Midweek Review

Against flawed assumptions and false analogies

Published

5 years ago

2020/11/25

Sahan Weerasooriya

By Uditha Devapriya

“It is not enough to have a philosophy, you have to have the right philosophy.”

— Joan Robinson to the then Central Bank Deputy Governor, quoted by S. B. D. de Silva

Academics and students tend to subscribe to certain dominant ideological paradigms, the assumptions which underlie them, and the conclusions those assumptions lead them to. Given that universities, particularly local universities, have turned into knowledge factories preferring unconditional acceptance to critical thinking, false paradigms and analogies get perpetuated easily. They get embedded in school curricula, public forums, and of course the public sphere: as much in the lecture hall as in parliament.

Most of these paradigms delve into what the best way forward for the country should be, economically and politically, or what it should not be. For instance, the Vehicle Importers’ Association of Sri Lanka in a recent letter to the President cautions him against the belief that local manufacture and assembly is the answer to Sri Lanka’s mounting debt and foreign exchange crisis. The reason, whoever wrote that letter avers, is that the process “does not add any value to the country’s economy and is merely designed for tax evasion and higher profit margins.” Further, it warns that “setting up a vehicle manufacturing plant is a lengthy process with extensive planning and research and development.”

This is more or less a rehash of the line that advocates of free markets and free trade take up. The 2021 Budget, with its emphasis on import restrictions and concessions to local businesses, including manufacturers, compelled the same response from these advocates in Parliament. According to them, it favours import substitution over export orientation, cuts the country from the benefits of free trade, and isolates it from the rest of the world. The one leads to the other: if we manufacture locally, we lose out on trade. If we lose out on trade, we lose out on everything. Ergo, we mustn’t think or go local.

Intellectuals and commentators, especially in (but not necessarily limited to) the English language media, tend to extol the virtues of free markets and the evils of state-led growth. They seem to think that Sri Lanka for the most has been caving into the latter paradigm: the state has widened at the expense of the private sector. The solution, according to pundits and analysts, is to let the market decide, and to limit the government to the role of what Robert Nozick called a “Night-watchman”, formulating the rules of the game (the economy) without playing it (intervening in the workings of the economy). These pundits and analysts then point at societies that supposedly prospered under a night-watchman state: the Tiger economies of East Asia, the US, and Western Europe.

Now quite a lot of people believe this. They accept it as patently obvious: a tautology which, if denied, would lead to a contradiction. British philosophers of the 18th century made a distinction between two kinds of statements: “All thieves are criminals” and “Richard is a thief.” The first is self-evident: to deny it would be to defy logic. In other words it exists a priori: you know it’s true even if you don’t try to prove it. The second is not self-evident: you need empirical evidence to test its validity. Such statements of opinion require proof before one can know whether they are true or false. In the social sciences as in the hard sciences, then, critical analysis and logical reasoning are absolutely indispensable.

Unfortunately, much of the hype surrounding advocacy of free market principles and small government is built on a self-evident premise: people believe economic liberalisation will lead to growth, so they think it should be implemented in the country. Import tariffs must be reduced or preferably eliminated, export-orientation must replace import-substitution, let’s not think of local industrialisation or machine-manufacture yet because we’re an island, and let’s reduce the role of the state because, after all, in the US, Britain, and East Asia, it played a minimal role. Ignored in the emphasis on the success of the latter countries is the specificity of their historical experience.

Countries are not all endowed with the same levels or the same kinds of resources. Nor do they magically transit to free markets and small governments. To say economic liberalisation worked there and that owing to it these principles must be applied here is to assume that all it takes for a country to prosper is the implementation of policies to which those countries which are supposedly implementing them now resorted only after they had passed through certain stages. This assumption, quoting the late S. B. D. de Silva, is “a veritable non-sequitur of bourgeois scholarship.” Taking the earlier argument into consideration, such assumptions are paraded as tautologies when in fact they are not. What is missing from the argument, in other words, is the same thing its proponents accuse the other side, i.e. the Big Government protectionist lobby, of lacking: reasoned, analytical judgement.

The US got to where it is largely through its leap to industrialisation in the latter part of the 19th century. Much of the industrialisation which transpired at that time was financed, not by private initiative, but by the government: vast tracts of land running into millions of acres were handed over to railway companies. In Britain, the state played an important role in promoting local industry, smothering the up-and-coming textile mills of India. Discussions about the success of private sector led growth in these countries leave out or ignore the role played by colonial conquest, which happened to be financed by the government. “Is there any greater example of a rampant state than the English state in the world?” asked a friend at an Advocata Night-Watchman seminar years ago. “When you’re talking laissez-faire, they were basically robbing the seas around the world, installing slavery.” True.

