Features

IN RETROSPECT

Published

1 year ago

2025/02/9

by Dr Nihal Jayawickrama

I had always thought that autobiographies were written after retirement. I hope this request from the LAW MEDIA for the story of my life, or more particularly, my experiences before Hong Kong, is not a gentle reminder that my time is up. I prefer to think that you simply wish to get to know better the only South Asian on the Faculty or are curious to know why a lawyer wants to teach law rather than practise it.

One of the earliest decisions I made in my life was to be a lawyer. I was not yet nine. All my older relatives, including my father, were lawyers, and it did not seem as if I had any choice in the matter. Where I did have a choice was regarding what I would do after becoming a lawyer. I would never be a law teacher or a civil servant; I only wanted to be a practitioner. But “God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform”, and life did not quite turn out the way that I had intended it to be.

I read law for three years at the University of Ceylon, on a picturesque, residential campus, nestling among the tea plantations, high in the mountains of central Sri Lanka. Sir Ivor Jennings, vice-chancellor, had, on 3,500 acres of lush tropical vegetation, created for the Arts and Law Faculties a veritable ivory tower, away from all the mundane activities of city life.

Through it flowed the Mahaweli, Sri Lanka’s longest river, whose secluded sandy banks offered a welcome retreat from contracts, torts and trusts. It was there that I “proposed” to my future wife, with dire consequences. Her parents, to whom she dutifully communicated this fact, promptly removed her from the campus. They were not impressed by a potentially briefless barrister. A negotiated settlement, with severe restraints upon my movements, enabled her to resume her academic career.

With Shirle Amarasinghe, Permanent Representative and Deputy Perm Rep. Yogasunderam at UN General Assembly in 1972

A further year of study at the Ceylon Law College, and six months apprenticeship, and I was a fully qualified Advocate (as barristers are referred to in Sri Lanka). I wanted to take my oaths before my uncle, a Judge of the Supreme Court, who had brought me up after my father’s death when I was quite young. He was then presiding over a controversial criminal trial which later found its way into the law reports as The Queen v. Liyanage (1965) 1 All ER 42. He took the unusual step of sitting in another court for five minutes for the purpose of admitting me to the Bar. Ten days later, the Liyanage Bench dissolved itself, holding that it had no jurisdiction to sit as the Supreme Court since it had been nominated to do so by the Minister of Justice. I often wondered what my position would have been had I been admitted by that “court”.

I spent eight very happy years at the Bar. I learnt my way around as a junior in the chambers of several successful lawyers, each specializing in different areas: original court work, criminal appeals, tax law, industrial law, and judicial review. At the end of the third year, I felt confident enough to step out on my own; to decline appointment as a Crown Counsel; and to get married.

The next five years were spent almost entirely in the appeal courts where, much to my satisfaction, I found myself appearing in court daily. A short break enabled me, on a UNESCO Fellowship, to spend a few months as a member of the legal staff of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva. There, under a remarkable man, Sean MacBride, then Secretary-General and later a Nobel peace prize winner, I was initiated into the world of human rights law. Back in Ceylon, I found myself becoming increasingly involved in legal work on behalf of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which was then in Opposition (and consequently, in several political trials), and in the activities of the Bar Council to which I had been elected as representative of the junior bar and then as its secretary.

At the 1970 general election, I represented Mrs. Bandaranaike, the SLFP leader, as her counting agent. When, in the early hours of the morning, I reported back to her that she had won her seat by a comfortable majority, the other results made it clear that she would be the country’s next Prime Minister. Forty eight hours later, she invited me to accept office as Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Justice, a position hitherto held by senior judges. It was a difficult decision to make. It meant abandoning the Bar where I was not only very happy, but also well settled. Finally, with an assurance from the Prime Minister that what she expected of me was a programme of radical law reform, and that I would have a completely free hand, I accepted the challenge.

The Secretary for Justice was the head of the Ministry of Justice, the Minister being a member of parliament and not necessarily a lawyer. The departments under the Ministry, which the Secretary was required to supervise, included those of the Attorney General, Legal Draftsman, Public Trustee, Government Analyst, Bribery Commissioner, Commissioner of Prisons, the Law Commission, the Courts and the Conciliation Boards. The heads of these departments, as well as my assistant secretaries, were all much older than I, and were all males. The latter deficiency was soon rectified by the appointment of a woman barrister as the secretary of the Law Commission. Once more, the unexpected happened. Following the sudden death of the Attorney General, I was required to leave my one-week-old job and move to another. On my 33rd birthday, I took my oath of office as Attorney General.

