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Sri Lanka United Front Rule and Emerging Violence, 1970-77
In order to prepare for the 1970 general election, Sirimavo
Bandaranaike formed a coalition in 1968 with the LSSP and CPSL to
oppose the UNP. The new three-party United Front (Samagi
Peramuna) announced that it would work toward a "people's
government" under the leadership of Bandaranaike and that it
would follow a so-called Common Programme, which promised radical
structural changes, including land reform, increased rice
subsidies, and nationalization of local and foreign banks.
The United Front resurrected communal emotionalism as a
timely and potent campaign weapon. It attacked the UNP for its
alliance with the two main Tamil political groups, the Federal
Party and the Ceylon Workers' Congress. At the same time, the
United Front also announced that it would adopt a new
constitution to make Sri Lanka a republic and that it would
restore "Buddhism to its rightful place." The United Front won
118 of the 135 seats it contested, with the SLFP, the biggestsingle party, winning 90 seats, the LSSP 19, seats and the CPSL 6
seats. The UNP won a meager seventeen seats.
The United Front government moved quickly to implement key
features of its Common Programme. The philosophy of the coalition
government was seen most transparently from its foreign and
economic policies. The United Front issued declarations that it
followed a nonaligned path; opposed imperialism, colonialism, and
racism; and supported national liberation movements. The
government quickly extended diplomatic relations to the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany), the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam (then North Vietnam), the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea (North Korea), and the Provisional Revolutionary Government
of South Vietnam. It also pledged to suspend recognition of
Israel. In economic matters, the United Front vowed to put
private enterprise in a subsidiary role.
Prime Minister Bandaranaike tolerated the radical left at
first and then lost control of it. Sensing mounting unrest, the
government declared a state of emergency in March 1971. In April,
the People's Liberation Front (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna--JVP), a
Maoist and primarily rural Sinhalese youth movement claiming a
membership of more than 10,000, began a "blitzkrieg" operation to
take over the government "within 24 hours." The JVP followed a
program--known as the Five Lectures--that included an agenda to
deal with "Indian expansionism," the island's unstable economic
situation, and the inability of the traditionalist leftist
leadership to assert power or attract widespread support (an
allusion to the LSSP and the CPSL). The JVP threatened to take
power by extraparliamentary means. Fierce fighting erupted in the
north-central, south-central, and southern rural districts of the
island, causing an official estimate of 1,200 dead. Unofficial
tallies of the number of dead were much higher. The JVP came
perilously close to overthrowing the government but the military
finally suppressed the movement and imprisoned JVP's top
leadership and about 16,000 suspected insurgents.
In May 1972, the United Front followed through on its 1970
campaign promise to promulgate a new constitution to make Sri
Lanka a republic. Under the new constitution, the legislative,
executive, and judicial branches of government were vested in the
National State Assembly. Many important and vocal sectors of
society opposed this concentration of power. The 1972
constitution disturbed the UNP, which feared an authoritarian
government might emerge because of the new document. The UNP was
especially alarmed that a Trotskyite, Dr. Colvin de Silva
(Bandaranaike's minister of constitutional affairs), had drafted
the constitution.
The distinct lack of protection for the rights of minorities
in the new constitution dismayed many sectors of the population.
The Tamils were especially disturbed because the 1972
constitution contained no elements of federalism. Instead, a
newly conferred status for Buddhism replaced the provisions for
minorities provided by Article 29 in the 1948 constitution. The
constitution also sanctioned measures that discriminated against
Tamil youth in university admissions. Tamil youth were
particularly irked by the "standardization" policy that
Bandaranaike's government introduced in 1973. The policy made
university admissions criteria lower for Sinhalese than for
Tamils. The Tamil community--the Federal Party, the Tamil
Congress, and other Tamil organizations--reacted collectively
against the new atmosphere the new constitution produced, and in
May 1972, they founded the Tamil United Front (which became the
Tamil United Liberation Front--TULF--in 1976).
By the mid-1970s, the antagonism between the right and left
was destroying the United Front coalition. The growing political
influence of the right wing led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike's son,
Anura, precipitated the expulsion of the LSSP from the United
Front in September 1975. The withdrawal of the CPSL in 1977
further weakened the coalition.
Data as of October 1988
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