Comrades in majoritarianism: Why Sri Lanka’s Left parties are steeped in ethnonationalist politics

In September, progressives around the world were cheered by the results of the Sri Lanka election as Anura Kumara Dissanayake was voted in as the country’s president. Dissanayake is the leader of a centre-Left coalition called the National People’s Power alliance and chairperson of the country’s most popular communist party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.

This was the first election that followed the unprecedented Aragalaya peoples’ movement of 2022 or The Struggle, which dislodged the Rajapaksa brothers after almost two decades of uninterrupted rule. However, for those familiar with Sri Lankan history, the victory did not come without its fair share of apprehensions.

In most countries, the primary objective of the Left parties is to organise citizens based on class identity, transcending ethnic and religious differences. However, in Sri Lanka, leftist political parties have not only espoused and exploited Sinhala nationalism but have actively taken the lead in opposing negotiations with the Tamil minority. In Sri Lanka, communism has long been infused with ethnonationalism.

The first Sri Lankan Communist party to be formed was the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, in 1935. The party’s manifesto, along with promising to abolish social and economic inequality, also supported the official use of Sinhala and Tamil languages in the government and...

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