Anura Kumara Dissanayake
Credit: PTI Photo
A year separates the last time Kerala’s ruling Communists addressed a distinguished foreign visitor to their state as ‘Comrade’. The most recent visitor, in February, was Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s new president. The previous visitor to Kerala of this class was Aleida Guevara March, daughter of the legendary South American-Caribbean revolutionary, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara in January last year.
Comrades are a rapidly disappearing brand in international politics, and in India too. China’s leaders are now Communists who “wave the red flag to oppose the red flag”, as Lin Biao said about ‘capitalist-roaders’ during the Cultural Revolution. Church-going Vladimir Putin is a nationalist, who does not invoke Leninism, but respects Vladimir Lenin as a Russian patriot. That leaves only Cuba and North Korea as breeding grounds for fellow comrades in the last remaining red stronghold of South India. Marxist Dissanayake’s election, therefore, comes as a shot in the arm for Leftists on both sides of the Palk Strait.
It was a surprise that the government’s Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) insightfully invited Dissanayake as a Distinguished Visitor in February anticipating his presidential election win. When Dissanayake’s itinerary was released by the ICCR, it was not a surprise that he was being taken to Gujarat, from where External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is elected to the Rajya Sabha. Jaishankar’s high-priority challenges in Sri Lanka demand that he created as many IOUs with Dissanayake on the assumption that he would be the next occupant of the modest two-storied Dutch-era President’s House. Dissanayake’s interviews to Sri Lanka’s media after his return from India vindicated the discretion of that decision. He praised the ‘Gujarat model’ of development through “energy reforms, agriculture and water infrastructure improvement, industry, investment, healthcare, and women’s empowerment” as suitable for Sri Lanka’s consideration.
The major surprise in the ICCR’s itinerary was a decision to include Kerala in Dissanayake’s six-day travels within India. It was a rare case of co-operative federalism, which has virtually disappeared in India in the last decade. Besides, a visit by Dissanayake to Thiruvananthapuram and meetings with comrades had clear political and ideological overtones. It offered a peek into Plan B in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to rope in Kerala’s Communist leaders to court Dissanayake in future, should he prove to be a difficult interlocutor for the MEA.
Successive governments in New Delhi had similarly fallen back on the late Sitaram Yechury, general secretary of the CPI(M) and the late D P Tripathi, a leader of Sharad Pawar’s NCP, in finding ways out of crises in fractious Nepal. Yechury and Tripathi had close friends across Nepal’s democratic polity — especially in the Nepali Congress and among Maoists — going back to the days when all of them were student leaders at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
So, what can be expected under Dissanayake’s comradely presidency? Amul has already said that along with the National Dairy Development Board, it is ready to consider a joint venture to “improve the productivity of Sri Lanka’s dairy system, modernise Sri Lanka’s dairy plants, and scale up milk production.” Such a venture would be in line with the ideological purity of the National People’s Power (NPP) and Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which the new president leads. Both these Gujarat-based institutions are producer-owned and controlled. Almost Marxist in the ownership of their means of production.
Following Dissanayake’s election, Kerala’s Industries Minister, P Rajeev, said “we look forward to building on our conversations and fostering cooperation.” For his part, Dissanayake told Sanjeev Nair, CEO of the government-run Technopark in Thiruvananthapuram that “we have identified the information technology sector as a key area and collaboration with Technopark would be a good strategy for long-term achievements.” Nair told the Sri Lankan delegation that Technopark is the first IT park in India and cited its tantalising software exports rise of 14% in the last financial year to touch $1.4 billion.
That the structure of the Technopark conforms with the NPP-JVP ideology became obvious when Dissanayake said State intervention in creating an “immaculate IT ecosystem in Kerala” was praiseworthy. He said policy inconsistencies in Sri Lanka’s IT sector were its bane and could learn from Kerala’s experience. Nair foresees immense potential in collaboration between Technopark and Sri Lanka, now that Dissanayake has become president.
If Gujarat and Kerala — two Indian states which are in two extremes of political outlook — fulfil the promises of wooing Sri Lanka’s new president, it will be an experiment worthy of emulation with other countries.
(K P Nayar has extensively covered West Asia and reported from Washington as a foreign correspondent for 15 years.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.