Editorial

Cattle slaughter ban

Published

5 years ago

2020/09/13

Within days of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa announcing his proposal to ban cattle slaughter but permit beef imports at a meeting of the government parliamentary group, where it touched a responsive chord among most MPs, the government got into reverse mode with spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella telling the post-cabinet news briefing that this matter had been laid by for a month. The government had obviously realized the error of rushed decision making, or had been nudged in that direction perhaps by the president, and decided not to hastily blunder into controversial areas without adequate study. Muslims, a beef eating community that also control beef and mutton stalls countrywide as well as most slaughter houses, would obviously be unhappy about any decision to ban the slaughter of cattle – something they have resisted over the years. They comprise a fair slice of our population and the new government will not wish to antagonize an entire community this early in its tenure. Surprisingly there was no angry outcry against the proposal no sooner it was publicized.

Nevertheless the first shot has been fired across the bows. We publish today a reader’s letter signed by a Muslim asking why only cattle? Saying, maybe tongue in cheek, that he welcomes the slaughter ban proposal, he asks why not also ban the slaughter of goats, pigs, deer, rabbits and what have you. He adds that to be fair on the quadrupeds, why not include the bipeds like fowl, duck, turkey and doves (we have not heard of doves being hunted for meat although snipe and teal-shooting was a popular sport many years ago). He also asks, sarcastically or otherwise we do not know, whether beef imports will not mean encouraging slaughter of cattle elsewhere to feed us. However that be, he has made a point.

A great many of the Buddhists among us do not eat beef. But they do relish mutton, pork, chicken and bush meat whenever available. This can be explained by the fact that although there is no ‘Sacred Cow’ concept here as in India, a lot of Lankans believe that it is sinful to slaughter and eat the flesh of an animal providing us with milk and playing a useful role as a draught animal to plough our fields and haul our loads. Of course bullock carts, hackeries, thirikkales and similar modes of transport are now receding into memory. However we do see the occasional bullock-drawn kerosene cart in Colombo and some of the other bigger cities. During the earlier and middle part of the last century, there were lot of these carts, owned by the father of the famed surgeon, Dr. P.R. Anthonis who had a large business distributing kerosene oil imported by multinational companies like Shell, Caltex and Standard Vacuum Oil Company until the Sirima Bandaranaike government nationalized the business of importing and distributing petroleum products.

Although it is illegal to slaughter buffaloes, who once served a very useful purpose tilling our rice fields, but have now been almost totally replaced by tractors, an illicit trade in buffalo meat has long existed. In addition to their value as a draught animal, buffalo milk which has a higher fat content than cow milk, is preferred for the making of curd with meekiri long enjoying a top ranking in the market. While on the subject of buffaloes, an anecdote related in parliament by the late Mr. Bernard Soysa during the debate on the Paddy Lands Act is worth retelling. The well-loved LSSP MP said that he and his comrades had toured the rice-gowing areas of the country to win over peasant support for the legislation. At Tissamaharama they told a group of farmers that they can till their fields in the future with tractors rather than buffaloes when an old farmer had piped, “but tractors won’t pataw danawa (calve) like buffaloes!”

Cattle thieving, inevitably for supplying illicit slaughter houses and butchers, has been rampant in the country for a very long period of time and continues either unabated or very poorly controlled to this day. A ban on the slaughter of these animals, will deliver a death blow to that menace and this will be widely welcomed in a country where many Buddhists seek merit by saving the lives of cattle bound for the abattoir. People doing such good deeds are often confronted with the problem of finding a safe haven for these animals to live out their natural life spans. The scarcity of such opportunities are known to sometimes result in the tragedy of once saved animals eventually ending under the butcher’s knife.

There are already meat and fish imports into the country to meet high-end demand in the big hotels where imported steaks and salmon are on offer, of course at a price that only the very rich can afford. In fact the domestic food processing industry imports mutton – we wrongly call goat meat mutton whereas mutton is the meat of a sheep or lamb – some of which is converted into corned mutton for export. In fact some non-beef eating Lankans domiciled abroad take back cans of corned mutton from here as corned beef is much more available where they live. Be that as it may, a ban on cattle slaughter will have ramifications that go well beyond the hostility of beef eaters who are not only Muslims. In the Eastern Province, for example, a tough and wiry peasantry has been created on beef and milk. Also, logical progression of a ban on cattle slaughter should eventually develop into a demand to end the fishing industry.