In East Asia three distinct case studies can be identified: Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore. The foundation for Japan’s economy was laid down long before the war by the Tokugawa shogunate; it broke the stranglehold of petty traders, privileging industrial capital over merchant finance. Taiwan emerged from the war cut off from mainland China after the Communist takeover of 1949, yet American experts and economists who formulated that country’s transition to economic liberalisation didn’t embark on free market reforms right away: at first they oversaw rent reduction in 1949, the sale of public lands in 1951, and the commencement of a land-to-the-tiller program in 1953. Land reform limited ownership of paddy land to around 4.5 hectares, much lower than the 10-25 hectare limit imposed by the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government in 1972. South Korea underwent roughly the same set of reforms before it attained first world status.

Singapore is a different case, not least because unlike other East Asian countries it lacked a rural hinterland in which a transition from agriculture to industry could take place. Yet there too the role of government intervention cannot be denied, economically and also politically. Milton Friedman once referred to Lee Kuan Yew as a “benevolent dictator”, the very same epithet Maithripala Sirisena used on Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2014 after walking out from the then administration. In a 1993 essay, William Gibson described the country as “Disneyland with the Death Penalty”, bringing to mind Jagath Manuwarna’s remark about Sri Lanka at a press conference in late 2014: “kalakanni Disneylanthaya.” Unlike Manuwarna’s statement though, Gibson’s essay was banned by the Singaporean government.

Liberals and classical liberals, and even left-liberals, tend to look up to Singapore and Yew’s reforms without realising that, as Regi Siriwardena observed, their achievements rested on the denial of democratic and human rights. Hence when one columnist, drawing wildly false analogies, argues that Singapore lacked a president, yet accomplished much (implying that Sri Lanka doesn’t need an Executive Presidency to get things done), he fails to acknowledge or chooses to ignore not only that Singapore had just one political party during its transition from third world to first, but also that it curtailed dissent in a way that makes any hounding of dissent in Sri Lanka today look haphazard in comparison; when asked why he refused to tolerate political cartoons, for instance, Yew bluntly told Fergus Bordewich that in Confucian society politicians ought to be seen as deserving of respect. To my mind no parliamentarian in Sri Lanka has ever said the same thing using Buddhism as justification. I suppose that has to do with how free the media here is compared to the media there: the latest World Press Freedom Index, for instance, ranks Sri Lanka at 127, and Singapore at 158.

The absence of a rural hinterland made it all the easier for Singapore’s government to enact capitalist reforms, since it could dispense with the need to abolish the kind of pre-capitalist social relations that existed in Taiwan and South Korea. Despite this, however, government intervention swept across the country; in the words of one economist, Singapore responded to international economic forces “through manipulating the domestic economy.”

Wage adjustments vis-à-vis a National Wages Council, a high savings and investment culture promoted via state enforced and state directed abstinence, the shift towards manufacturing in the latter part of the 1960s, the growth of public enterprises (believed to have accounted for 14% to 16% of manufacturing output), and tight government control of trade unions all played a part in bolstering its prospects. As Hoff (1995) noted, the paradox of Singapore’s economic success was that while investments came from the private sector, savings relied on the public sector. It is true that the contribution by foreign investment was significant, yet had Singapore not had a rigidly regulated economy where, for instance, compensation costs for production workers were one-third that of the US equivalent by 1993, it would not have become the third world to first success story it is touted as today.

The specific conditions under which the East Asian economies transformed from developing to developed, from inward-looking to outward-looking, make their emulation in other parts of the world untenable if not unlikely. At the time the governments of these countries were imposing reforms, Western Europe was struggling to recover from wartime recession and MNCs had not become as active in peripheral countries as they would decades later. Their geopolitical alignment with the US in the Cold War guaranteed the success of the East Asian Tigers. Moreover, these were hardly what one could call classical liberal societies: political authoritarianism cohabited with economic liberalisation. Even that dichotomy comes off as false when we consider that government involvement figured heavily in these economies, something that advocates of free markets don’t seem to be aware of.