I spent seven eventful, exciting, tension-filled years in the Ministry of Justice. In a sense, they were years of achievement: the drafting of a new constitution that brought into being the Republic of Sri Lanka; the abolition of the right of appeal to the Privy Council and the establishment in Sri Lanka of a Court of Final Appeal; a new courts structure, including a Constitutional Court for the reviewing of bills; new criminal, civil and appellate procedure laws; the transition from English to Sinhala and Tamil also as the languages of the original courts; the fusion of the two branches of the legal profession; and the expansion of the concept of conciliation.

In another sense, they were also years of recrimination: a highly publicized encounter with the Supreme Court which culminated in my being ordered by the Chief Justice to leave the Bar Table at a ceremonial sitting of the court; a prolonged conflict with the Bar which could not understand why one of its “own” would want to change so radically the life-style of the profession, and even threaten to introduce “barefoot lawyers”, and suggest the control of fees; and an insurrection that filled the prisons (and two universities which were converted into prisons) with 18,000 idealistic young men and women who believed that they could take control of the government by the simple device of attacking all the police stations in the country in one night.

This latter enterprise resulted in my being designated under the Public Security Ordinance as “competent authority” for the release of detainees – an exercise that was extended over four years, much to the indignation of Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists and other human rights activist groups in many of which I was a member.

While functioning as Justice Secretary, I was also called upon to represent my country at the United Nations and in regional and international organizations, notably, the Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee, and the UN Congress on Crime. The UN was once described by U Thant as “an institution which enables a government of a member state to carry on a simultaneous conversation with the rest of the world”. Its General Assembly sessions always provided a touch of drama.

There were showers of chrysanthemums from the public balconies when Salvador Allende arrived to make a memorable speech in which he almost predicted his impending untimely death. In contrast, screaming demonstrators jammed the streets of New York to protest against the invitation extended by the UN to PLO leader Yasser Arafat. At the UN my work was principally concerned with human rights, and I recall the occasion when we began drafting a convention on torture, several years before it was to reach fruition. While on a visit to the US Supreme Court, during a break from the UN, I had the privilege of being invited to tea by that legendary libertarian activist, Mr. Justice William O. Douglas, then well into his seventies, but who had only recently married his young vivacious law clerk.

At a conference held in Colombo of Non-Aligned States, I was serving in the chairperson’s secretariat. It was an exciting week when out of the cover pages of TIME and NEWSWEEK there stepped out into real life exotic figures like Gaddafi of Libya, Sadat of Egypt, Assad of Syria, Makkarios of Cyprus, and Tito of Yugoslavia. My last assignment for the government was to have been as Ambassador to the Soviet Union; an assignment that I accepted and then declined for purely personal reasons: my daughter was barely two years old, and my wife was not willing to expose her to the sub-zero Moscow winter at that age.

Following the defeat of the Bandaranaike government at the 1977 general election, I resigned from my office in the hope of resuming my legal practice. The Bar, however, was unforgiving, and the new government was exceptionally vindictive. Therefore, in 1978, I accepted an offer from King’s College London of appointment as a Research Fellow for the purpose of researching the emerging international human rights law under Professor James Fawcett, then President of the European Commission of Human Rights. After three months in London, I returned home on a brief visit, only to find my passport being impounded on arrival. During the next one year. I was subjected to an inquiry by a special presidential commission on charges of “misuse and/or abuse of power” while serving the previous government, some of the charges being based on matters as hilarious as the Supreme Court “incident” and the proposal to introduce “barefoot lawyers”.

Others were more serious, and Queen’s Counsel who defended me described the proceedings as “a campaign of calumny”. Following the report, Parliament passed a law imposing “civic disabilities” on me for a period of seven years. A few months later, Mrs. Bandaranaike and another former minister (the brother of “Dias” on Jurisprudence) were each subjected to the same inquiry and the same penalty. It was a clever move by the new government to “eliminate” its political opponents, although why I was singled out for this dubious honour, I have yet to ascertain.

