Sri Lanka, Feb. 14 -- What a difference could it have made to the country?

On the eve of JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake's much-talked-about visit to India, let's take a journey into counterfactual history!

Imagine the late JVP leader, Rohana Wijeweera travelling to New Delhi in 1987, or more plausibly, an industrious J.R. Jayawardene coaxing his Indian counterpart to invite Wijeweera (Granted, that is a tall order, considering that in the JVP's assessment, payoffs of perpetuating violent opposition to the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, favoured it over striking a compromise). That favourable context for a violent takeover remained so until Black Cats, PRA, and all the other assorted state-backed anti-JVP para militaries came to life. The...