There was another significant factor: the absence of a merchant capitalist class in these countries. The Tokugawa reforms extended to Korea and Taiwan after Japan turned them into granaries for its domestic needs. The US experts hired to oversee reforms in Korea and Taiwan facilitated, rather than reversed, these processes. In Sri Lanka and much of the Third World, by contrast, experimentation with free market classical liberalism has resulted in not only political authoritarianism, but also the defenestration of an industrial sector, leading to lopsided growth financed by a Pettah merchant class: rather than manufacturing goods, they are imported and resold. The call for “going local”, then, contrary to what intellectuals, institutions, and Opposition MPs think, say, and write, has to do with more than a hysterical call for a garrison state. COVID-19 has sharpened the contradictions of the global economy. The World Bank and IMF paradigm of outward-oriented development is clearly not the way to go about, if we are to resolve these contradictions.

False analogies, assumptions, and tautologies thus will get us nowhere. It is certainly ironic that think-tanks and institutions that privilege reason over guesswork end up indulging in selective scholarship. Even more ironic are statements uttered by academics from countries which passed through several stages before making the transition from a planned order to a free market advising us to bypass those stages when implementing policy reforms here. It takes not only foresight and hindsight, but also courage, to swerve from and dispute these assumptions, dig deep into history, and understand what drives the wealth of nations and the poverty of others. Free markets alone will not do, as even the history of countries where they flourish today tell us. Something else can, and something else must.

(The writer can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com)

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Midweek Review

SJB jolted by AKD-Eran move

Published

4 days ago

2026/05/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

Sri Lanka’s disastrous tour of Australia in 2022 (09 Oct. to 13 Nov.) caused widespread anger among the cricket community and the cricket loving public. The Auditor General’s special report that dealt with that tour revealed significant financial irregularities regarding the SLC executive committee’s visit there for the 2022 T20 World Cup. In spite of heavy media focus on the AG’s report in the run-up to the World Cup debacle in India, the government lacked the political will to deal with the developing situation. The then Auditor General W.P. C. Wickramaratne stood by his report. The top official, who retired in April 2025, reiterated the serious revelations but the Parliament conveniently discarded it.

Former parliamentarian Eran Wickramaratne’s unexpected move jolted the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). In spite of being aware of covert moves to bring in Wickramaratne as chief of the corruption-riddled Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), in place of Shammi Silva, the SJB never really believed it could succeed as it was considered a literal goldmine. But when President Anura Kumara Dissanayake pushed the deal through on 29 April, a furious SJB General Secretary Ranjith Madduma Bandara, however, tried to save face by merely declaring it as a political appointment. The veteran politician said so when the media sought his reaction to Wickramaratne’s move at the P.D. Sirisena grounds, Maligawatte, the venue of SJB May Day rally.

Earlier, in response to Wickramaratne’s declaration that he quit the SJB’s Working Committee and Management Committee to pave the way for him to accept the top SLC post, Madduma Bandara asked Wickramaratne to give up the party membership, too.

President Dissanayake’s move caught the main Opposition party, as well as the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), by surprise. The vast majority of parliamentarians, representing the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led ruling National People’s Power (NPP), couldn’t have been aware of the operation executed by President Dissanayake.

There hadn’t been a previous instance of the NPP accommodating an ex-parliamentarian from a rival party in any capacity. The top NPP leadership always indicated that those who represented other political parties in Parliament wouldn’t be welcome. Ex-lawmaker Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka threw his weight behind the JVP/NPP on numerous occasions, during Aragalaya and the post-presidential polls. Although some expected the war-winning Army Commander to receive an invitation from the NPP, it never materialised. Then, what really made the NPP extend an invitation to Wickramaratne, who first entered Parliament on the UNP National List at the 2010 general election. Wickramaratne contested Colombo at the 2015 general election on the UNP ticket and was appointed Deputy Minister of Investment Promotions and Highways. Widely regarded as one of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe’s favourites, Wickramaratne switched his allegiance to Sajith Premadasa in early 2020 and contested the Colombo district on the newly registered SJB and served as a lawmaker till 2024. Wickramaratne failed to regain his seat in the 2024 general election.

Wickramaratne had been one of the leading proponents of Yahapalanaya (2015-2020) that perpetrated Treasury bond scams in February, 2015, and March, 2016, and a key member of the 106 parliamentary group. As a SJBer, he represented a much smaller parliamentary group that consisted of 54 lawmakers.

What made the former banker, Wickramaratne, accept the daunting challenge of restructuring the utterly corrupt SLC, the country’s richest sports body, embroiled in wasteful practices? As a key member of the SJB, during the 2020-2024 period, Wickramaratne knew how SLC manipulated Parliament and proceeded with its agenda during Shammi Silva’s leadership.

