement formula. The LTTE was for the division of Sri Lanka and the creation of a Tamil Eelam (encompassing the Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern provinces), an idea that India can never agree with.

India’s nudges on 13A

Despite the passage of over 35 years, the crucial Amendment has not yet been given a fair trial, especially in the Tamil-speaking areas of Sri Lanka, even though the Provincial Councils, there in most parts of the country, functioned between 1988 and 2019.

Successive Indian leaders have been urging their Sri Lankan counterparts for the “early, full or effective implementation” of 13A. In fact, when India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met Mr. Dissanayake in Colombo in early October 2024 to invite him formally to visit India, he too referred to this much-used phrase.

But, the absence of any explicit reference to the Amendment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public remarks during Mr. Dissanayake’s state visit to New Delhi in December 2024 has raised the question whether India has begun distancing itself from the issue of the implementation of 13A. Even though it is too early to arrive at any conclusion, as Mr. Modi did call for “fully implementing the Constitution of Sri Lanka and conducting the Provincial Council elections”, one is tempted to recall the suggestion made by Mr. Jaishankar, in his capacity as Foreign Secretary, in February 2017, to the now-defunct Tamil National Alliance to move beyond the merger issue. The Northern and Eastern provinces had remained together nearly for 20 years till the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka annulled such an arrangement in October 2006.

Mr. Modi’s silence is to be viewed against the backdrop of the JVP’s traditional position on the Amendment. It is not yet clear whether Sri Lanka’s ruling coalition of the JVP-led National People’s Power (NPP) still favours the repeal of the Amendment.

While Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya told The Island in February 2023 that “we [NPP] believe that it [13A] should be implemented but we have a debate whether it could be a tenable solution for the national problem”, Mr. Dissanayake, in his campaign in Jaffna a few months ago for the parliamentary polls, did not touch upon the issues of greater power devolution and a political settlement to the ethnic question. The only reference to devolution was found in the NPP manifesto during the September 2024 presidential poll, wherein the coalition had assured people that there would be a new constitution “that strengthens democracy and ensures equality of all citizens”.

Local bodies are no substitute

While pointing out that the incomplete constitutional reform process, which began in 2015, would be built upon, the manifesto talked of a “devolution of political and administrative power to every local government, district and province” and holding elections “within a year” to provincial councils and local bodies “which are currently postponed indefinitely”. If the political discourse in Sri Lanka is any indication, elections to the local authorities may take place sooner rather than later.

There is nothing wrong in holding the elections to the local bodies, which have a much longer history in Sri Lanka than the provincial councils. However, the rulers should be under no illusion that however efficient they may be, local bodies are no substitutes for the provincial councils. As in many other countries, the local self governments in Sri Lanka too are hardly equipped to solve all the problems being thrown up by growing urbanisation on the one hand and other issues such as limited sources of own revenue and high dependence on fiscal transfers on the other. This is why the layer of provincial councils becomes essential to address many of the issues.

It was not without reason that the interim report of the Steering Committee of the Constitutional Assembly, in September 2017, pointed to the wide consensus among Chief Ministers, Provincial Councils, and various panels of the Assembly, that provinces be recognised as the primary unit of devolution.

The people and a deal

It is time that the JVP’s leaders stop viewing the Provincial Councils as a creation of India, as, after all, any constitutional concept, in the contemporary period, is an outcome of palimpsest. This holds good for the Accord and 13A too, which were produced through an evolutionary process that involved the scrutiny of a number of proposals at different levels in the two countries during 1983-87. Also, Sri Lanka’s three Constitutions — the Soulbury Constitution of 1948 and two Republican Constitutions of 1972 and 1978 — were drafted, based on the British, American and French systems of government. The ruling coalition would do well to keep in mind that the people of Sri Lanka, known for their democratic spirit and effecting the transition of power mostly through the ballot box, deserve a deal that is in tune with their character.

