Myth of the 76-year-curse and the failed post-Independence political elite

We Sri Lankans are living in a big lie.

- By Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

AKD faults institutions; doesn't believe 'The Buck Stops Here' Sajith: superior policies and concern for people; dubious political instincts, reflexes and choices Namal: dynamic leadership qualities, good political reflexes, thin policy portfolio, uneven team

The JVP-NPP are its manufacturers, purveyors and adherents. That big lie is also their ideology. Karl Marx defined ideology as false consciousness in which “men and their circumstances appear upside down as in acamera obscura”.That false consciousness, that upside-down narrative, has two interlocking components. One is that we have lived a 76-year curse since Independence in 1948; one continuing ‘downfall’ since 1948, culminating in bankruptcy. The second is that the 76-year curse was the result of rule by the ‘old bipartisan political elite’ and that now things are beginning to recover with difficulty under the rule of the ‘non-elite’.

False consciousness

The consequence of believing this lie is that the JVP-NPP does not regard its responsibility, duty and task as inheriting, preserving and building upon the best achievements of the past. It perceives and acknowledges no such positives, pluses. It has only a negative, nihilistic narrative, which it propagates.

This is true not only in the domain of national development and state policy, but also in political history and ideological tradition. When it clinched Colombo’s Mayoralty thanks to Sajith Premadasa’s farcical choice of an unknown non-campaigner as SJB mayoral candidate, the JVP-NPP never once mentioned that LSSP leader Dr. N. M. Perera was the first leftist Mayor of Colombo, and Vivienne Goonewardene the first leftist woman MMC — one who climbed to the top and hoisted the red flag over the Colombo Town Hall. The negation of ‘76 years’ means that the JVP-NPP victory in 2024 was ‘Year Zero’—the same outlook as Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.