The SJB spearheaded a vigorous campaign, targeting SLC, though it never managed to overwhelm the sports body that enjoyed unprecedented backing of the executive. In spite of the Parliament unanimously adopting a joint resolution calling for the removal of the SLC management, including its Chairman Shammi Silva, that board remained. President Dissanayake executed an operation that replaced Shammi Silva with Eran Wickramaratne. That brought Wickramaratne’s affiliation with the SJB to an unceremonious end. Ex-MP Wickramaratne made his move at the expense of the SJB parliamentary group, now down to 40 in the current Parliament.

The NPP secured an extraordinary 159 seats at the last parliamentary election. That tally included 18 National List slots.

The second largest party in Parliament consists of 40 including five NL slots. The remaining seats in the 225-member Parliament were shared by Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK/8), New Democratic Front (NDF/5), Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP/3), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC/3), Sarvajana Balaya (SB/1), United National Party (UNP/1), Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA/1), All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC/1), All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC/1), Jaffna – Independent Group 17 (IND17-1) and the Sri Lanka Labour Party (SLLP/1).

A surprising move

The NPP brought in Wickramaratne ostensibly to clean up SLC at a time the current dispensation, plagued by various allegations, is under heavy fire. Many eyebrows were raised over the calculated move that eased pressure on the government. Obviously, the former investment banker had no qualms in joining the government, amidst the continuing controversy over (1) release of 323 red-flagged containers from the Colombo port, without mandatory physical checks; (2) resignation of Energy Minister Punykumara aka Kumara Jayakody, after the release of the damning National Audit Office (NAO) report on the coal-scam, in the wake of the unsuccessful SJB No-Confidence Motion (NCM), the first since the 2024 September presidential election; (3) massive Rs 13.2 bn fraud at the National Development Bank in which Eran served as the Chief Executive Officer in 2001 (4) staggering USD 2.5 mn heist at the Treasury that devastated the government.

It would be pertinent to mention that he resigned from the NDB to enter Parliament on the UNP National List at the 2010 parliamentary poll, close on the heels of the re-election of Mahinda Rajapaksa for a second presidential term.

Within 24-hours after Wickramaratne accepted the NPP offer, the Treasury scam took an absolutely unexpected turn when an Assistant Director at the External Resources Department of the Finance Ministry, Ranga Rajapaksa, who had been interdicted over the alleged theft, was found dead, under suspicious circumstances, just outside his residence in Kuliyapitiya.

In spite of a panel of Judicial Medical Consultants, appointed to conduct the post-mortem examination on the body of Ranga Rajapaksa, concluded that all injuries were self-inflicted and that the death was due to suicide, the SJB questioned the circumstances of the death.

The SJB felt betrayed by Eran’s move at a time the Opposition was making headway, though the NPP enjoy an unchallengeable 2/3 majority in Parliament. Confident that corruption allegations, particularly the USD 2.5 mn affair and the suicide of top Finance Ministry official eroded public confidence, the SJB challenged the NPP to hold the long-delayed Provincial Council polls. The challenge was issued at the May Day rally held at P.D. Sirisena grounds, Maligawatta. SJB leader Sajith Premadasa declared if President Dissanayake accepted his challenge the next May Day will be held with SJB Chief Ministers in charge of the PCs.

The man is definitely no saint either as he once got caught campaigning with a group of his supporters in Moratuwa during the moratorium on canvassing just before an election.

Eran Wickramaratne, whatever said and done in his defence, will find it extremely difficult to explain why he switched his allegiance to the NPP, particularly against the backdrop of serious allegations. The ongoing parliamentary probe into the container affair, as well as the growing energy crisis due to the West Asia conflict, and low quality coal supplied to the country’s only coal-fired power plant, Lakvijaya at Norochcholai, and threat to the banking sector, obviously failed to deter Wickramaratne from switching sides. The former Deputy Minister obviously risked his principled stand throughout his political career against corruption.

However, like all other UNP and SJB politicians, Wickramaratne cannot, under any circumstances, absolve himself of the UNP’s culpability in Treasury bond scams, perpetrated under Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s watch. Perhaps, over a decade after the first Treasury bond scam, many people still do not know that the Central Bank had been under Wickremesinghe at the time when then Central Bank Governor, Singaporean Arjuna Mahendran, struck. Wickramaratne remained loyal to the party though, unlike Sujeewa Senasinghe (current member of SJB parliamentary group), he didn’t launch a booklet in defence of Mahendran.

