Cite
MLA
“JVP insurrection of 1971.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/jvp-insurrection-1971/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). JVP insurrection of 1971. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/jvp-insurrection-1971/
The coordinated attacks on police stations failed to seize power and the rising was put down within weeks.
01A rising of the young
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna grew in the late 1960s among unemployed, educated rural youth of the Sinhala south, under Rohana Wijeweera. Its plan was to take the police stations in one night and with them the country. Wijeweera was arrested in March 1971, and the leadership brought the date forward. The attacks of 5 April took dozens of stations, and for some days the insurgents held parts of the south and the Kegalle and Kurunegala districts. Most of the fighters were in their teens and twenties, many of them students and village schoolteachers.
02Suppression
Mrs Bandaranaike’s government declared an emergency and appealed abroad. India sent naval ships to guard the coast and helicopters with crews; Pakistan, Britain, the Soviet Union and others also sent arms. The army and police recovered the lost ground by May, and thousands of young men were detained. Wijeweera was tried by a criminal justice commission and jailed. He was released in 1977. The JVP rose again in 1987, against the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord.
The 1971 rising was the first armed challenge to the Sri Lankan state after independence and the first time India sent forces to help a neighbouring government.