I returned to London in 1979 and resumed work on my research project at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Part of my research was incorporated in Paul Sieghart’s book on The International Law of Human Rights. The rest formed my thesis on “Human Rights: The Sri Lankan Experience, 1947-81”, for which the University of London awarded a PhD. My stay in London until the end of 1983, in the peaceful anonymity of academic life, was a most rewarding experience. It revived my interest in the study of law.

My first three months in London was spent in the home of an English judge, and there I had the pleasure of meeting two distinguished “men of the law”: Lord Denning and Sir Rupert Cross. I had several opportunities to undertake research into a variety of subjects, such as Commonwealth Constitutions and the Rights of Scientists, as well as the opportunity to work on the legal staff of the Commonwealth Secretariat, editing the Commonwealth Law Bulletin. The facilities for research in London, particularly at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, were extraordinarily rich; and some of the law teachers at the University of London were the finest I had ever encountered.

1984 saw me back in Colombo as Associate Director of the Marga Institute (the Sri Lanka Centre for Development Studies), a non-governmental, multi-disciplinary research institute, whose law division I headed. The atmosphere in the country, and at the Bar where I resumed practice, was now quite different from what it had been in the late 1970s, with the government rapidly losing its popularity. And then in July, while on a mission to Geneva, I received a telex from HKU offering me an appointment in the law faculty. I had entirely forgotten about my application submitted in the previous year from London, and which had until then evoked only a formal acknowledgment. We were finally settled in our home; my wife had resumed her work at the university; and our two daughters were back in their old school.

But the lure of Hong Kong was perhaps too difficult to resist. I had been there several times as a tourist in transit and found the territory an interesting blend of the east and the west. The Joint Declaration had just been signed and, from a constitutional lawyer’s perspective, the next decade would potentially be most stimulating. And, I was presented with an opportunity to do something which I had never wanted to do, and which I had never done before. It was an exciting, challenging prospect in a new field of endeavour. So here I am, having made a new beginning on April Fool’s Day 1985.

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Features

Concept of living wage and cost of living

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) now defines a living wage as the wage level necessary for workers and their families to afford a decent standard of living, given national circumstances, for normal hours of work. This standard of living is operationalised through the cost of essential goods and services, typically including food, housing, healthcare, education, transport, and a modest allowance for contingencies and social participation.

In contrast, “cost of living” in economics is a broader price index concept that tracks the overall prices of a representative consumption basket but is not inherently normative about what constitutes decency or dignity.

Living wage methodologies effectively translate a cost-of-living basket, specified for a given family size and living standard, into a monthly income requirement for workers, thereby linking real wages to human development objectives rather than only to market productivity.

Methodologies for computing a living wage

Most contemporary living wage estimates follow a structured “cost of a basic but decent life” approach built around three steps: defining a reference family, costing a normative consumption basket, and converting that cost into a wage per worker.

The Anker methodology, widely used in global supply chains and in Sri Lanka, is a leading example: it defines a model family (e.g., 2 adults and approximately 2–3 children), estimates the cost of a low-cost nutritious diet, adequate housing, and non-food essentials, and then allocates that cost over expected number of full-time workers per family.

Within the Anker framework, the food component is based on locally appropriate diets meeting caloric and nutritional norms, priced using local market surveys and adjusted for waste and home preparation.

Housing costs are derived from standards for minimally acceptable housing (e.g., durable materials, sufficient space, basic services), using rents or imputed rental values from empirical fieldwork. Other essential expenditures, health, education, transport, clothing, and a small margin for unexpected events, are typically estimated as a percentage mark-up over food and housing costs, derived from national household survey data.

Finally, the methodology sets a reference number of workers per family, divides total family living costs by this number to get a net living wage, and then adjusts to a gross living wage by adding payroll taxes and mandatory deductions. Periodic updates are made using consumer price indices (CPIs) to reflect inflation or deflation and, where necessary, new field surveys to capture structural shifts in prices and consumption patterns.

Sri Lanka’s living wage estimates and their link to cost of living (Anker Methodology)

Sri Lanka has been the subject of several living wage studies, notably for the tea estate sector and for urban and rural areas, using the Anker methodology.