In the wake of Sajith Premadasa’s defeat at the 2019 presidential election, the party split, with the majority of members of the UNP group in the Yahapalana parliament switching allegiance to Sajith Premadasa. The SJB never explained its stance on Treasury bond scams that ruined the administration, at the very onset of its much-touted 100-day programme. The SJB needs to at least acknowledge its responsibility for its conduct, during that time, as some of those who shielded the bond thieves represent the party in Parliament now.

Widely referred to as the “footnote gang” the group has been accused of inserting footnotes into a COPE committee report on the Central Bank Treasury bond scams, literally challenging its findings. Key members often highlighted include Harsha de Silva, Sujeewa Senasinghe, Ajith P. Perera, Harshana Rajakaruna, Hector Appuhamy, Ashok Abeysinghe, Abdul Maharoof, Wasantha Aluvihare, and Ravindra Samaraweera.

Shammi vs Roshan

In the wake of Sri Lanka’s humiliating exit from the 2023 ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup following a massive 302 run-defeat inflicted by India at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. Australia won the tournament played in India from October 05 to November 19, 2023.

Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe, who also held the Youth Affairs and Irrigation portfolios, pounced on the opportunity to oust Shammi Silva’s cricket administration. The Polonnaruwa District MP, as well as those who wanted to see the back of Shammi Silva, who had been at the helm, since February, 2019, felt that they wouldn’t get a better chance. The SJB threw its full weight behind the Sports Minister’s project though he represented the SLPP that reached a consensus with Ranil Wickremesinghe, regarding post-Aragalaya administration. For the SJB, the Sports Minister’s move presented an opportunity to rock the administration struggling to cope up with growing economic woes.

Within days after India thrashed Sri Lanka, Ranasinghe sacked the cricket administration and brought in a committee, headed by Arjuna Ranatunga, the skipper of 1996 World Cup winning team. Inclusion of Jayantha Dharmadasa in the Ranatunga-led interim committee caused controversy though, as a whole, the public approved the move. But, Shammi hit back hard. Within 24 hours, SLC challenged the Minister’s action.

The Court of Appeal quashed the Sports Minister’s decision to sack the country’s crisis-ridden cricket board and restored the expelled officials, pending a full hearing. Shammi had the unconditional backing of the Indian Cricket board and, most importantly, the protection of the executive. Wickremesinghe had no qualms in shielding Shammi and his team, though Sports Minister Roshan was elected to Parliament on the SLPP ticket.

An irate Sports Minister revealed in Parliament how Wickremesinghe demanded that he rescind the decision to sack the cricket administration. Wickremesinghe wanted Shammi back at the helm of the SLC whatever the allegations directed at him. The Sports Minister disclosed in Parliament how he refused to carry out Wickremesinghe dictatorial directive and challenged him to do whatever he desired.

The resolution, unanimously adopted by the Parliament on 09 November, 2023, to get rid of the cricket administration, had no impact on Wickremesinghe. Eran Wickramaratne had been a member of that Parliament though he now quietly contributed to a strategy that enabled the NPP government to replace Shammi without causing any unnecessary issues.

When Roshan declined to reinstate what he repeatedly described as corrupt cricket administration, Wickremesinghe sacked him from the Cabinet of Ministers. Perhaps, the UNP leader had the tacit support of the top SLPP leadership to drop the ‘Pohottuwa’ man from the Cabinet. The SLPP never really took up that issue as Wickremesinghe, in consultation with his Chief of Staff Sagala Ratnayaka, plotted a controversial course.

The sacked Sports Minister hit back hard at Wickremesinghe and Sagala Ratnayaka, in and outside Parliament. Alleging that his life was in danger, Roshan said that in case of any harm caused to him, Wickremesinghe and Ratnayake should be held responsible. The lawmaker urged the Speaker not to expunge his statement from Hansard.

During the war of words, between Roshan and the SLC in November, 2023, the latter lodged a complaint with the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) accusing him of misappropriation of funds made available by them to the National Sports Fund. There had never been a similar case in which the Cricket Board/SLC moved CIABOC against the subject Minister.

Shammi proved again that with right connections challenges could be successfully neutralised. But, his feat remains extraordinary as he thwarted the unanimous resolution adopted against him in Parliament. There had never been an instance where the Parliament took such a stance in respect of an individual or a particular body. Wickremesinghe, in spite of the Parliament, at that time, represented by only one National list MP from the UNP (defeated Galle District candidate Wajira Abeywardena) without hesitation sacked a Cabinet Minister appointed by his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Wickremesinghe’s actions underscored how the executive could undermine Parliament, regardless of consequences. Shammi emerged far stronger and proceeded with his agenda.