The NPP, which commands a two-thirds majority in Parliament with an extremely popular President, has the golden opportunity now to find a durable solution to the ethnic problem, which is an offshoot of a combination of economic and political factors.

ramakrishnan.t@thehindu.co.in

Peter Breuer, Senior Mission Chief for Sri Lanka at the IMF speaks during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) press conference in Colombo on November 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sri Lanka’s new National Peoples Power (NPP) government, led by the charismatic President, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, entered office in late 2024 at a turning point in the country’s economic history. Following default on its external debt obligations in April 2022, Sri Lanka had experienced its worst post-independence economic crisis in 2022-2023. While the economy is stabilising now, the challenges are far from over. Sri Lanka is on the precipice of both opportunity and risk and it is crucial that the government charts a path that balances growth with debt sustainability.

Sri Lanka’s recent economic outlook offers cause for cautious optimism. Thanks to prudent monetary and financial stability policy by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, a $3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, and $4 billion of Indian aid, the economy appears to have steadied. A debt restructuring deal of $17.5 billion reached with private bond holders and China has given Sri Lanka the breathing room it desperately needed, while inflows from tourism have accelerated, contributing to the recovery of foreign exchange reserves. In this environment, the new government has inherited a stabilising economy, with the latest World Bank growth forecasts pointing to growth slowing from 4.4% in 2024 to 3.5% in 2025.

Internal challenges

However, there are looming risks that the new government must tackle head-on. One of the most pressing concerns is the significant brain drain involving as many as 3,00,000 people from Sri Lanka in 2024 alone. This wave includes educated IT, banking, marketing, and medical professionals migrating for better job opportunities abroad and a future for their children. This is a serious challenge for business and governance, as the country faces a growing gap in the talent pool needed to propel growth.

At the same time, the new government has a Parliament with little experience. Of the 225 MPs, about 150 are untested first-time representatives, mostly from the NPP, which raises questions about the legislative and technical capacity needed to enact economic reforms. To counteract this, the government must focus on better public sector service delivery, retaining key talent within the state sector, and creating policies that encourage the development of expertise in both governance and public administration. Improved state planning for undertaking market-oriented public policies, digitisation of public services, training MPs in the legislative process and understanding the complexities of economic reforms are the need of the hour. A top quality public policy school to train civil servants and MPs would be an important addition to the university system.

Tourism offers significant potential to boost foreign exchange reserves and spur growth. Over 2 million tourists visited Sri Lanka in 2024, a 38% increase over 2023. However, the government must do more to ensure that tourism is sustainable and benefits communities beyond Colombo. Better marketing of Sri Lanka as a multi-cultural destination, coupled with targeted development of less-visited regions such as the north and east of the country, will help create a more balanced and decentralised tourism industry. Furthermore, supporting small businesses linked to tourism activities and tackling the recent wave of gang-related violence should be a priority.

Fiscal sustainability remains a contentious issue. While revenue has increased, rationalisation of government spending remains high, largely due to the expansive role the state plays in the economy. Despite ruling out privatisation, the government plans to turn around state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through better management. However, some of the larger loss-making SOEs (such as SriLankan Airlines and the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation) should be reconsidered for privatisation or restructuring, as their drain on public funds threatens long-term fiscal stability.

External factors

In addition to internal challenges, Sri Lanka’s foreign policy will be critical. The geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific are set to change dramatically following the re-election of President Donald Trump in the U.S.. India has emerged as a key player in Sri Lanka’s economic future. Given the complex relationship with India, the government must strengthen economic ties with this fast-growing nation, ensuring that Sri Lanka benefits from Indian investments and collaborations. The President must also live up to his promises of non-interference in India’s security concerns, including halting visits from Chinese spy ships that have raised tensions in the region. His visit to India in late 2024 offers a promising foundation for stronger bilateral relations, and the government must now focus on making concrete progress — particularly in B-B links, cross-border energy projects, a digital identity system and the deeper bilateral free trade agreement under negotiation.

Apart from limited fiscal space for social spending, Sri Lanka faces the serious risk of repayments (capital) on its external debt starting in mid-2027 if it is unable to generate sufficient foreign exchange though trade-led growth. Working in partnership with the IMF and World Bank, India should stand ready to help if Sri Lanka falters a second time.

The Sri Lankan government must develop a comprehensive growth plan that addresses both immediate risks and long-term opportunities. Navigating these choppy waters will require pragmatic leadership, bold policy decisions, and a clear vision for Sri Lanka’s future prosperity. The National Budget in February offers an opportunity to make a start.