In the tea estate sector, an updated 2024 Anker report estimates the cost of a “basic but decent” standard of living for a typical family at about LKR 78,067 per month (approximately USD 260), implying a gross living wage of LKR 48,584 per month (USD 160) and a net, take-home living wage of LKR 44,357.

For urban Sri Lanka, the Anker Living Wage Reference Value was originally set at LKR 84,231 per month in April 2022, corresponding to a net living wage of LKR 77,492 plus social security contributions. After cumulative inflation of about 36.9 percent between April 2022 and June 2025, the updated gross urban living wage is estimated at approximately LKR 115,291 per month (around USD 385), consisting of a net living wage of LKR 106,068 and social security contributions of LKR 9,223

These Sri Lankan figures are explicitly derived from cost-of-living calculations: they incorporate the cost of food, housing, utilities, health, education, and other essentials at local prices and then convert these into wages per adult worker, assuming roughly 1.7–1.8 full-time earners per family. Because living wage estimates are indexed to actual price dynamics, periods of high inflation, as Sri Lanka experienced in 2022–2023, translate almost mechanically into sharp upward revisions in living wages, underlining the tight coupling between living wage levels and the evolving cost of living.

Comparative living wages: Sri Lanka and other countries

Cross-country comparisons require careful normalisation because living wages reflect local prices, family structures, and social norms, but several datasets provide a structured basis for comparison. [asia.floorwage](https://asia.floorwage.org/living-wage/calculating-a-living-wage/)

The Asia Floor Wage Alliance, for example, publishes a regional living wage benchmark expressed in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, with a 2024 benchmark of 1,750.54 PPP dollars per month converted into local currencies using country-specific PPP exchange rates.

Using this PPP-based approach, the 2024 living wage equivalent for Sri Lanka is estimated at around LKR 158,353 per month, assuming a PPP exchange rate of about 90.5 Sri Lankan rupees per PPP dollar.

This PPP-normalised figure is substantially higher than the Anker 2024–2025 estate-sector and urban living wage estimates in nominal rupees, partly because the Asia Floor Wage benchmark is set to ensure a more harmonised standard across Asian garment-producing economies and uses a single PPP wage target.

These figures indicate that, within this PPP-based framework, Sri Lanka’s living wage in local currency is relatively high compared to countries such as India and Bangladesh, but the comparison reflects both different PPP exchange rates and domestic price structures.

From a cost-of-living perspective, this pattern is consistent with Sri Lanka being a lower-middle-income country with relatively higher prices for some essentials compared with low-income South Asian economies, especially after recent macroeconomic and inflationary shocks.

Global patterns and high-income economies

Global datasets covering more than 200 countries show that typical-family living wage levels, whether calculated in PPP or nominal terms, tend to correlate positively with national income levels, with North America, Western Europe, and Australia displaying the highest living wage values.

In this global distribution, living wages in middle- and low-income regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America are lower in absolute terms, though the ratio of living wage to median wages or statutory minimum wages can be high, underscoring the gap between decent-work standards and prevailing labour market outcomes.

Interestingly, some studies note that rural living wage estimates can be relatively high in poorer countries because limited infrastructure and service availability raise the cost of accessing a given standard of living, such as safe water, transport, and education.

For Sri Lanka, rural Anker living wage benchmarks similarly reveal the importance of non-food costs, such as transportation to schools, health facilities, and workplaces, in shaping the total family budget, despite lower nominal rents in many rural areas.

Living wage, social policy, and Sri Lanka’s development trajectory

The emerging international consensus around a living wage is rooted in the human rights-based notion of a “decent life” rather than a subsistence minimum or an arbitrarily set statutory floor.

From a social science perspective, incorporating living wage benchmarks into wage-setting institutions, collective bargaining, and social dialogue reorients labour markets toward social reproduction, intergenerational mobility, and social cohesion, rather than merely cost competitiveness.

For Sri Lanka, where recent crises have eroded real wages and increased household vulnerability, living wage estimates such as the Anker urban and estate-sector benchmarks provide an analytically rigorous yardstick for evaluating whether current wage policies and social transfers are adequate relative to the actual cost of a basic but decent life.

