Kumar Gunaratnam
 | This article duplicates the scope of other articles, specifically, Premakumar Gunaratnam. |
Kumar Gunaratnam | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Spouse(s) | Champa Somaratna |
| Education | Primary Education – St. Mary's College, Kegalle. Secondary Education: Pinnawala Central College |
Premkumar Gunaratnam, known as Kumar, is a Marxist–Leninist politician who is the General Secretary of the Front Line Socialist Party (FLSP).
Early Politics
Kumar Gunaratnam entered politics in 1981, as an Advanced Level student of Pinnawala Central College, Kegalle. Having passed the examination, he enrolled in the Engineering Faculty of Peradeniya University, where his older brother was a senior student and a member of the student union. As a university student, Kumar opted to become an active participant in the Socialist Student Union.
Subsequently, both brothers became clandestine revolutionary cadres of the JVP. From 1985–86, he continued as a full-time student organiser. It was a time when the UNP government further threatened the democracy of Sri Lanka.
The United National Party, led by J.R. Jayawardene, came to power in 1977 and was responsible for pushing the country into a racist war by creating the communal violence known as the 1983 Black July. Making use of the Black July racist riots, sponsored by state-backed thugs, the United National Party government proscribed the JVP and a few other leftist parties. Later, the proscription was lifted on all other political parties except for the JVP. The leaders of the JVP, including Rohana Wijeweera, attempted several times to lift the proscription without success. A considerable number of JVP cadres, unable to tolerate the repression, gave up the political struggle. But many, including Kumar and his brother Ranjithan, continued their devotion.
They were not widely supported among the masses until the infamous 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord paved the way for intrusion by India, which sent the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to control the Tamil Ealam militant uprising in the north. The JVP was successful in mobilising Sinhala youths into a patriotic struggle under the name, Deshapremi Janatha Vyaparaya. In 1987, in the wake of the rebellion, the leftist outlook of the mobilisation was evident, but later it became Sinhala nationalist in its application and stood for the defeat of Tamil militants who led the struggle against the Sri Lankan government. This uprising, later described as the second rebellion by the JVP, was crushed by the Sri Lankan government, killing at least 80,000 youths and almost all of its central leadership. Kumar was an active member of the patriotic movement and later explained, with self-criticism, the ideological mistakes of the struggle. Kumar was one of the few leaders who could survive the massive repression unleashed by the state security forces and paramilitary groups.
Role in the Resurrection of the JVP
By 1993, Kumar and a few other surviving leaders of the JVP organised party cells to regain political ground among the working people. Having led the revival process of the JVP in the 1990–1994 period, many public leaders of the JVP attracted people's attention. The popular politics of Lankan society were replaced by a new face of radical leftist politics. During this period, Kumar was assigned as the organiser of the student wing of the JVP.
The parliament-oriented democratic political path helped the mobilisation of radical youth to become more attractive among corrupt, arrogant groups of capitalist politicians. The Leftist background with strong commitment raised the credibility of the party as a petty-bourgeois organisation and resulted in the subsequent development of nationalist trends that threatened to undermine the whole movement.
As a consequence, in the 2000 general election, the JVP obtained ten seats in parliament. Then in 2001, the JVP rescued the Chandrika Bandaranaike government on the verge of losing its majority seats in parliament under a conditional agreement to take part in the ruling coalition. This move resulted in much acceptance among the middle class, and in the next General Election, the number of seats in parliament grew to 16. The JVP's parliamentary caucus increased from 1 member in 1994, 10 in 2000, and 16 in 2001, reaching its peak at 39 in the 225-seat legislature in 2004.
In 2004, the JVP joined with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), a bourgeois party, to form a coalition government. The group led by Kumar Gunaratnam debated against the class collaboration and racist politics of the JVP. In the context of a military uprising in the north, the government was engaged in an intensified war against Tamil militants. Since Kumar is Tamil by birth, the leadership of the JVP advised that it would be a good idea for him to leave the country.
In 2006, Premakumar Gunaratnam left for Australia where his wife and two children had earlier settled. Kumar could lead the internal ideological struggle within the party for ideological and organisational accuracy from exile and communicate with his colleagues in the party from abroad. It was only in September 2011, when it became clear to them that there was no democratic space for them, that Kumar returned to Sri Lanka to find solutions to preserve the largest leftist party from division.
Creating a New Party
Kumar and the faction that fought against the class collaborationist politics of the JVP finally decided to break away and create a separate political party following Marxist–Leninist principles. The mainstream media in Sri Lanka described the breakaway faction as ‘extremists’ and ‘far-leftists’ and hinted that they represented a return to armed struggle. Simultaneously, the personal information of Premakumar Gunaratnam, including his passport details, was leaked to the media; and his Tamil birth was used to attack the new formation, manifesting Sri Lanka's racist political culture. At that time, state intelligence was hunting for him as instructed by the then defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, who later revealed that the JVP leadership assisted operations to apprehend Kumar.
Abduction and Citizenship Issue
On 7 April 2012, he was abducted, together with another member of the Political Bureau of the Party, by the police and held unlawfully in an undisclosed torture camp until the Australian government intervened to save his life, at the request of the Party and Sri Lankan civil society. Since he was carrying an Australian passport, state intelligence could not keep him in custody. On 10 April 2012, he was escorted to Katunayake International Airport and deported to Australia at government expense.
Just before the presidential election in 2015, Kumar was allowed to return to support the candidate of the newly formed Front Line Socialist Party (FLSP), of which he is a member of the political bureau. As the new government asked all exiled political activists to return home, Kumar applied for reinstatement of his Sri Lankan citizenship, which he had not willingly given up. However, the government refused Kumar's request and ordered his arrest under the pretext of an overstaying tourist visa.
However, the FLSP launched a protest movement demanding the release and acceptance of the citizenship of Kumar Gunaratnam, to which the government agreed, and he was accepted as a Sri Lankan citizen in December 2016.
Under the leadership of the FLSP, where Comrade Kumar is a Political Bureau member, the party has not yielded to the prevailing Sinhala nationalist ethos and has publicly declared that it is engaged in dialogue with ex-LTTE combatants and willing to accept them into its ranks. The government has unleashed a ferocious propaganda campaign against it for daring to forge unity between the Sinhala and Tamil oppressed and to overcome the mutual distrust and suspicion that has polarised the exploited and marginalised of both peoples.
References
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/120408/News/nws_03.html https://www.srilankacampaign.org/abduction-of-political-activists-premakumar-gunaratnam-and-dimuthu-attygalle/ http://www.dailymirror.lk/dbs-jeyaraj-column/fsp-leader-kumar-gunaratnam-fought-a-guerilla-war-against-the-indian-army/192-62597 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/abducted-man-believes-diplomats-saved-him-from-death-20120411-1wsb9.html https://www.amnestyusa.org/reports/annual-report-sri-lanka-2013/ http://www.dailymirror.lk/breaking_news/Kumar-Gunaratnam-gets-SL-citizenship/108-123181 http://www.thesundayleader.lk/2012/04/22/foreign-plots-to-topple-the-government-2/
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