Ganeshan Wignaraja is a Visiting Senior Fellow, ODI Global, and former executive director of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry think tank

When Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected President of Sri Lanka in September, and his National People’s Power [NPP] alliance swept the general elections on November 14, most international news headlines stamped the winners as ‘Marxist’.

The tag was hardly positive or even neutral with its connotations of wild-eyed radicalism. The insinuation was that Sri Lanka’s ongoing programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would derail, and economic stability and recovery would be disrupted.

President Dissanayake, through his November 21 policy statement to the new Parliament, that he will take forward the IMF framework and the aligned debt treatment plans — finalised by his predecessor — tried to allay these fears.

President Dissanayake, through his November 21 policy statement to the new Parliament, that the IMF framework and the aligned debt treatment plans with bilateral and private creditors — finalised by his predecessor — will go ahead, tried to allay these fears.

So where does this ‘Marxist label’ on Sri Lanka’s new government come from? The NPP is an eclectic social coalition of some 21 groups, including political parties, youth and women’s organisations, trade unions and civil society networks. But one political party forms its political, if not ideological, core — the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front).

In fact, it was JVP leader Mr. Dissanayake who created the NPP in 2019 to widen the party’s appeal beyond its traditional cadre base and boost its chances at the polls. His political enterprise, which has now secured a massive victory, has turned a new page in post-colonial Sri Lanka, where politics has been dominated by just two parties and their offshoots, and the five elite families controlling them.

The JVP’s office in Battaramulla, a suburb about 10 km east of Colombo, is located close to parliament, although the party has rarely been close to power in the six decades of its existence. Three large black-and-white portraits of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin adorn the white wall of the main meeting room. Party cadre, regardless of position or prominence, make and serve tea to their guests. Above the reception desk at the entrance is a photograph of the party’s founder and charismatic leader Rohana Wijeweera, an infallible icon for its cadre. His mane, cap, and beard suggest Che Guevara-inspired self-styling.

Wijeweera began what became the JVP in 1965, exactly three decades after Ceylon’s left movement birthed the country’s oldest party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), consequent to serial fractures within the Left. The LSSP split during the Second World War, leading to the formation of a pro-Moscow Communist Party. The cracks within the CP in the 1960s, triggered by the Sino-Soviet dispute, and internal tensions over the parliamentary road to socialism would, in turn, lead to the formation of the JVP, as a revolutionary party with Marxist-Leninist orientation.

‘Five classes’

Attracted to Maoism in his student days in the Soviet Union, Wijeweera joined the Communist Party (Peking wing – CP) of Sri Lanka in 1964, and became a youth leader. He challenged the party’s leadership, on their interpretation of class politics and revolution, and was subsequently expelled in 1965. His independent faction morphed into the JVP. Wijeweera and his comrades held political lessons for rural Sinhala youth, called the “Five Classes” that analysed Sri Lanka’s social and political order; Indian hegemony; the reformist left and coalition politics; and the parliamentary road to socialism. As part of preparation to achieving their objective of seizing state power, they trained in the use of shotguns and put together explosive devices.

The story of the JVP’s rise in the late 1960s and fall in the next two decades unravels in the backdrop of two major changes in Sri Lanka — President J.R. Jayewardene’s open economic reform in 1977 and the beginning of a full-blown civil war after the 1983, state-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom that he falsely attributed to Left parties, including the JVP.

The JVP’s first insurrection in 1971 came out of frustration that the left-wing Sirimavo Bandaranaike-led government was not doing enough to meet the aspirations of educated but unemployed young people, and in changing the social, economic and political order inherited from the British. The discourse was anti-imperialist and socialist. The insurgents attacked dozens of police stations, to capture weapons and ammunition.

The second insurrection, from 1987 to 1989, roughly coincided with the party’s embrace of Sinhala-nationalism; its fierce opposition to Tamil self-determination; and to the signing of the India-brokered 1987 Accord aimed at ending the war, with boots-on-the-ground in the form of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). To Tamils in the far north of the island, the JVP appeared as Sinhala chauvinist instead of progressive, although the party never directly engaged in anti-Tamil violence.

In both insurrections, where the JVP took up arms against the state, its representatives, supporters, and dissidents from the Left [in the second insurrection], the state’s counter-insurgency response was many times more lethal, resulting in the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of Sinhala youth. Wijeweera himself was executed while in state custody in 1989.

