From Communist China to Democratic India: Tilvin’s Power Lessons

Before the 2020 Parliamentary General Election, when the Daily FT interviewed Basil Rajapaksa, he said that the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was like India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He also said that he had studied political parties around the world and that, in his view, the two best political parties were the BJP and China’s Communist Party (CCP).

The symbol of the SLPP is the lotus bud, while the lotus flower is the symbol of the BJP. After Basil Rajapaksa said that the BJP and the SLPP were alike, a political debate emerged at the time that Basil had created the SLPP and adopted the lotus bud as its symbol because of the relationship he had developed with the BJP.

Meanwhile, the Chief Minister of Tripura, Biplab Kumar Deb, made a controversial statement, claiming that India’s Home Minister Amit Shah had told him that the Modi government was planning to establish BJP governments in Nepal and Sri Lanka. His statement set Sri Lanka’s political landscape ablaze. Responding to it, the then Elections Commissioner said that political parties from foreign countries could not establish branches in Sri Lanka.

Years later, now under a JVP/NPP government, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva has gone to India on a BJP invitation to participate in a ‘know BJP’ initiative in India. During this visit, Tilvin Silva and the delegation accompanying him are scheduled to meet Biplab Kumar Deb, the BJP national secretary who made the controversial statement referred to above.

Historically, the JVP has maintained its relations with the Communist Party of China. JVP has signed a large number of memoranda of understanding with the Communist Party of China.

The Communist Party of China is a party that does not believe in democracy and follows a one-party system of government. The BJP, on the other hand, is a democratic political party.

Tilvin Silva, who travelled to China at the invitation of the Communist Party, was told by a senior official of the Chinese Communist Party that if the JVP was to bring about the change it expected, it would have to remain in power for at least 15 or 20 years.

The advice given by the Chinese official to Tilvin that the JVP should remain in power for at least 15 or 20 years may have been about how to retain power in Sri Lanka under a one-party system, as in China.

But during the “KNOW BJP” programme, the BJP will tell Tilvin how to remain in power for 15 or 20 years through a democratic system.

By Upul Joseph Fernando

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