Two years ago in the euphoria of war victory the Rajapaksa regime soared high - only the Tamils, defeated in war.!!!

Tamils, universities, capitalists and now workers battle government - Sinhala petty-bourgeoisie: Government’s last rampart
June 11, 2011, 7:31 pm



by Kumar David


Two years ago in the euphoria of war victory the Rajapaksa regime soared high - only the Tamils, defeated in war, snivelled and whined in an obscure corner. Internationally too the regime was in luck when India, China and Russia closed ranks around their protégé to defeat critical voices in international human rights lobbies. One year ago it comfortably won presidential and parliamentary elections and in March 2011 the regime did well (shedding just 5% of its peak vote in the Sinhalese community) in local government polls. True some tension was mounting among university students but the thuggish minister in charge seemed able to bash troublemakers and though there were signals from the university teaching community that unhappiness was brewing the president brushed it aside. Small concessions may be necessary to buy off grumbling lecturers and the plot to run down public universities and start up a private system may need fine tuning, but no way was the Rajapaksa regime in any serious trouble.


I don’t claim to own the world’s clearest crystal ball but the one I have, my cranial orb, now alerts me that a fork in the road was reached unexpectedly, and the government is now sliding downhill. The cause is a confluence of international and local happenings in the last two months. The trouble started with the Darusman Report, then came the Jayalalitha election victory in Tamil Nadu followed now by an open confrontation with the working class. The clash with the workers can only get worse, or it can force the government into a humiliating retreat on pension funds. These are still trends; let us watch the international and local stage for a month or two more for the fog in the crystal ball to clear.


The Sinhala petty-bourgeoisie


In countries at the stage of development corresponding to Lanka the petty-bourgeoisie, the petty-bourgeois class, is the most numerous and of course the Sinhalese portion is the largest among our ethnic groups. As a ball park figure we could say the Sinhalese are 75% of the total population and the Sinhalese petty-bourgeoisie about two-thirds thereof, that is say half the population. There is some confusion in the careless use of the categories middle-class and petty-bourgeoisie interchangeably; there is overlap but the two should more appropriately be used to point out differences. Strictly speaking the middle-class belongs in the modern economy; good examples would be those young fellows in starched white shirts in private sector companies, professionals, civil servants and corporate managers. Culturally, middle-class means English speakers who prefer to blend with a Westernised outlook. The petty-bourgeoisie is more numerous and dominated by the rural mass which is not wage labour in a capitalist production process, but self-employed on the land. The petty-bourgeoisie, neither bourgeois nor working class, and not positioned in the modern capitalist economy, includes the self-employed, the informal economy, small traders and sangha, guru, veda types. Of course there is overlap with the modern middle-class proper, mainly in the shape of mixed families, but the distinction is significant, especially culturally and politically. Middle-class people are less nationalistic and a larger proportion vote UNP. (A goodly portion of the upper layers of traditional rural society too, of course, votes UNP, otherwise it couldn’t have an assured 25-30% vote bank)


The petty-bourgeoisie, even after such careful delineation, is a fairly broad-brush category and social scientists refine it with a finer comb. I do not need to do so for my discourse today; but I do need to make one split between two parts of the Sinhalese petty-bourgeoisie political base of this government. There are two distinct components; one is the rural mass, the village folk, the phalanx of SLFP support in the deep-south and other areas. There is also quite a different component in what I call the Anagarika Dharmapala (AD) belt, a more ideologically Sinhala-Buddhist petty-bourgeoisie deep-set in regions encircling the metropolis – Maharagama-Kotte (think JHU and Wimal), Dehiwala-Ratmalana and Gampaha; the exception is the Catholic north, in and beyond the city. These two distinct components are the legs on which this government stands.


Having said so much about class ideology of the Sinhalese petty-bourgeoisie I can’t let it go without one last point. The less privileged, poorer, caste disadvantaged, and under or unemployed younger elements of this class, both in the rural hinterland and in the AD-belt, constitute the JVP’s core constituency.


Shifting categories


OK, let’s get back to business. My point in this article is that disaffection with the government has spread from Tamils and university types to the working class and further. The bourgeoisie proper, that is the capitalist class and the higher echelons of the Westernised society (the elite upper middle-class), never liked this government because of corruption and sheer misrule. It is this coming together of several disparate social forces at this moment in time when the regime’s international standing is strewn in tatters that makes my nose twitch. I smell trouble; it’s not for nothing that my buddies disrespectfully call me the prophet!


