RIP Victor Ivan: JVP, Reporter, Stirrer -by Rajpal Abeynayake
Source:Thuppahis
In The Daily News, 20 January 2025
This week marked the passing of a public figure who was controversial by any measure, and the forgettable passing of another that most Sri Lankans would for very good reason, rather forget. The controversial figure would in most people’s estimation be regarded as a good man, though flawed. He was Victor Ivan the journalist, or rebel and insurgent turned activist.
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The other person really doesn’t deserve mention except in the manner of keeping of records perhaps. Shiva Pasupathi was the Attorney General of Sri Lanka for over ten years, including the years in which hostilities broke out between the military and the armed LTTE in the early 80s. Having served as the longest serving AG since the creation of the post over 150 years back, Pasupathi retired, and was accorded the honour of Deshamanya.
However, then came a slow descent into the most reprehensible conduct you’d expect from any government servant, leave alone someone who had earned the title of Deshamanya. Pasupathi migrated to Australia, and became the Chief legal advisor to the LTTE, banned for its terrorism in many parts of the world.
The Bar Association of Sri Lanka in what should be one of its most ill-considered recent missteps, announced this week to its membership that a former AG and Deshamanya had passed away in Australia. The passing should have received no mention at all. Pasupathi died a traitor to his country of birth, having held one of the highest positions in the land irrespective of the fact that he belonged to the minority Tamil community. That’s of course how it should have been and how it was in Sri Lanka, despite the war that was waged by the LTTE for a separate State. But none of that stopped him from becoming the LTTE’s chief legal advisor, when this banned organisation waged a brutal campaign of terror against this country, wreaking havoc, killing our leaders, killing innocent children in the border villages, bombing and maiming innocent civilians by the thousands, and killing even leaders of neighbouring countries, such as Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India.
Vitriolic
No, the BASL should not have mentioned his name at all. Let them bury him in Australia. There wasn’t a single more malign force among lawyers that advanced the cause of terror and subversion in this country, than Shiva Pasupathi. He tried to give legal impetus to the LTTE despite its terrorist activities, gunrunning, drug running and myriad other endevours designed to wreak havoc in his mother country. All he succeeded in, however, was getting the organisation banned in 30 countries. A local commentator said Pasupathi was not the most ruthless in the LTTE, but certainly was its most disgusting, considering that he nonchalantly betrayed his country that he served in one of its highest capacities. If he had an ounce of self-respect, the man would have renounced his Deshamanya title, but he didn’t. To make mention of him as a Deshamanya today is a travesty perhaps equal to calling Prabhakaran a national treasure. Perhaps the Bar Association should apologise.
In contrast, Victor Ivan who passed at the age of 75 this week was quite the upstanding citizen. Was he? He too was convicted of waging an insurgency against the State, at the tender age of 21 along with a host of other like- minded insurrectionists. However, the State pardoned these individuals later, and Victor Ivan transformed himself into a journalist who wanted to keep governments and the social elite of the day to account.
Though he discovered great success as a journalist, founding the Ravaya which became a thorn on the side of many preening, pompous persons feathering their own nests while ostensibly serving the people, he also was the proverbial Lazarus that rolled his chariot too close the Sun.
Ivan challenged power; but he eventually made more than mere accommodations with the powerful. He was even in tow with many regimes, though his connections were sometimes not so obvious for the public to see for themselves.
Influence
A former President Chandrika Kumaratunga for instance, accused him of trying to run her government, even though he had on Kumaratunga’s own admission done much to bring her to power after 17 years of right-wing rule by the UNP.
He fell out so spectacularly with Kumaratunga that he ended up writing a vitriolic book about her titled Chaura Regina (The Evil Queen.) Ivan wanted to be a kingmaker; but eventually ended up as a palace consort of sorts.
However, his opinion was sought after among political analysts and those who wanted to make sense of the passing scene. He did not repose any faith, particularly in his last few years, in the institutions of this country, which he believed were compromised to the point of beginning to rot from within.
In this, he proved to be correct, though some of his more regular political predictions were far from accurate. The Aragalaya uprising of 2022 and the events that were associated with that memorable revolt of the masses proved that people had comprehensively lost faith in all institutions of State and all conventional political parties, a fact Ivan had been forewarning of all along, in various interviews and asides.
His own rebellious days — which left him with a mutilated left arm which he dressed in a trademark bandage — were long forgotten however, and people who knew him found it hard to decide if Ivan was a rebel, a power-broker who wielded political influence, or both.
He was to the last, however, of a liberal persuasion, and eschewed bigotry of any form. He was also a passionate advocate of justice for the downtrodden, having blown the lid on any scandals that involved high-level potentates such as a Chief Justice of the country, who narrowly avoided impeachment due mostly to what Ivan had unearthed against him.
Paradoxically
Students of journalism would of course not be entirely comfortable with considering Ivan as the model they should aspire to emulate. It may be a different story with political activists who would perhaps reason that Ivan did the best under the circumstances.
They would say that he got closer to those in power not to curry favour or as an end in itself, but to influence policy. But others would also say that he was financed by certain political elements, which compromised his activist integrity, not to mention his journalistic independence.
No doubt then, that he was controversial. But except to the harshest of critics, Ivan was perhaps the lost revolutionary, who paradoxically was fascinated by the power wielded by the various forces he had begun his fight against in the first place. He may have flown too close to the Sun and melted his wings; but even if that was the case, he was considered a man who was essentially on the right side of history because he was against the system, was hell bent on reforming it, and was disappointed severely when he couldn’t.
Ivan was personally known to this writer, who was among 2 petitioners who along with him filed a fundamental rights application when chief Justice Sarath Silva was appointed, challenging his ascension on grounds of integrity, or the lack of it. The events that transpired later certainly seemed to indicate that though the cases failed, they were not entirely without merit.
Did Victor Ivan do right by the people he rebelled on behalf of? Did he remain one of them to the last? Towards the end of his days he essentially shunned the limelight, and spent his time pursuing pastimes, such as chess, in his hometown in Galle which is cut way from the action he used to covet in a different era, in Colombo. In most people’s assessment he would have done his best, despite the various surprising routes he took in order to realise some of his most cherished ambitions.
See more: Veteran Journalist, Editor Victor Ivan passes away
