An outsider in the Sinhala south would get the impression that the JVP is the only organisation politically active in this part of the world.

Eye-catching JVP posters announcing their public meetings and political tutorials and banners denouncing the western imperialism of Bush and Blair can be seen in all the main towns and villages of the south. One often finds a crowd at the JVP offices in the small towns listening to heated debates about Marxism etc.

It is not uncommon these days for one to come across educated young men in the main Muslim towns of the Amparai district who seem quite impressed by the JVP's alacrity in helping the poor people. Some of them are not just impressed but are beginning to learn the JVP's political philosophy.

Yet, the seriousness of the situation did not dawn on me until I ran into a young Muslim acquaintance recently at a 'soup shop' in Akkaraipattu. He, already a secret convert to the JVP's cause, told me that many young men like him are disgusted by the crass opportunism of Muslim politicians who use Islam to feather their own nests and care not for the poor.

The tsunami, no doubt did create a political vacuum among the Muslims in the east. The JVP shrewdly filled this void. And no mainstream political party could match the JVP's organizational skills in these parts of the country.

People cannot live by ethnic politics alone. There are many pressing social and economic issues which the average money making politician is not intellectually or ideologically equipped to handle.

A Muslim farmer is more worried about getting a good price for his rice than splitting hairs over Wahabi fundamentalism or Sufi mysticism. The JVP's message of social emancipation strikes a chord with the poor and marginalized classes. The party gets things done. It is not corrupt. There is no nepotism in the ranks. JVP MPs are not moneyed thugs. Its leaders are ordinary men and women. They can easily relate to the sentiments of the man or woman in the street.

The number of people who think the JVP is the right political choice is growing steadily. Wishful thinkers and armchair pundits in Colombo and the West can say a thousand things to support their belief that the JVP is losing support. I certainly see it growing silently in the east, in the plantations and in many areas of the south.

People cannot live by ethnic politics alone. There are many pressing social and economic issues which the average money making politician is not intellectually or ideologically equipped to handle.

I see many Tamil youth in the Central Province today who think they should throw in their lot with the JVP to save the plantation community from the clutches of its incorrigibly crooked political and trade union leadership.

How is it possible that the JVP that is opposed tooth and nail to devolving any power to the Tamils and the Muslims could make this bold attempt in spreading its influence among them? Why is it getting a response after all?

It is a fact that the JVP is determined to prevent President Rajapakse from striking any sort of peace deal with the Tigers. For they know that if he does, he will be able to retrieve his party from the crisis in which it has been sinking since the formation of the UPFA. We all know that they want to cleave the SLFP and the UNP until they are totally and irredeemably engulfed in a terminal decay. Thus the JVP stands to gain by blocking any move by Rajapakse to talk peace with the Tigers.

The point here is that the JVP's staunch opposition to federalism is not merely tactical - the spanner they keep throwing in the works. It is deeply rooted in their political philosophy. It springs from Rohana Wijeweera's rigidly Marxist Leninist interpretation of Sri Lanka's history and society, enunciated in a long report to the JVP central committee on April 15 1986.

Wijeweera says that the national question should be resolved to stop Sri Lanka from becoming "a slave camp of American Imperialism". "The imperialist camp, led by American imperialism, has managed to increasingly reinforce its base in Sri Lanka using the crisis spawned by the national question. They have managed to greatly tighten their grasp economically, politically and militarily".

Also, the JVP says that all nationalities in Sri Lanka are equal. The JVP recognizes that there are Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim nationalities in Sri Lanka and that no nationality should be privileged over the other. This message sinks into the minds of the Tamil and the Muslim youth who are disgruntled by the social deprivation to which they have been subjected for many long years, with no light at the end of the social tunnel.

This is what makes it attractive to the JVP's potential recruits among the Muslims and the Tamils in the plantations. Their social deprivation makes them eager to change the system. They think the system is exploitative because it has been made servile to US imperialism. Increasingly, as these youth gain greater insight into the teachings of Marx, Lenin and Wijeweera, they come to believe that only US imperialism stands to profit from the ethnic conflict - that American capital is promoting the conflict to perpetuate the system of neo-colonial exploitation here.

This is not hearsay that one gathers from conversations with disgruntled youth in Muslim soup shops in the east and in the watering holes of the Sinhala south or in cafes in Tamil towns in the hills. This is the reality today.

The writing is on the wall, and it is in red.