Last week a high level delegation from Sri Lanka’s ruling JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Perumana) government was in Delhi at the invitation of the BJP, the intention being to build party-to-party relations.
The delegation was led by Tilvin Silva, general secretary of the JVP and an acknowledged political heavyweight known to be a doctrinaire Marxist. A report by M R Narayanswamy, senior journalist and an authority on Sri Lanka, said he is second only to President Dissanayake.
The delegation also included Kapilan Sundaramoorthy, who is expected to be the chief ministerial candidate of the Northern Province. He is currently a member of the Jaffna Municipal Council. The delegation may have got a sense of Delhi’s disappointment over the slow progress of India aided projects.
The expansion of the runaway in Jaffna International Airport is one, the launch of a commercial shipping line between Kankesanthurai in Sri Lanka and Nagapattinam in Tamil Nadu is another. Narayanswamy notes that there is a passenger steamer currently operating between these ports.
He writes that the invitation to Tivin Silva stems from the sense that although is an “ideological warhorse”, he is also seen as a “practical person who understands the changing world.”
Compared to some other JVP leaders who remain lukewarm towards India, Silva has spoken publicly more than once about the need to jettison the Marxist party’s earlier ingrained anti-India worldview — for the sake of Sri Lanka’s economic and social stability and progress.
While India insists on provincial council elections in Sri Lanka, something the JVP has never been happy about, New Delhi hopes to make JVP leaders realise that devolution should not be seen as a stepping stone towards Tamil separation but as a counter to that idea.
Also, that Sri Lanka needs to integrate as much as possible with India’s economy, including in Tamil Nadu, while strengthening its existing global trade and business framework.
This is considered important for the progress of Sri Lanka’s northern and eastern provinces, the former war theatre which now sit at the bottom of the country’s economic evaluators.
This is important for the JVP too. Unless the JVP is able to show economic success in the districts with dominantly Tamil and Muslim populations, nothing will help it repeat in the next election, the unprecedented wins it reaped in 2024-2025 in the Tamil region.
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