Will Indian sojourn change Anura’s red hues along with sartorial style?
JVP supreme Anura Kumara, who was summoned to New Delhi this week by the Indian Government, has come in for some flak from some quarters for changing his sartorial style when meeting External Minister Jaishankar at his office.
A photograph released by the External Minister himself on his X message, showed the die-hard Marxist attired in a dapper dark blue full suit with a red ‘power’ tie neatly around his neck, in earnest conversation with the sherwani attired Jaishankar.
It reminds one of a post– Tsar era Soviet tale of trusted aide Trotsky being sent by Lenin during the tail end of World War One to Germany. His mission was to sue for peace with the Kaiser, separately from the other Allied Powers. Arriving in Berlin he was perplexed to find that the dress code for the evening’s celebratory banquet was ‘tailcoat’. Since it was a major point of proletarian protocol, he thought it wise to first get clearance from Lenin, and sent a wire requesting permission. Lenin wired back: ‘Go in a petticoat if you must, but get the peace’.
So, it hardly matters if Anura Kumara went in tails and top hat to the manner born for his morning meeting with Jaishankar, the question is whether he made his peace with India, and if so, on what terms? Will the degree of compromise if any, blur the line that divides the JVP from the rest, reduce the JVP to merely another run-of-the-mill political group?
Has India tamed the JVP, the firebrand tiger to whom arms had once been the only option—whose torch bearers had in the south, burnt the nation’s building, set fire to the nation’s buses and murdered their own countrymen to demand the Indian Peace Keeping Force in the north to leave the island’s shores—into a domesticated Indian pussy cat, with a bell round its neck?
The question on his political opponents’ lips at home—not to forget his cadres’ disquiet - was whether Anura Kumara had changed his rabid anti Indian stance on all matters as quickly as he had changed his dress code to suit the occasion. Had he, Marx forbid, betrayed his party’s nationalist dogma against Indian expansion, under the Ram Setu Bridge?
Whether or not he has diluted the JVP’s rigid stance or comprised his party’s long standing nationalist and Marxist principles after a mere week’s stint in India, should be soon revealed by the JVP rhetoric at future rallies and press interviews. If he had fallen under the spell of incredible India, the island’s new de facto colonial masters, he will not be the first to be Indianised. Also he will be no different to the rest. How it’ll go down the rank and file though will be quite a different matter.
But nonetheless the week long Indian sojourn would have done him a world of good. No doubt, the experience gained would stand him in good stead. He would have learnt a stark lesson that, while Indian bashing would go down well with his red shirted comrades who look toward Red China’s Forbidden City or Russia’s Kremlin as the Meccas of their outdated Marxist faith, it would be perilous to ignore India’s security concerns or its economic interests; and that, though threatening to banish the Adanis, the Ambanis and such Indian ilk from Lankan soil may be music to party ears, it would be foolhardy to court India’s wrath.
External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, in his X message, said, ‘’also spoke about Sri Lanka’s economic challenges and the path ahead.”
Wonder whether JVP and NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake gave the same solution as he had given the JVP’s Hambantota women’s wing last month to tub thumping applause, as to what he will do when he becomes the President this year, to solve the national crisis. They were:
‘We will bring the security detail of the President to the Galle Face and dissolve it and send them to police stations in the villages.’
‘We will set an example to the people so that they can follow and come forward and do their part for the sake of the country’.
‘We will jail all corrupt politicians.’ ‘We will ensure basic needs such as food, education and health facilities.’ ’ And then, we have a long term plan to create a stable economy.’
So did he pass the Indian litmus test? Perhaps, Anura’s solution made a deep impression on Jaishankar but left him wondering whether India will have to write off the 4 billion dollar credit line thrown to Lanka after the populist wave that brought Gota to power left the island beggared. And have another 4 billion dollar credit line ready to throw just in case there’s another SOS.