Comparisons with regional PPP-based benchmarks like the Asia Floor Wage suggest that, while Sri Lanka’s living wage requirement in local currency is relatively high, the country also faces significant affordability challenges, especially for low-paid workers in export sectors and informal employment, whose earnings often fall short of these normative thresholds.

In policy terms, the living wage framework highlights the need for coordinated approaches that combine wage-setting reforms, inflation-sensitive social protection, and productivity-enhancing investments, so that rising living-cost-consistent wages do not simply translate into inflationary spirals or employment losses.

For empirical research in Sri Lanka, these benchmarks open avenues for micro-level analysis of wage gaps, household coping strategies, gendered labour outcomes, and the distributional effects of macroeconomic adjustment, all anchored to a transparent and internationally recognised living wage methodology.

(The writer, a senior Chartered Accountant and professional banker, is Professor at SLIIT, Malabe. The views and opinions expressed in this article are personal.)

Features

Buddhist philosophy and the path to lasting peace

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/29

Sahan Weerasooriya

Echoes of ‘The Walk for Peace’

The international Walk for Peace’ reaching Colombo, joined by a large number of monks and devotees, led by spiritual leader Ven Bhikku Pannakara, with the peace dog ‘Aloka,’ completing the 161 km journey.The walk commenced in Dambulla on April 22 following the main ceremony at the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura.Pic by Nishan S.Priyantha

by Ven. Dr. Kirinde Assaji Nayaka Thero
Chief Incumbent, Gangaramaya Temple, Hunupitiya, Colombo

Throughout human history, one of the greatest and most complex challenges has been the establishment of lasting peace and the maintenance of harmonious coexistence. While peace is often understood simply as the absence of war or armed conflict, a deeper, spiritual perspective reveals it as a profound state of social and mental harmony. It is an ideal that must be cultivated within individuals as well as across societies.

Buddhism offers one of the most practical and timeless philosophies of peace. The teachings of the Buddha are rooted in non-violence and the four sublime virtues—loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Central to this philosophy is the idea that true peace in the world begins with inner peace within the individual. Conflict, the Buddha taught, arises not on battlefields but within the human mind, driven by greed, hatred, and delusion. Without overcoming these negative forces, lasting peace in the external world remains unattainable.

In today’s world, marked by geopolitical tensions, economic competition, and social unrest—this inward approach to peace is more relevant than ever. Despite technological advancement, humanity continues to grapple with violence and division. The Buddha’s teaching points instead to an internal struggle: a battle against anger, jealousy, and ignorance. Rather than weapons of destruction, Buddhism promotes wisdom, compassion, patience, and discipline as the tools to overcome conflict.

The path to peace begins with understanding its causes. Just as muddy water becomes clear when left undisturbed, the human mind achieves clarity and calm when negative emotions are subdued. This principle is reflected in the Buddha’s intervention during a historic dispute between the Sakya and Koliya clans over water, where he reminded them of the greater value of human life, thereby preventing bloodshed.

In a world increasingly threatened by conflict over limited resources and political power, such lessons remain highly relevant. The Buddha also emphasised the principle of moral causation—actions have consequences.

Yadisaṃ vapate bijaṃ tadisaṃ harate phalaṃ
Kalyaāṇakariī kalyaṃ papakariī ca papakaṃ
Pavutthaṃ tata te bijaṃ phalaṃ paccanubhossasiti

“As one sows the seed, so does one reap the fruit.

The doer of good receives good results, and the doer of evil receives evil results.

Dear one, whatever seed you have planted, you will experience the corresponding fruit of it.”

At the heart of Buddhist ethics is respect for life. All beings fear harm and seek happiness, and therefore, violence against others cannot lead to true well-being. This message is particularly significant in an era where the race for power and advanced weaponry continues to overshadow compassion and humanity.

The fundamental moral discipline in Buddhism is respect for life and opposition to harming living beings. The Buddha taught that all beings desire happiness, and fear suffering, and that harming others will not lead to happiness.

Sabbe tasanti dandassa
sabbe bhayanti maccuno
attanam upamam katva
na haneyya na ghataye.

“All tremble at violence; all fear death. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither kill nor cause others to kill.”

