Dayan Jayatilleka: The Social Democrat, the Revolutionary, and the Relentless Commentator — A Political Life of Constant Reinvention
ColomboWire | Political Biography & Analysis
In Sri Lanka’s crowded marketplace of political commentators, diplomats, and ideological shape-shifters, few figures provoke as much fascination, irritation, and confusion as Dayan Jayatilleka. To some, he remains a formidable intellectual, a man of ideas, steeped in political theory and global strategic thought. To others, he is a serial political migrant — forever repositioning himself near power, forever repackaging yesterday’s convictions as today’s realism.
As Sri Lanka enters a new political phase under the National People’s Power (NPP) government, Jayatilleka has once again resurfaced in public discourse — this time as a self-declared social democrat, a geopolitical analyst, and a vocal critic hovering at the edges of the new political order. The question ColomboWire examines today is not merely who Dayan Jayatilleka is, but what he represents in contemporary Sri Lankan politics — and whether his worldview has any relevance to a generation that has decisively moved on.
Origins: Privilege, Education, and Early Political Awakening
Dayan Jayatilleka’s political journey begins not in deprivation or marginalisation, but firmly within Sri Lanka’s educated, urban middle class. Educated first at St. Joseph’s College, then Aquinas College, and later at the University of Peradeniya, Jayatilleka was shaped by institutions that traditionally produced Sri Lanka’s bureaucratic and intellectual elite.
His family background mattered. His father — an English literature scholar, journalist, and author — was deeply embedded in Sri Lanka’s intellectual culture and foreign policy discourse. His mother was a schoolteacher. Ideas, argumentation, and politics were part of the household vocabulary.
At Peradeniya, Jayatilleka encountered a politically charged environment. This was the 1970s — a decade of ideological ferment, student radicalism, and revolutionary romanticism. He was a contemporary of figures such as Sunanda Deshapriya, Mahinda Deshapriya, Rohan Samarajiva, and others who would later populate Sri Lanka’s civil society, academia, and policy space.
Like many students of his generation, Jayatilleka was drawn to the radical left. Influenced initially by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s centre-left legacy, he gravitated towards Marxist thought, the LSSP, and eventually the JVP’s revolutionary appeal. Ironically, as with many Sri Lankan left leaders, his radicalism was incubated not in poverty but privilege — a familiar Colombo 7 paradox.
Revolutionary Phase: JVP, Militancy, and the Vikalpa Kandayama
Jayatilleka was not a passive sympathiser. During his Peradeniya years, he was an active JVP-aligned student leader, organising demonstrations and speaking at rallies. He admired Tamil militant groups of the time, particularly Umamaheswaran of PLOTE, long before Prabhakaran monopolised Tamil militancy.
This phase culminated in his involvement with the underground Vikalpa Kandayama, a radical formation that attempted to link non-LTTE Tamil militants with non-JVP Sinhala revolutionaries. It was an ideologically ambitious but politically naïve project, crushed by the realities of ethnic polarisation and state repression.
Jayatilleka later admitted receiving arms training from Douglas Devananda and spending time in India with non-LTTE militant groups — forging relationships with Indian intelligence networks that would later shape his geopolitical thinking.
In 1987, he was indicted in absentia in the Colombo High Court on multiple counts, including conspiracy to overthrow the state. This was not armchair radicalism; it was full-spectrum revolutionary politics.
The First Great Turn: Indo-Lanka Accord and Provincial Power
The Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 marked Jayatilleka’s first major ideological pivot. Granted amnesty, he entered mainstream politics via the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP) — founded by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Vijaya Kumaratunga.
When the North-East Provincial Council (NEPC) was established under Indian auspices, Jayatilleka became one of its five Cabinet Ministers, representing Sinhala interests. He served briefly as Minister of Planning, resigning within six months due to policy conflicts.
For critics, this episode cemented an enduring suspicion: Jayatilleka’s politics were less about ideological consistency and more about proximity to emerging centres of power — Indian-backed then, Colombo-backed later.
The Premadasa Years: From Revolutionary to State Adviser
With the JVP insurgency raging and the IPKF presence becoming politically toxic, Jayatilleka executed his most dramatic transformation. He aligned himself with President Ranasinghe Premadasa, offering his expertise on Indian affairs and militant politics.
Premadasa embraced him. Jayatilleka became a trusted adviser during one of Sri Lanka’s most violent and politically volatile periods. The IPKF was expelled. The JVP was crushed. The state prevailed.
But Premadasa did not survive. His assassination in 1993 abruptly ended Jayatilleka’s advisory role — and exposed the fragility of power built on personal proximity rather than institutional legitimacy.
Marginalisation under Chandrika and Re-entry via Rajapaksa
Chandrika Kumaratunga, acutely aware of Jayatilleka’s political somersaults, kept him at arm’s length. Locked out of executive power, he retreated into academia and commentary — becoming a Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Colombo.
Under Mahinda Rajapaksa, however, Jayatilleka re-emerged. He became Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Geneva, defending the state aggressively at the UN Human Rights Council during the final phase of the civil war. NGOs viewed him as influential; supporters saw him as articulate; critics accused him of intellectualising militarism under the banner of sovereignty.
The Commentator: Rhetoric, Contradictions, and Geopolitics
In recent decades, Jayatilleka has been most visible as a columnist and geopolitical commentator. His writing is fluent, forceful, and often theatrical. He is sharply critical of the JVP, sceptical of Tamil nationalism, hostile to Western human rights interventionism — yet paradoxically eager for Indo-US strategic backing.
He supports devolution, but only under a strong unitary framework. He endorses federal principles, but recoils from federal terminology. He condemns human rights abuses, but prioritises state security. These contradictions are not accidental; they are strategic ambiguities that allow constant repositioning.
Social Democrat or Political Nomad?
Today, Jayatilleka brands himself a social democrat, aligned — he claims — with the progressive wing of the US Democratic Party. He is now a senior adviser to Sajith Premadasa, continuing a family connection dating back to the late President Premadasa.
Yet the NPP government has shown little interest in accommodating him. Unlike older political establishments, the NPP has been explicit about ideological clarity, generational change, and political accountability. For a movement built on rejecting recycled elites, Jayatilleka represents precisely the political past they seek to transcend.
This has fuelled speculation: is Jayatilleka intellectually adapting, or merely reacting — unsettled by a political movement that rose without him?
Relevance in a Post-Aragalaya Sri Lanka
The central question is not whether Dayan Jayatilleka is intelligent — he undoubtedly is. The question is whether his brand of politics — forged in Cold War binaries, militant romanticism, and elite bargaining — resonates in a Sri Lanka shaped by the Aragalaya, digital activism, and mass political disillusionment.
Is he engaging the future, or litigating the past? Is his social democracy substantive, or merely semantic? And does Sri Lanka still need intellectuals who orbit power, or thinkers who challenge it from outside?
Dayan Jayatilleka’s life is a case study in Sri Lanka’s political evolution — from revolution to realpolitik, from ideology to expediency. Whether history ultimately remembers him as a visionary, a survivor, or a political nomad remains unresolved.
But one thing is clear: Sri Lanka has changed. The question is whether Dayan Jayatilleka has.