Look at some of the signs blowing in the wind. IGP Balasuriya has been kicked out unceremoniously; all his years of craven stooging bought him no reprieve. German envoy Jens Ploetner sent off an insolent missive to Defence Secretary Gotabhaya telling him to keep his uniformed thugs off the premises of German FTZ companies. The regime had to grin, cringe and bear; it dare not kick out the German Ambassador. Rajapksa directs the BOI to hand over a million rupees to the family of the worker murdered by the police in a desperate gamble to trick his kin into disallowing political speeches at the funeral. The JVP is on the offensive and the government is on the run; the state simply cannot risk violence on the streets. Dictators across the world are taking their cue from the travails of Gaddafi, Syria’s Assad junior and Yemen’s Saleh. The other piece of gloomy news is that Delhi will do nothing to provoke tough talking Jayalaitha, so Rajapaksa’s chief benefactor has gone dumb. There is a confluence of national and international events that shoves the regime into a tight corner – excellent if you agree that checking authoritarianism is a priority.


Does this mean that matters will simply keep getting worse and it’s only a matter of time before it is curtains for the regime? No that’s too linear a projection and too simple an analysis; I think the outcome is still a little open ended. The decisive factor will be the bloody Tamils again; not that they have the remotest wherewithal to start a fight; the problem comes from another angle. Rajapaksa is caught by the short and curlies regarding whether and what kind of a deal to cut with the Tamils. ‘Damned if I do and damned if I don’t’; that’s his predicament. If he does nothing his equation with the international community, already troubled, will descend into a spiral of hostility.


But he can’t devolve or go 13A plus or minus either! I belong to the section of public opinion which believes the Rajapaksa regime will not grant substantial concessions to the Tamils nor "solve the national question". More important, and this is the crux, I believe the reason is not because the leadership is plain cussed and chauvinist (it is but that’s not my point), the reason is that it cannot make concessions and continue to survive in power. The B-C Pact buckled and the Dudly-Chelva deal was nipped not because the two premiers were spineless (though they were) but because racially prejudiced sentiment whipped up on the streets, in society, and in the temple, was too powerful for the government of the day to withstand. Rajapaksa faces a no less sombre imbroglio. Whatever the pressure from Delhi, the odds are Colombo will be stubborn in its "No". Otherwise Wimal will be on hunger strike whipping up rabble, Champika’s party will walk out, some Mahanayakes could well call on the faithful to rise up, and that familiar story will replay. Rajapaksa cannot stand against such forces. The Sinhala-Buddhist rampart is Rajapaksa’s last line of defence; it is also the cage that confines him.


Three months ago the JVP seemed to be moving in a progressive direction on the national question; then last month Tivlin dismissed all thought of devolution and Tamil collective rights. These mixed signals raise fear that if Rajapaksa makes concessions to the Tamils, say under pressure from Delhi, the JVP may swing back to its1989 petty-bourgeois ideology and opportunist line.


The final rampart


Hence, most likely the government will lean on its nationalist Sinhala petty-bourgeois base since the two think alike; it’s the ideology with which the regime is most comfortable. Then regime and extremist Sinhala-Buddhism will hang together. The mass rural and small town petty-bourgeoisie however is a different story because these classes are closer to and considerably overlaps the urban and semi-urban working class. For example there are reports of parents coming from rural areas to collect their worker daughters from the FTZ and rumour that Mahinda Rajapaksa cut-outs are being torn down and despoiled. When the chips are down there is little doubt where mass loyalties will lie. Therefore, if the worker protest movement grows and confrontation with the government multiplies on pensions, salaries or whatever, the rural masses will go along with it. The more extreme nationalists in the AD-belt however will keep faith with Rajapakse so long as he does not soil his hands by granting concessions to the nationalist’s arch historical enemy, the Tamil.


The working class and the ultra nationalists will then, at last, part company. The former will find absolution and expiation from the hideous ideological cancer that overcame it during the race-war and in the euphoria of war victory.


When polarisation reaches extremis this is the way the cookie will crumble says my crystal orb.



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