President Premadasa, in his tenure, halted government support for the inland fishing industry and some hatcheries producing fingerlings to stock irrigation reservoirs and tanks were closed. But inland fisheries have prevailed with perhaps some of those hatcheries resurrected. It is unlikely, if not impossible, for any country in the modern world to stop the consumption of animal protein. Even if the ban on cattle slaughter is not eventually imposed, we must ensure humane slaughter as a top priority. That is a must.

All News Advertisement

Editorial

Crime and cops

Published

23 hours ago

2026/01/17

Thilina Walpola

Saturday 17th January, 2026

The police headquarters has released an AI-generated image of a suspect wanted in connection with a fatal shooting incident in Dehiwala on 09 Jan., 2026, and sought public assistance to arrest him. AI has made the task of creating facial composites much easier. The public no doubt must cooperate with the police and help combat crime, but much more needs to be done to neutralise the dangerous underworld gangs.

Two notorious criminals and a female suspect arrested in Dubai were brought back yesterday. Dubai has become a haven for Sri Lankan criminals, and everything possible must be done to arrest all of them there and repatriate them here to stand trial for their crimes.

There have been several shooting incidents so far this year, and a couple of lives, including that of a teenager, have been lost. Last year saw more than 100 incidents of gun violence, which claimed scores of lives. One can only hope that the police will be able to bring the situation under control this year. Hope is said to spring eternal.

Underworld gangs have amply demonstrated their ability to strike at will anywhere although some of their leaders have been arrested. The police swing into action after shooting incidents and go hell for leather to arrest the shooters; in some cases, they succeed in their endeavour. Crime prevention is apparently not their forte.

Last year, a much-advertised campaign was launched to crush crime syndicates involved in drug dealing, killings and gun running. It yielded some discernible results, but very little is heard of it these days. Has it gone the same way as the past anti-crime operations?

Identikits, manually created or A-generated, could be deceptive in some cases however useful they may be in tracking down criminals on the run. This is a fact investigators should bear in mind lest they should arrest the wrong persons and torture them in the name of interrogating them.

It was alleged last week that the police had put a man to the question simply because he resembled a suspect in an identikit released to the media. The victim has claimed that he went to a police station in Colombo of his own volition after realising that there was a striking similarity between him and the suspect composite in question, only to be beaten mercilessly and asked to make a confession to a crime that he had not committed. The police have denied his claim. A thorough investigation must be conducted into the alleged incident.

Cases of mistaken identity are not rare in Sri Lanka, where the police make arrests hastily and consider suspects guilty until they are proven innocent. They have earned notoriety for acting according to their whims and fancies or at the behest of their political masters in arresting suspects. This is one of the reasons why the conviction rate remains extremely low in this country. It is between 4% and 6%. Some studies have even placed it at 2%.

Meanwhile, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) must not be made to conduct politically motivated investigations, which prevent it from carrying out its duties and functions efficiently. Its raison d’etre is probing crimes, but successive governments have reduced it to a mere appendage of the party in power. Today, the situation has taken a turn for the worse, with government politicians rushing to the CID at the drop of a hat, demanding investigations. This practice must be brought to and end.

Editorial

The Chakka Clash

Published

2 days ago

2026/01/16

Thilina Walpola

Friday 16th January, 2026

Never a dull day in Sri Lanka, where controversies abound. As if the ongoing political war on the government’s hurriedly introduced education reforms were not enough, there is a dispute over a religious symbol, of all things, The Opposition has taken exception to an image in a newly crafted learning module. SJB and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa insists that the symbol described as the Dhamma Chakka in the textbook is in fact the Ashoka Chakra. He took up the issue in Parliament last week, demanding an explanation from the government. Several other Opposition politicians have expressed similar views.

Responding to Premadasa’s argument, Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Harini Amarasuriya told the House that the Buddhist symbol in the school textbook, introduced under the new education reform programme, looked similar to the Ashoka Chakra, but it was the Dhamma Chakka approved by the Ministry of Buddhist Affairs, the Advisory Council on Buddhist Affairs and the Maha Nayake Theras of the Asgiriya and Malwathu Chapters. However, the debate over the symbol in question is far from over; the Opposition politicians and their propagandists continue to castigate the government. The Chakka issue has left the public confused.

There have emerged two schools of thought over the Buddhist symbol in the school textbook. Differences between the Dhamma Chakka and the Ashoka Chakra are not limited to their distinct shapes alone, according to the critics of the symbol at issue. They have pointed out that the Dhamma Chakka symbolises the Noble Eightfold Path and moral law or Dhamma while the Ashoka Chakra represents law and justice (or dhamma in a civic sentence), movement, progress, good governance and discipline, and therefore in today’s context it is secular and not religious, as such. The Dhamma Chakka is found in Buddhist temples, stupas, manuscripts and religious art while the Ashoka Chakra is mostly in the Indian national flag, government emblems and currency and official seals. The rival school of thought insists that the symbol in the textbook is the real Dhamma Chakka and what the Opposition has taken up is a non-issue.