Despite technological advancement, the world appears to be moving backwards in terms of compassion and peace. Power-driven politics and the race for advanced weaponry cannot provide lasting solutions. Global leaders, diplomats, and policymakers must urgently recognise the importance of the tolerant, balanced, and non-violent approach taught in Buddhism. Protecting the right to life of all beings, and acting with compassion beyond divisions of race, religion, or politics, is the only true foundation for world peace.

Sri Lanka, as a nation nourished by the essence of Buddhism, has long upheld this principle. The Sri Lankan tradition, rooted in boundless loving-kindness and compassion, strives to uphold human values even amidst the harsh realities of global politics. From the respect shown by King Dutugemunu towards King Elara, to Sri Lanka’s stance at the 1951 San Francisco Peace Conference invoking the words “Hatred is never appeased by hatred,” to recent humanitarian acts in rescuing sailors in distress—these all reflect a single philosophy: valuing human life above all divisions.

The presentation of a “Joint Declaration for Peace” by the Mahanayake Theros at Gangaramaya Temple recently reaffirmed Sri Lanka’s commitment to global peace. Despite global power struggles, Sri Lanka continues to stand as a symbol of compassion and peace, reminding the world that human kindness is more powerful than weapons.

Institutions such as the Gangaramaya Temple have played a vital role in fostering social harmony. Through charitable, educational, and cultural programmes, the temple has encouraged unity across religious and ethnic lines, while also promoting interfaith dialogue and cooperation.

The annual Navam Maha Perahera, organised by the temple, stands as a powerful symbol of national unity, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds in a shared celebration. Similarly, vocational training and educational initiatives have helped empower young people from all communities, strengthening social cohesion.

A recent “Walk for Peace,” led by Venerable Pannakara Thero and supported by the monastic community, further underscored this commitment. More than a physical journey, it represented a spiritual effort to cultivate peace within the human heart and spread a message of compassion to the wider world.

One of the most touching aspects of the event was the participation of a dog named “Aloka,” which accompanied the monks throughout the journey. This simple yet powerful image reflected the Buddhist teaching that all living beings value life and deserve compassion, highlighting the universal nature of peace.

Ultimately, the Buddha’s message remains clear: peace cannot be achieved through hatred or violence. True peace arises from self-discipline, moral conduct, and the cultivation of a pure mind. As the teaching states, avoiding evil, doing good, and purifying one’s mind is the path laid down by the Buddha.

Let us plant the seeds of peace within our hearts and nurture them with loving-kindness. (“Sabba papassa akarananṃ – kusalassa upasampadā – sacitta pariyodapanaṃ – etaṃ Buddhana sasanaṃ”)

In a time when global tensions continue to rise, this timeless message serves as a powerful reminder that lasting peace begins within each individual—and that compassion remains humanity’s greatest strength.

“Devo vassatu kalena – sassa sampatti hetu ca
Pito bhavatu loko ca – rajaā bhavatu dhammiko”

(“May the rains fall at the right time, bringing about abundant harvests.

May the world be joyful and prosperous.

May the ruler be righteous and just.”)

Features

Peace march and promise of reconciliation

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Peace walk in progress

The ongoing peace march by a group of international Buddhist monks has captured the sentiment of Sri Lankans in a manner that few public events have done in recent times. It is led by the Vietnamese monk Venerable Thich Pannakara who is associated with a mindfulness movement that has roots in Vietnamese Buddhist practice and actively promoted among diaspora communities in the United States. The peace march by the monks, accompanied by their mascot, the dog Aloka, has generated affection and goodwill within the Buddhist and larger community. It follows earlier peace walks in the United States where monks carried a similar message of mindfulness and compassion across communities but without any government or even media patronage as in Sri Lanka.

This initiative has the potential to unfold into an effort to nurture a culture of peace in Sri Lanka. Such a culture is necessary if the country as the country prepares to move beyond its history of conflict towards a more longlasting reconciliation and a political solution to its ethnic and religious divisions. The government’s support for the peace march can be seen as part of a broader attempt to shape such a culture. The Clean Sri Lanka programme, promoted by the government as a civic responsibility campaign focused on environmental cleanliness, ethical conduct and social discipline, provides a useful framework within which such initiatives can be situated. Its emphasis on collective responsibility and shared public space makes it sit well with the values that peacebuilding requires.

government’s previous plan to promote a culture of peace was on the occasion of “Sri Lanka Day” celebrations which were scheduled to take place on December 12-14 last year but was disrupted by Cyclone Ditwah. The Sri Lanka Day celebrations were to include those talented individuals from each and every community at the district level who had excelled in some field or the other, such as science, business or arts and culture and selected by the District Secretariats in each of the 25 districts. They were to gather in Colombo to engage in cultural performances and community-focused exhibitions. The government’s intention was to build up a discourse around the ideas of unity in diversity as a precursor to addressing the more contentious topics of human rights violations during the war period, and issues of accountability and reparations for wrongs suffered during that dark period.

