Dayan Jayatilleka (Sinhala: දයාන් ජයතිලක; born 1956) is a leftist Sri Lankan academic, diplomat, writer and politician.
[1] Jayatilleka had become involved in radical politics at a young age and whilst studying Advanced Level at Aquinas he was "picked up" by the Intelligence Services Division and questioned at their headquarters in Longdon Place, Colombo.
[4][5] Jayatilleka had been a supporter of Tamil militancy for some time and had argued that their actions were a war of national liberation, not terrorism.
[7] Vikalpa Kandayama formed a relationship with the Tamil militant Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF).
[5] Vikalpa Kandayama was banned in 1986 and Jayatilleka was indicted, in absentia, by the Colombo High Court on 14 counts including conspiracy to overthrow the state through violence.
[5][9] Jayatilleka was Minister of Planning and Youth Affairs for the North Eastern Province between 1988 and 1989 but resigned because of policy differences.
[1][9][10][11] Jayatilleka then abandoned his radical beliefs and became a prominent supporter of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, serving as his advisor from 1989 to 1993.
[1][11] He received a PhD degree from the Griffith University in 2007 after writing a thesis titled The Moral Sierra Maestra: The Moral-Ethical Dimension of the Political Thought of Fidel Castro.
[16][17] Jayatilleka was visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Institute of South Asian Studies (ISAS) in 2010.
Further he claimed that the agenda of the "Tamil bourgeoisie" and "Diaspora capitalists" is to use the constitution is to "rewire and reprogram" the Sinhala consciousness so they can never win another war, divide and rule the "majority" and weaken the national state.