A visit to Mandaitivu

Having backed the SJB-led November 2023 move in Parliament against SLC, perhaps the electorate believed the first elected post-Aragalaya government would swiftly move against the powerful cricket administration. However, that issue took a back seat as the NPP confronted other challenges. By then previously mentioned issues, particularly the coal scam that exposed the NPP’s duplicity, grabbed media attention, and SLC was conveniently forgotten.

Then suddenly, on Shammi Silva’s invitation, President Dissanayake visited Mandaitivu island, situated about three kms off Jaffna town and is connected to the peninsula, via a causeway.

On September 1, 2025, Dissanayake laid the foundation stone there for what the SLC called Jaffna international cricket ground, on 48 acres, featuring 10 centre wickets with boundary distance extending up to 80 meters, exceeding international standards. The SLC declared the proposed seventh international stadium would have a spectator capacity of 40,000, positioning it as a premier cricket destination in the region.

The SLC couldn’t complete the work before the end of December, 2025, due to Cyclone Ditwah, and other reasons, including the absence of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report. The Chairman of the Central Environmental Authority, Professor Tilak Hewawasam, is on record as having said in late February this year that instructions were issued to halt the construction work under way at the Jaffna International Cricket Stadium until SLC secured environmental impact assessments to permit them to grant formal approval.

The launch of the Mandaitivu project was in line with the overall plan to create a 138-acre sports city in the Jaffna district. Those who opposed the project have alleged that it would be an ecological disaster and Mandaitivu should never have been considered for an international cricket stadium. It would be interesting to see how the new SLC chief addressed this issue alone, leaving aside all else.

Some of the criticism directed at the Jaffna sports city project is political. Northern Province-based politicians and other interested parties, not with the NPP, feel the proposed project may further erode their support base. Their concerns have to be addressed, taking into consideration President Dissanayake’s success in winning both the Northern and Eastern electoral districts at the presidential and parliamentary polls in 2024. The NPP created political history when it defeated the Illankai Thamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) in predominantly Tamil speaking regions thereby proving that the party could be overwhelmed.

Although the ITAK regained some respectability at the Local Government polls in 2025, the NPP still enjoys overwhelming superiority in the North and East but the actual situation can be ascertained only if President Dissanayake accepted the SJB’s challenge to conduct Provincial Council polls soon.

Wickramaratne now faces an extraordinary challenges, a situation he never experienced during the time as a UNP MP from 2010 to 2020 and then SJB lawmaker from 2020 to 2024. It wouldn’t be easy as many interested parties, including those antagonised by his move whatever the consequences of Mandaitivu environmental issues, would be out to target him. In case Wickramaratne failed in his capacity as the SLC chief to take remedial measures, he would have to face the consequences. The NPP, too, will be at the receiving end for obvious reasons.

While a section of the SJB asserted that Wickramaratne’s actions were treacherous, given his role in the party, some believe that the invitation extended to the former parliamentarian revealed that the NPP lacked suitable persons among them to take such a high profile assignment. The question is whether Wickramaratne can pull it off or himself be overwhelmed by an utterly corrupt system that progressed over the years with the connivance of politicians.

Shammi Silva couldn’t have retained SLC leadership without contest for just over seven years sans heavy political backing. That is the undeniable truth. The latest ‘arrangement’ that compelled him to give up the hot seat about 11 months before the end of his term enabled the controversial figure to avoid investigations into past affairs. Bringing in Wickramaratne, too, seems to have the approval of Shammi Silva who proved his mettle as a shrewd negotiator.

By Shamindra Ferdinando

Midweek Review

Monks, the Law and the Future of the Buddhist Monastic Order

Published

4 days ago

2026/05/6

Sahan Weerasooriya

A file photo of some Buddhist monks, nabbed at the BIA, with narcotics, being taken to court.

As almost the whole country knows by now, a group of 22 Buddhist monks were arrested on 25 April 2026, by the Police Narcotics Bureau at the international airport in Katunayake carrying approximately 112 kilograms of Kush, a high-grade, potent strain of cannabis and Hashish with a street value of over LKR 1,100 million. It is supposed to be the largest drug haul of this kind at the airport and has made global news too.