Somawansa Amarasinghe, the only politburo member to survive the repression of the 1980s, escaped to India and subsequently to Europe. After a few years of underground existence, the surviving cadre resurrected the party, even as the country was increasingly preoccupied with massive human rights violations in the south and the raging war in the north-east. The JVP tentatively contested in the 1994 general election through another party, winning one seat. Within the next few years, the JVP warmed up to the political mainstream, winning more seats in parliament between 2000 and 2004, and four Cabinet-level ministerial portfolios in 2004–05, in a short-lived coalition with the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga government.

Two splits

The new course of the JVP is defined by two consequential splits, linked to the party’s proximity to Mahinda Rajapaksa who began dominating the political scene from the early 2000s. They were also fuelled by internal differences on the dilution of leftism for “patriotism” (Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism), versus emphasis on Wijeweera’s socialist ideology and the party distancing itself from Mr. Rajapaksa and his pro-war stance.

Since the breakdown of the 2001-03 ceasefire, the JVP unambiguously backed Mr. Rajapaksa’s hawkishness in delivering a political solution to the Tamil question, and the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with scant regard to Tamil lives. The JVP’s differences with Rajapaksa were more to do with their unease over ‘family-rule’ and his socio-economic policies rather than his militaristic response. However, its parliamentary group leader and reactionary politician Wimal Weerawansa disagreed, and broke away with a quarter of its legislators, forming the Jathika Nidahas Peramuna or National Freedom Front in 2008, that until recently firmly planted itself in the Rajapaksa camp. Four years later a Marxist faction within the residual JVP also split from it, criticising the party’s unconditional support to the Rajapaksa regime on the handling of the war, and its complete surrender to electoral politics. This group led by Kumar Gunaratnam formed the Frontline Socialist Party in 2012, the chief critic of the JVP today, from the left.

In 2014, Mr. Dissanayake was named leader of a party that had to stabilise itself, after shedding both its racist right-wing and its dissenting left-wing. The splits allowed the JVP to refashion itself, blurring its past profiles, and making a reputation for itself inside and outside parliament, as a bold critic of corruption and nepotism, and as an upholder of the rule of law and liberal democratic norms. The party, till date, is wary of clearly defining its position on the unresolved ethnic question. It also evades the language of class politics. In an interview to The Hindu in December 2023, Mr. Dissanayake said: “Labels have always given wrong perceptions. Left politics is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Some people demonise this. That is why we say we are focussed more on working for the majority of our people, rather than on labels.”

Vijitha Herath receives a document from Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake after being sworn-in as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment, and Tourism during the swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet in Colombo on November 18, 2024. Photo: Sri Lanka President’s Media Division via AFP

On the morning of November 16, 2024, I was following the final tally of preferential votes secured by candidates in Sri Lanka’s recent general elections. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) alliance won a historic mandate of more than a two-thirds majority. Vijitha Herath, the NPP candidate in Colombo’s neighbouring Gampaha district, broke records by winning more than 7 lakh votes. He has been named Foreign Minister in the new government.

At the same time, a memory popped up on my social media. It was a short video clip of my interview with Mr. Herath six years ago. On November 16, 2018, Mr. Herath was among those injured when some people in the Rajapaksa camp violently attacked Members of Parliament who were challenging the sudden appointment of Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister in place of Ranil Wickremesinghe, who had been abruptly sacked by President Maithripala Sirisena. Sri Lanka was in the grip of a political impasse for some seven weeks until the Supreme Court ruled that Mr. Sirisena’s move was illegal, and Mr. Wickremesinghe was reinstated.

In a fascinating coincidence, Mr. Herath, who in 2018 was a legislator with the opposition Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), made headlines the same day six years later as part of a new political force that has decimated the island’s old political class, including the Rajapaksas, Mr. Sirisena, and Mr. Wickremesinghe.

It is as if decades happened in these six years in Sri Lanka. During this time, the island witnessed the deadly Easter Sunday serial blasts in April 2019, the election victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in November 2019, the pandemic from 2020, Mr. Gotabaya’s mighty fall in July 2022 in the wake of a crippling economic crisis and a citizens’ uprising, and now, the meteoric rise of Mr. Dissanayake and his political alliance. The near-erasure from Sri Lanka’s electoral map of the country’s traditional, once-powerful political parties and the political elite that controlled them signals a tectonic shift.