The ongoing debate is of immense interest in that the traditional Dhamma Chakka is known as a sacred Buddhist symbol of spiritual law and the path to liberation. The Ashoka Chakra has become a modern national symbol of India; it has been inspired by the Dhamma Chakka but used mostly in a secular context. The question is what prompted the government to use a symbol other than the traditional Dhamma Chakka in a school textbook, and thereby spark a controversy unncessarily.

Ironically, the NPP government drawing criticism for using a symbol that is confused with the Ashoka Chakra, a national symbol of India, is led by the JVP, which once launched a violent anti-Indian campaign and even gunned down traders who sold Indian onions or local varieties that resembled them. The government finds itself in a dilemma. Its critics maintain that the Dhamma Chakka in Sri Lanka’s state emblem is different from what the government calls the real Dhamma Chakka approved by the Ministry of Buddhist Affairs, the Advisory Committee on Buddhist Affairs and some Maha Nayake Theras. How can this glaring discrepancy be rectified? There cannot be two different Dhamma Chakkas—one in the state emblem and the other in school textbooks or elsewhere, according to those who want the government to stick to the traditional Dhamma Chakka.

It is imperative that the government, the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, the Opposition, the Maha Sangha, Buddhist scholars and other stakeholders address the Chakka issue urgently and clear up public confusion.

Editorial

Reforms, frogs and tortoises

Published

3 days ago

2026/01/15

Sahan Weerasooriya

Thursday 15th January, 2026

The government finally swallowed its pride and postponed the implementation of education reforms meant for Grade 06. It has said its reform initiative is on track, but it is very likely to avoid a headlong rush. It may not concede defeat, but it is obviously wary of performing another high-wire act without a safety net amidst protests.

The government has done itself a favour by shelving the education reforms for Grade 06. Protests tend to snowball, and the Satyagraha campaigns, rallies and marches against the education reforms have the potential to develop into another ‘go-home’ movement.

The opponents of the current education reforms are now demanding that the government deep-six its reform package wholesale and ensure that the architects thereof bear the cost of error-ridden modules, amounting to about Rs. 70 million. Their message is loud and clear; those who wasted state funds for printing those modules will face legal action when the NPP loses power.

The Opposition and the trade unions critical of the proposed education reforms are still out for Prime Minister Dr. Harini Amarasuriya’s scalp, blaming her for the reform mess in the education sector. They are also making many unsubstantiated allegations against her. Trouble is far from over for her and the government.

Now that all stakeholders have agreed that the education system needs reform, the government should begin formulating education reforms anew while adopting an inclusive approach. The best way to set about the task of introducing reforms in any sector is to consult all key stakeholders and secure their concurrence.

The NPP government led by the JVP, which is a great admirer of the Chinese Communist Party, should have adopted the gradual trial-and-error approach recommended by Deng Xiaoping, and crossed the river by feeling the stones. Instead of taking one experimental step at a time and adapting to circumstances, the NPP government made the mistake of plunging headfirst into reforming the education system.

It has been proposed that the government set up a Presidential Task Force consisting of experts, political representatives, trade unionists and other stakeholders to reform the education system. This proposal deserves serious consideration. A broadly representative task force will help ensure the smooth implementation of education reforms. Well begun is said to be half done.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s meeting between President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and some trade unions representing teachers and principals has been viewed in some quarters as part of a divide-and-rule strategy, for it has caused a rift between the trade unionists invited by the President and others, who claim that the event was scripted. However, those who met the President on Tuesday have thrown their weight behind the campaign to recover the cost of poorly crafted learning modules that have been shelved.

President of the All Ceylon United Teachers’ Association Ven. Yalwala Pannasekera Thera, one of the trade unionists who met the President on Tuesday, has given a karmic twist to the education reform issue. Tearing into the NPP politicians and state officials responsible for printing the badly drafted modules, he said yesterday those who misused funds meant for children would be reborn as frogs in Beira Lake and tortoises in the Kandy Lake.

Politicians who misuse state funds and abuse power may find themselves in the company of frogs and tortoises even before they go the way of all flesh. One may recall that in 2022, some politicians of the previous dispensation and their supporters swam with frogs in Beira Lake, where angry mobs plunged them. The same fate is likely to befall all politicians who let power get the better of them, resort to highhanded action, flaunting mandates and supermajorities, and thereby test the public’s patience.