Locally, and particularly on social media, it has opened a very vocal debate with two main streaks. One has already judged the monks as guilty, purely based on information and stories in free circulation on the internet. The other claims that these are not even monks, but are imposters planted to bring disrepute to Buddhism while some articulations within this streak even go to the extent of claiming government culpability, without offering an iota of evidence. Almost none of these discusses in any serious manner what this means in terms of the law of the land and its applicability to Buddhist monks, and why this level of criminality has occurred from within the clergy in the first place. Such reflection, however, is the only sensible thing that should come out of this unfortunate incident which had considerably dangerous consequences for society if the narcotics went undetected.

The law in our country seems to apply differently or at least very slowly when it comes to Buddhist monks. This suggests that they occupy some kind of undefined but privileged status above citizenship and its constituent responsibilities. People may have noticed that Buddhist monks do not stand when the national anthem is being sung even though it is standard etiquette across the world including in our country to do so. But this exception in practice does not seem to apply to other religious leaders.

When as a schoolboy in the 1980s, I asked one of my teachers, a Buddhist monk, whom I still hold in high esteem, why this was the case, his answer was, this was the tradition since the time of the Buddha. My classmates and I pointed out to him that at the time of the Buddha, there were neither nations nor national anthems, and this question would not have even arisen. But there are stories from Buddhist history and literature that might be interpreted as monks being treated differently and elevated in status even above rulers due to their spiritual attainment. But today, we are not dealing with remnants of a distant history and belief, but the present in vastly transformed social and legal conditions.

Obviously, this is a tradition born out of wrongful and selective interpretation of respect and veneration, and not a formal legal exemption. Partly, that veneration comes from narratives in Buddhist literature, such as the incident involving Emperor Asoka and the seven-year-old novice monk, Venerable Nigrodha, who it is said to have sat on the emperor’s throne, when invited to be seated. Whatever the actual sources of this veneration are, what it does in contemporary times, is to set apart Buddhist monks symbolically from other citizens with the indication that the law of the land applies differently to them and that too, favourably. In practice, unfortunately, this becomes a cover within which errant individuals can hide from the long arm of the law as well as common sense and ethics that apply to all others.

The cultural and political logic behind this practice assumes that Buddhist monks are beyond and above the law, which is meant for the laity, and that such noble individuals will not do anything wrong. But even in the time of the Buddha itself, this was not a fact as Buddhist history explains well. It is precisely this cultural logic that led some commentators to use two interesting words to describe the 22 monks arrested at the airport and another who was arrested later who was to be the recipient of the drugs. One word is chiwaradhaarin,

literally meaning those wearing robes without implying their possible belonging to any local ecclesiastical order. In contemporary usage, it is also a somewhat insulting term. The other word is, bhikshu prathirupakayin, literally meaning people masquerading as monks. The whole point here was to delink these errant monks from monkhood and therefore from Buddhism itself because the alleged crime was too serious.

The Mahanayaka Theras of the Siyam, Amarapura, and Ramanna chapters issued a statement on 26 April 2026, just one day after the arrests, referring to the arrested as bhikshu prathirupakayin (people masquerading as monks) who were misusing the robe and noted these acts were against Buddhism and called for the suspects to be duly punished and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. On 28 April, the President met the Mahanayaka Theras and other senior monks to discuss the fallout and possible future action including closer supervision of monks within the order. Ideally however, neither this statement nor the meeting with the President was necessary if monks were treated as a matter of routine like normal citizens when they violate the law of the land. It is precisely based on this principle that the police arrested them in the first place. But there is no doubt they receive special treatment everywhere in the country, including in the airport.

It is this sense of privilege under the law that needs to end. When I say this, I am not talking of individual respect to monks people might have, based on their knowledge of the dhamma, including myself. That is a matter of individual preference. I also do not mean disciplinary supervision, investigation of institutional malpractices and disciplinary or vinaya breaches and punishments which can be carried out by the religious organisations themselves if they have a workable system. But if monks, like any other citizen, violate the law of the land whether it is drug trafficking, rape, child abuse, financial irregularities, instigating violence and so on, then, they cannot be offered special treatment or leniency. They must be held accountable and prosecuted, but fairly, like all of us deserve. No exceptions can be made.

The sheer noise of the local debate also has not posed yet another pertinent question that is important in this context. That is, how has it become possible for monks to engage in such obviously illegal acts with massively negative consequences for the society which they are supposed to serve selflessly? What has gone wrong, where and why?

Ven. Gurugoda Siriwimala made the following observations in a Facebook post in Sinhala on 27 April, which outlines the prevailing situation very rationally and clearly:

“The Bhikkhu Sasana (The Buddhist Monastic Order) in Sri Lanka is part of the country’s own decline. When a nation falls into decay, it is impossible for one specific segment within it to remain unaffected. The most tragic aspect of this is that in a country like Sri Lanka, where the cultural fabric is heavily built upon religion, the clergy—who ought to be the ultimate role models—have descended into such a state of degeneration.

