1971 Insurrection

1971 JVP insurrection
Location Ceylon Result Ceylonese Government victory Rebel forces surrender Ceylonese government reestablishes control over entire island Territorial changes The JVP gains control of certain rural areas the country for several weeks
Belligerents
Ceylon	JVP
Commanders and leaders
Sirimavo Bandaranaike Sepala Attygalle	Rohana Wijeweera
Casualties and losses
1,200 (official), 4,000-5,000 (unofficial)

Ceylonese Government victory

The 1971 Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna insurrection (also known as the 1971 Revolt) was the first unsuccessful armed revolt conducted by the communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) against the Government of Ceylon under Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. The revolt began on 5 April 1971 and lasted till June 1971. The insurgents were able to capture and hold several towns and rural areas for several weeks until they were recaptured by the armed forces.

Ceylon became a dominion in 1948 with a conservative government formed under the premiership of D. S. Senanayake who had been instrumental in the negotiations with the British government that lead to self-rule. He founded the United National Party (UNP) by amalgamating three right-leaning pro-dominion parties which won a majority in parliament at the general election. The UNP was defeated in 1956 when S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike became prime minister on a wave of nationalist sentiment. His wife Sirimavo Bandaranaike entered politics following his assassination and became the world's first female prime minister in 1960. Due to successive governments, varying economic polices, regular strikes the economic out look of Ceylon in the 1960s had fallen below what it was when it gained independence in 1948. This had even lead to an attempted coup in 1962.

During the late 1960s a movement named as the JVP was initiated by Rohana Wijeweera a former medical student and former functionary of the Ceylon Communist Party. He had been at odds with party leaders and impatient with its lack of revolutionary purpose and formed his own movement in 1967 with like minded youth. Initially identified simply as the New Left, this group drew on students and unemployed youths from rural areas, most of them in the 16- to 25-year-old range who felt that their economic interests had been neglected by the nation's leftist coalitions. The standard program of indoctrination, the so-called "Five Lectures", included discussions of Indian imperialism, the growing economic crisis, the failure of the island's communist and socialist parties and the need for a sudden, violent seizure of power.

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