Dissanayake’s victory a political earthquake in India’s neighbourhood

Not many outside Sri Lanka would have heard of Anura Kumara Dissanayake before Monday. Dissanayake being sworn in as the President is nothing short of a political earthquake. He has pulled off the unthinkable. An outsider, he has brought a Marxist-Leninist party from the fringe to power in Sri Lanka.
Dissanayake is an outsider to the political core, on which the Rajapaksas had a vice-like grip. Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to flee in July 2022 after a popular uprising. His brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa had to resign as the prime minister just two months earlier. Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took charge after Gotabaya was driven out, did so with the backing of the party of the Rajapaksas.
So, the election of Disanayake shows Sri Lanka’s vote for a complete change from the traditional parties, which have governed it for decades.
What is noteworthy is that Dissanayake’s Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) waged a bloody war with the Sri Lankan forces in the 70s and the 80s. Thousands of people were killed.
The JVP is part of the National People’s Power (NPP) alliance, which Dissanayake heads.
The JVP was founded on May 14, 1965, by a group of seven youths led by the charismatic Rohana Wijeweera.
Wijeweera was inspired by Stalin and travelled to the USSR, but he styled himself after Che Guevara, the hero of the Cuban revolution.
On April 5, 1971, JVP members launched a coordinated attack on 74 police stations across Sri Lanka, and managed to seize control of 35 police station areas and several chief towns. However, the insurrection, marred by miscommunication and poor timing, failed after a brutal state crackdown. Reports suggest that between 8,000 to 10,000 people were killed.
The JVP faced severe repression after the failed armed revolt, and many of its leaders were jailed.
After regrouping, the JVP launched another armed revolt in the late 1980s. The 1988-89 revolt, which was equally violent, was crushed and led to the death of around 7,000 people.
Rohana Wijeweera was killed on November 13, 1989, in police custody.
The JVP’s leadership then passed through several hands before Somawansa Amarasinghe took charge and started rebuilding it.
It was in the 1990s and 2000s under Amarasinghe that the JVP began to transition from an armed revolutionary movement to a mainstream political party. It faced electoral setbacks but persisted, and emerged as a significant force in Sri Lankan politics by the 2000s.
Dissanayake, who became the JVP’s leader in 2014 succeeding Amarasinghe, further steered the party as an alternative force. He apologised for the bloody past of the JVP.
“A lot of things happened during the armed conflict that should not have happened,” he told the BBC in 2014, apologising for the “season of terror”.
It was Amarasinghe and Dissanayake who turned the JVP from a fringe Leftist group to a mainstream political party.
However, it was Dissayanake who surprised everyone with the electoral victory.
In the 2019 election, the NPP won just 3% of the vote share and the JVP had three seats. In the recent election, whose results were declared on Sunday, Dissanayake’s NPP received 42.3% of the votes.
It was in 2022 that Sri Lanka saw people taking to the streets and forcing Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country.
“The election result clearly shows the uprising that we witnessed in 2022 is not over,” Pradeep Peiris, a political scientist at the University of Colombo, told the Guardian.
In the last two years, the Dissanayake-led JVP not only toned down its Marxist image further, it worked to woo new voters with its corruption-free and transparency planks.
Sri Lanka, going through its worst economic crisis, saw a ray of hope in Dissanayake. The vote was as much for a political non-elite as it was in rejection for the entrenched political parties, which oversaw the country’s slide into chaos.
“Political earthquake in Sri Lanka,” Erik Solheim, a former minister of Norway and green politician, said while describing Dissanayake’s victory.
“This is the first time since independence that the Sri Lankan people elect a party and a candidate from outside the traditional elite,” he said.
Erik Solheim said that Dissanayake had reached out to India, China and the West during his campaign, and that “all should reciprocate and help him become a successful leader”.
Dissanayake had visited India earlier this year and met top officials, including Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and NSA Ajit Doval, according to a report in The Economic Times. He was said to have been interested in some of India’s projects, including the Amul dairy model.
It has to be kept in mind that Dissanayake is a China-leaning politician.
Strategic expert Brahma Chellaney sees his election as the president as a tricky situation for India in its immediate neighbourhood.
“A Marxist is sworn in as Sri Lanka’s president. Nepal is already led by a Communist. Bangladesh and Pakistan have military-supported, US-backed regimes. Maldives has an Islamist-leaning president. And in Myanmar, US-led military aid to rebels carries spillover effects for India,” Chellaney posted on X.
Dissanayake thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his congratulatory message, emphasising on mutual cooperation.
“Thank you, Prime Minister Modi, for your kind words and support. I share your commitment to strengthening the ties between our nations. Together, we can work towards enhancing cooperation for the benefit of our peoples and the entire region,” he said.
Will Dissanayake take Sri Lanka closer to China? This is too early to predict anything.
Reports from Colombo suggest that there is optimism as Dissanayake was sworn in as the President.
“I promise to fulfill your responsibility to usher in a new era of Renaissance for this country, and I look forward to your collective contribution to that,” Dissanayake said after being sworn in. It is likely that Sri Lanka will get a new disha (direction). Will that be away from India? New Delhi will have to wait and watch.