The Monastic Order in Sri Lanka has become mere puppets of political parties and the media. For ordinary monks like us—who travel in public buses and subsist on the alms provided by ordinary people—it has become a matter of such shame that we feel like we must hide our faces. But these are not issues to monks who hardly walk in the streets, who constantly hold press conferences and utter foolhardy things from political stages.

Political parties in Sri Lanka have divided the clergy among themselves, maintaining a group of prominent monks who would act according to party agendas. We see even at this very moment how they are being manipulated like puppets. A group of hollow, senseless fools with no spiritual sensibility whatsoever are making a mockery of themselves in front of the whole country by holding press conferences morning and night. These monks lack education; they possess no understanding—either at a national or international level—of the subjects they speak about …”

Ven. Siriwimala’s articulation is the clearest explanation of what is happening in the Buddhist monastic order that I have read in recent times. What is even more important is that it has come as a self-reflective critique from within. The drug-carrying monks are not an unusual occurrence or an anomaly when it comes to drug trafficking in the country in general or reported malpractices involving some other monks on numerous other occasions. According to publicly available reports, some monks have repeatedly insulted minority religious practices and sentiments. One example of this is the current case in which indictments have been served against one of these monks for a case from 12 years ago. His discourses of violence are matters of public record as are the records of others. Sexual violence and child abuse involving some other monks have also come to the forefront on and off including the case of a monk who was found guilty of multiple counts of sexual assault by the Isleworth Crown Court in London in 202 and placed on the UK Sex Offenders Register for life even though he is running a school close to Colombo. There are many such cases circulating in public discourse, but not all of these have been prosecuted. Much has been silenced by inaction.

As Ven. Siriwimala has rightly pointed out, many monks have become problematic mouthpieces for political parties and political interests. Even the manner of their public articulation and behaviour as well as the nature of political involvement have become shameful, to put it mildly. But almost none have faced consequences within the ecclesiastical order of institutional Buddhism.

What this overall situation has done is to bring the Buddhist ecclesiastical order into needless disrepute. And much of this has happened due to the unfortunate silence of the Mahanayaka Theras and other senior prelates when they should have campaigned for reform within their monastic orders and paved the path towards prosecution in the same way they have done in the context of the recent drug interdiction. Seen in this sense, the present issue is nothing new. It is merely one of the more visible examples of a much deeper malaise.

Whenever I hear of these issues and the relative silence from within the monastic order, I am constantly reminded of the Buddha’s own words in Aṅguttara Nikāya (Numerical Discourses) and particularly in Anāgatabhaya Sutta (Discourse on Future Dangers). The ‘future dangers’ that would lead to the corruption of the Sangha and the disappearance of the Saddhamma (True Dhamma) the Buddha articulated include the following, all of which have to do with monks: 1. Lack of training and discipline among monks and the resultant consequences; 2) consequences of monks stopping paying attention to the profound teachings of the Dhamma; 3) monks focusing on excessive materialism and luxury and distancing themselves from practices such as meditation and seeking liberation; 4) the emergence of conflict and factionalism as a result of which monks becoming argumentative and using the Dhamma as a weapon to attack one another rather than as a means to liberation; 5) all this would finally lead to the corruption of the teachings of the Buddha and monks would end up teaching what is not the Dhamma but present it as the Dhamma and will teach what is not the Vinaya but present it as the Vinaya.

Is it not this that is happening today? Aren’t the kind of examples of malpractices I have outlined above indicative of this situation which the Buddha himself foresaw in his own lifetime? If the April 2026 drug bust is to serve a purpose for the future, it should happen at two levels: 1) the government and the laity should not treat monks as privileged when they engage in wrong-doing and violate the law of the land. The government should make it very clear formally that the law enforcement and judicial systems must fully prosecute violators of the law without any exceptions; 2) Leaders within the Buddhist monastic order including the Mahanayaka Theras and other senior prelates as well as their lay supporters should establish and empower an urgent system of internally addressing issues within their own orders and organisations, which should include the identification of wrong doers on the basis of specific ecclesiastical or legal violations and their expulsion from their monastic orders. There should not be any exceptions.

If this bare minimum can be achieved without delay and that too with honesty, then, we can imagine a more sanguine future where Buddhism can play the role it is supposed to. If it cannot be done, then, the future will be what the Buddha has already predicted.