Positive Response

The invitation to the international monks appears to have emerged from within Buddhist religious networks in Sri Lanka that have long maintained links with the larger international Buddhist community. The strong support extended by leading temples and clergy within the country, including the Buddhists Mahanayakes indicates that this was not an isolated effort but one that resonated with the mainstream Buddhist establishment. Indeed, the involvement of senior Buddhist leaders has been particularly noteworthy. A Joint Declaration for Peace in the world, drawing on Sri Lanka’s own experience, and by the Mahanayakes of all Buddhist Chapters took place in the context of the ongoing peace march at the Gangaramaya Temple in Colombo, with participation from the diplomatic community. The declaration, calling for compassion, dialogue and sustainable peace, reflects an effort by religious leadership to assert a moral voice in favour of coexistence.

The popular response to the peace march has also been striking. Large numbers of people have been gathering along the route, offering flowers, water and support to the monks. Schoolchildren have been lining the roads, and communities from different religious backgrounds extend hospitality. On the way, the monks were hosted by both a Hindu temple and a mosque, where food and refreshments were provided. These acts, though simple, carry a message about the possibility of harmony among Sri Lanka’s diverse communities. It helps to counter the perception that the Buddhist community in Sri Lanka is inherently nationalist and resistant to minority concerns that was shaped during the decades of war and reinforced by political mobilisation that too often exploited ethnic identity.

By way of contrast, the peace march offers a different image. It shows a readiness among ordinary people to embrace values of compassion and coexistence that are deeply embedded in Buddhist teaching. The Metta Sutta, one of the most well-known discourses in Buddhism, calls for boundless goodwill towards all beings. It states that one should cultivate a mind that is “boundless towards all beings, free from hatred and ill will.” This emphasis on universal compassion provides a moral foundation for peace that extends beyond national or ethnic boundaries. The monks themselves emphasised this point repeatedly during the walk. Venerable Thich Pannakara reminded those who gathered that while acts of generosity are commendable, mindfulness in everyday life is even more important. He warned that as people become unmindful, they are more prone to react with anger and hatred, thereby contributing to conflict.

More Initiatives

The presence of political leaders at key moments of the march has emphasised the significance that the government attaches to the event. Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya paid her respects to the peace march monks in Kandy, while President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is expected to do so at the conclusion of the march in Colombo. Such gestures signal an alignment between political authority and moral aspiration, even if the translation of that aspiration into policy remains a work in progress. At the same time, the peace march has not been without its shortcomings. The walk did not engage with the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, regions that were most affected by the war and where the need for reconciliation is most acute. A more inclusive geographic reach would have strengthened the symbolic impact of the initiative.

In addition, the positive impact of the peace march could have been increased if more effort had been taken to coordinate better with other civic and religious groups and include them in the event. Many civil society and religious harmony groups who would have liked to participate in the peace march found themselves unable to do so. There was no place in the programme for them to join. Even government institutions tasked with promoting social cohesion and reconciliation found themselves outside the loop. The Clean Sri Lanka Task Force that organised the peace march may have felt that involving other groups would have made it more complicated to organise the events which have proceeded without problems.

The hope is that the positive energy and goodwill generated by this peace march will not dissipate but will instead inspire further initiatives with the requisite coordination and leadership. The march has generated public discussion, drawn attention to the values of mindfulness and compassion, and created a space in which people can imagine a different future. It has been a special initiative among the many that are needed to build a culture of peace. A culture of peace cannot be imposed from above nor can it emerge overnight. It needs to be nurtured through multiple efforts across society, including education, religious engagement, civic initiatives and political reform. It is within such a culture that the more difficult questions of power sharing, justice and reconciliation can be addressed in a constructive manner.

by Jehan Perera