While polls are exciting news events for the media, reporters learn a lot more while covering what happens between elections. What seems a “tectonic” electoral shift is often the cumulative effect of many complex political changes on the ground, invariably tethered to how most people in a country are doing. As reporters, we have a distinct advantage. We don’t have to predict precise poll outcomes; all we need to do is listen to diverse voices to try and capture voter sentiment in our coverage.

Invariably, this sort of ground reporting allows us to glean some clear pointers to a likely poll outcome, even if not the extent of someone’s win. Both the defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015 and the victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2019 were not entirely surprising for many of us who report from Sri Lanka. That said, there are specific results that surprise us at times, either because our reading was biased or simply wrong. Either way, there is incentive to return to good, old-fashioned reporting.

In the case of the NPP’s victory in Sri Lanka’s recent election, the story, in a sense, began in 2018. With just six MPs in the 225-member House then, the JVP made compelling interventions in Parliament, besides moving the Supreme Court with others against Mr. Sirisena’s anti-democratic, unconstitutional move. The NPP was set up the following year as a counter to the political establishment, which was tainted by allegations of serious corruption and nepotism. Not long after, the country witnessed an unprecedented mass struggle in 2022, staggering in its magnitude and intensity. The headless citizens’ movement did what the political opposition couldn’t: eject the powerful Rajapaksas from office. Two years later, the NPP is in power now, with 159 out of the 225 members in the new Parliament convened on November 21.

meera.srinivasan@thehindu.co.in

The main Opposition party in the current Parliament, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and other splinter groups secured half of the seats. As a result, the NPP must form a coalition with one of these parties to run the council. File
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Sri Lanka’s ruling National People’s Power (NPP) party won a local council election in the Southern Province, passing its first electoral test since winning the presidential election last month.

The Elpitiya local council elections were held on Saturday (October 26, 2024), and NPP — the broader front of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna — won 15 of the 30 seats.

The main Opposition party in the current Parliament, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), and other splinter groups secured half of the seats. As a result, the NPP must form a coalition with one of these parties to run the council.

However, the NPP is generally politically averse to forming alliances with other parties.

Alarmingly for the ruling party, their vote percentage has dropped compared to the presidential election, where the incumbent, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, was elected.

Since assuming office, Mr. Dissanayake has stayed on course with his predecessor Ranil Wickremesinghe’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme. Sri Lanka is still in the process of recovering from its worst economic crisis in history.

Earlier in the week, the Washington-based global lender said it is in talks with Sri Lanka’s new administration on its priorities and working towards the next review to continue its Extended Fund Facility programme with the island nation.

Mr. Dissanayake has already set the next parliamentary election for November 14, 2024, seeking a mandate to form a stronger government without the need for coalition partners.

The current NPP government is being run with a three-member cabinet, which was their parliamentary strength when the 225-member Parliament came to be dissolved immediately after Mr. Dissanayake’s victory.

Representational image only. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Sri Lanka’s new government led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Monday (October 14, 2024) told the Supreme Court that it would reconsider the approval granted by the previous government to India’s Adani Group for a wind power project.

A five-member Supreme Court (SC) Bench was told on behalf of the attorney general that the decision to review the project had been taken at a Cabinet meeting held on October 7. “The final decision of the new government would be conveyed after the installation of the new Cabinet after the November 14 Parliamentary election,” the court was told.

President Dissanayake in the run-up to the September 21 Presidential election had pledged that his National People’s Power (NPP) alliance would annul the project. The NPP claimed that the project posed a threat to Sri Lanka’s energy sector sovereignty and promised that it would be cancelled in the event of their victory.

Colombo mulls converting Adani power project to a G2G deal: Sri Lankan media 

The Adani Group was set to invest more than $440 million in the 20-year agreement for the development of 484 megawatts of wind power in the northeastern regions of Mannar and Pooneryn. The project faced fundamental rights litigation in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Petitioners have raised environmental concerns and lack of transparency in the bidding process to grant Adani Green Energy the go-ahead. Petitioners have also argued that the agreed tariff of $0.0826 per kWh would be a loss to Sri Lanka and should be lowered to $0.005 per kWh.