Has India tamed the JVP, the firebrand tiger to whom arms had once been the only option—whose torch bearers had in the south, burnt the nation’s building, set fire to the nation’s buses and murdered their own countrymen to demand the Indian Peace Keeping Force in the north to leave the island’s shores—into a domesticated Indian pussy cat, with a bell round its neck?

The question on his political opponents’ lips at home—not to forget his cadres’ disquiet – was whether Anura Kumara had changed his rabid anti Indian stance on all matters as quickly as he had changed his dress code to suit the occasion. Had he, Marx forbid, betrayed his party’s nationalist dogma against Indian expansion, under the Ram Setu Bridge?

Whether or not he has diluted the JVP’s rigid stance or comprised his party’s long standing nationalist and Marxist principles after a mere week’s stint in India, should be soon revealed by the JVP rhetoric at future rallies and press interviews. If he had fallen under the spell of incredible India, the island’s new de facto colonial masters, he will not be the first to be Indianised. Also he will be no different to the rest. How it’ll go down the rank and file though will be quite a different matter.

But nonetheless the week long Indian sojourn would have done him a world of good. No doubt, the experience gained would stand him in good stead. He would have learnt a stark lesson that, while Indian bashing would go down well with his red shirted comrades who look toward Red China’s Forbidden City or Russia’s Kremlin as the Meccas of their outdated Marxist faith, it would be perilous to ignore India’s security concerns or its economic interests; and that, though threatening to banish the Adanis, the Ambanis and such Indian ilk from Lankan soil may be music to party ears, it would be foolhardy to court India’s wrath.

External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, in his X message, said, ‘’also spoke about Sri Lanka’s economic challenges and the path ahead.”
Wonder whether JVP and NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake gave the same solution as he had given the JVP’s Hambantota women’s wing last month to tub thumping applause, as to what he will do when he becomes the President this year, to solve the national crisis. They were:

• ‘We will bring the security detail of the President to the Galle Face and dissolve it and send them to police stations in the villages.’
• ‘We will set an example to the people so that they can follow and come forward and do their part for the sake of the country’.
• ‘We will jail all corrupt politicians.’
• ‘We will ensure basic needs such as food, education and health facilities.’
• ’ And then, we have a long term plan to create a stable economy.’

So did he pass the Indian litmus test? Perhaps, Anura’s solution made a deep impression on Jaishankar but left him wondering whether India will have to write off the 4 billion dollar credit line thrown to Lanka after the populist wave that brought Gota to power left the island beggared. And have another 4 billion dollar credit line ready to throw just in case there’s another SOS.

Charles cancer shock evokes world sympathy

Cancer is no respecter of persons and can strike commoner and king alike without notice. But news that King Charles had fallen victim to the dreaded C would certainly have come as a shock not only for his British subjects but for the world at large and invoked in many, across the world, heartfelt prayers for his speedy recovery.

Suddenly the fairy tale world of royalty stands rocked. Only a year ago, after the death of his beloved mother, the Queen, Britain had celebrated his coronation in majestic splendour and the world had watched entranced in May last year the unfolding royal spectacle on television. Britain had put her crown jewels on show, reviving the imperial grandeur of their Empire with a lustre no gem could outshine.

Despite being crowned in his early seventies, Charles appeared to have inherited the elixir of eternal life from his mother who died at 96. Britain seemed placed for another endearing royal spell with the crown firmly set on Charles’ head.

But Monday’s news had put paid to all that. The House of Windsor is in turmoil and the prospect of ‘death laying his icy hand’ on the family’s head, sooner than expected, has laid siege on the royal citadel.

The Royal Family has certainly had an inauspicious start to the new year with its medical woes not being confined to Charles alone. It has extended to Kate, the Princess of Wales. Both present king and future queen entered hospital in January, Charles, for a prostate op, and Kate for abdominal surgery.

She spent 13 days in hospital before being discharged and asked to rest until April. Though doctors had ruled out cancer, the long recovery period has fuelled speculation that the 10 hour operation was more than simple surgery, with claims being made that she had been ‘induced into a coma’ during the op. But this has been denied.

For Charles, 75, it was a three night stay and, when he attended the service at the Windsor chapel last Sunday, he seemed to be in the pink of health for a man his age. Then came Monday’s devastating Palace announcement.

For the heir to the British crown, William, 41, destiny may land on his head earlier than he thought. But if the health of the forty two year future Queen of Britain were to worsen, he faces the sad possibility of bringing up his three children as a single parent while coping with his royal duties as king to 65 million subjects. As a result, the entire royal household lies shrouded in gloom.

But 5500 miles away on the eastern seaboard of the North American continent, the sagging fortunes of the King’s second son Harry and his wife, Megan Markle in the US, and the ‘we want our privacy’ couple’s popularity in the UK might well see a dramatic turn around.

Prince Harry made a whistle-stop trip to London, spending 10 hours on the flight from LA to have a 30 minute chat with his father before flying back on Thursday to LA. His brother William, the heir to Britain’s throne, did not meet him. Megan, who was never granted the ‘Princess’ title’ but remains a humble duchess before Prince William and Princess Kate, may harbour hopes of emerging as the uncrowned Princess in the King’s immediate family, should something tragic befall Britain’s future Queen.

Has the curse of Megan struck the House of Windsor, will be the question on cynical royal watchers’ lips? Two months ago the two royals, she had claimed in an Oprah TV interview in 2021 to have shown a racist streak by talking about what colour her baby would be, were inadvertently named in the Dutch edition of Harry’s biographer book ‘Endgame’, as Charles and Kate.

In the West, the coincidence of her two most hated royals, simultaneously struck by serious illnesses would pass off as ‘Megan gets her revenge for baby’s colour slur’. Had Megan been Lankan born, it would certainly be put down to the work of her ‘hooniyam’.

But cancer is no longer the death sentence that people dreaded in the past. And miracles can dawn on king and commoner alike. As Tennyson wrote: ‘More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of’. No doubt, there will be millions in Protestant England at church this Sunday morn, clasping their hands in prayer for their royal ‘Defender of the Faith’.