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Prof. Ranjith Senaratne, Emeritus Professor in Crop Science and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Ruhuna and General President of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (2023) and Prof. Prasad Jayaweera, Dean, Faculty of Computing, University of Sri Jayawardenapura
Rice is not merely another crop in Sri Lanka. It is our staple food, an integral part of our history and culture, and a foundation of the civilisation that flourished around our ancient hydraulic systems. Revered as Buddha Bhogaya, the Buddha’s crop, rice has sustained our people for more than two millennia. Yet, remarkably, a country with such a profound relationship with rice continues to lurch from one rice crisis to another.
At one time, we have a surplus. At another, we face shortages. Prices rise sharply, consumers complain, farmers struggle to obtain remunerative prices, millers and traders become the focus of public attention, imports are hurriedly arranged, and governments announce yet another set of measures to contain the crisis. Then, after the immediate problem subsides, the matter recedes from the national agenda, until the next crisis arrives.
Why does this keep happening despite decades of agricultural research, policy interventions, expert committees and public debate?
Perhaps because we have been asking the wrong question. The fundamental problem is not simply how to produce more rice. Nor is it merely a question of prices, imports, fertiliser, farmers, millers or markets. The rice conundrum is a complex national systems problem.
We cannot solve a system by fixing its parts in isolation
Sri Lanka’s rice sector is an intricate web of interconnected systems involving agriculture, land, water, climate, technology, finance, energy, transport, markets, trade, governance, institutions and consumer behaviour. A decision made in one part of this system can have consequences, sometimes unintended, in another.
A change in fertiliser policy, for example, can affect productivity and production costs, which in turn influence farmer profitability, market prices and the need for imports. Irrigation decisions affect not only production, but also water availability, energy use and environmental sustainability. Guaranteed prices influence farmers’ cropping decisions, while import policies can simultaneously protect consumers and weaken incentives for domestic production. Likewise, market concentration can affect both the price received by farmers and the price paid by consumers. This is precisely why isolated interventions so often produce disappointing results. We keep treating symptoms while leaving the underlying system largely untouched.
For decades, we have generated valuable scientific knowledge on individual aspects of rice production and marketing. But knowledge generated within disciplinary and institutional silos does not automatically translate into solutions to complex real-world problems. What is needed now is a fundamentally different way of thinking.
From a “rice crop” to a “rice system”
The first step is to stop looking at rice simply as something that is grown in a paddy field.
The rice system begins with land, water, seed, inputs, technology and finance. It extends through cultivation, harvesting, drying, milling, storage, transport, wholesale and retail marketing, and finally to the consumer’s table. At every stage, there are different interests, incentives, constraints and actors: farmers, farmer organisations, input suppliers, machinery operators, millers, traders, wholesalers, retailers, financial institutions, government agencies, researchers and consumers.
And hovering over the entire system are climate change, changing consumer preferences, technological transformation and national economic conditions. A weakness anywhere in this chain can compromise the performance of the whole system.
Consider post-harvest losses. If significant quantities of rice are lost because of inadequate drying, storage or processing facilities, increasing production alone cannot solve the problem. Similarly, if farmers produce efficiently but face weak markets and poor bargaining power, productivity gains may not translate into improved livelihoods.
The question, therefore, should not be “How much rice can we produce?” but “How can we make the entire rice system work better?”
That requires us to see the connections.
The missing ingredient: reliable, real-time information
There is another fundamental weakness that deserves urgent attention: we still lack a comprehensive, integrated, interoperable and reliable national information system for rice. Information is scattered among different institutions, often collected using different methodologies and not necessarily available when decisions need to be made.
How much rice will actually be produced? How much is in storage? What is the likely demand? Where are the emerging production shortfalls? What are the stocks held by different actors? How are prices moving along the value chain? What are the likely consequences of climate conditions? Without timely and reliable answers to such questions, policymakers are forced to make critical decisions with incomplete information. This is not merely an administrative inconvenience. It is a national food-security vulnerability.
Sri Lanka should therefore seriously consider establishing a National Rice Intelligence and Decision Support System (NRIDSS), an integrated digital platform that brings together relevant real-time information from agriculture, meteorology, irrigation, markets, trade, statistics and other institutions. Such a system could support production forecasting, market monitoring, import decisions, early warning and evidence-based policy formulation. In an increasingly uncertain climate and volatile global economy, this should no longer be regarded as a luxury. It is becoming an essential component of national food-system governance.
The deeper problems cannot be ignored
A systems approach would also force us to confront some uncomfortable structural realities. Why does productivity remain relatively low despite decades of research? Why are so many holdings too small to achieve economies of scale? Why are modern technologies and precision agriculture not being adopted more rapidly? Why do farmers often have limited bargaining power? Why do substantial losses occur after harvesting? Why can market power become concentrated in a relatively small number of actors? Why are guaranteed prices sometimes announced too late to influence farmers’ production decisions? Why are policy interventions so often reactive rather than proactive? And how will droughts, floods, temperature extremes, changing rainfall patterns and emerging pests affect the stability of rice production in the years ahead? These are not separate questions. They are parts of the same system.
From crisis management to systems governance
Sri Lanka does not need another isolated discussion about rice. What is needed is a national policy dialogue and action forum that brings all relevant actors together, not merely to exchange speeches, but to develop a shared understanding of the system and agree on what needs to be done. Such collaboration must go beyond consultation or the exchange of views. The different parties need to work together from problem definition through to implementation , bringing their diverse knowledge, perspectives, interests and practical experience into a common process.
Farmers bring contextual and experiential knowledge; industry actors understand market realities and operational constraints; scientists contribute evidence and analytical capabilities; policymakers bring institutional and regulatory perspectives; while technology and data specialists can provide new tools for understanding and managing the system. When these different perspectives are brought together systematically, they can reveal interdependencies, challenge assumptions, identify feasible interventions and generate solutions that are evidence-based, practically implementable and socially acceptable.
This is the essence of a transdisciplinary systems approach : not simply working across disciplines, but bringing together multiple stakeholders and multiple forms of knowledge to co-create solutions and share responsibility for outcomes . The process should therefore go beyond presentations and speeches. It should involve systems mapping, causal analysis, stakeholder dialogue, scenario planning and the participatory identification of the critical bottlenecks and leverage points in the rice system. Most importantly, it should distinguish between what is urgent and what is important , and between interventions that merely alleviate symptoms and those capable of changing the underlying behaviour of the system itself.
We need an implementation roadmap, not another report
There is, however, one important caveat. Sri Lanka has no shortage of reports, recommendations and policy documents. What we often lack is sustained implementation. Any national initiative on the rice conundrum must therefore end not with another set of broad recommendations but with a prioritised national action roadmap . It should identify short-, medium- and long-term actions, assign institutional responsibilities, establish timelines and define measurable indicators of progress. The ultimate objective should be to move Sri Lanka from reactive crisis management to proactive systems governance .
The rice conundrum may, in fact, provide Sri Lanka with an opportunity that extends well beyond rice to deal with other important crops. If we can demonstrate that a complex national problem can be addressed by bringing together science, policy, stakeholder knowledge, real-time information and systems thinking, the approach could become a model for addressing other persistent challenges, from climate resilience and water security to energy, food systems and disaster risk.
The choice before us is therefore quite stark. We can continue responding to each rice crisis as it emerges, adjusting prices, arranging imports, appealing to millers, reassuring consumers and supporting farmers, only to repeat the cycle later. Or we can step back and ask a more fundamental question:
What is it about the way our rice system is structured and governed that continually produces these crises?
That is the question that needs to be answered. Sri Lanka has the scientific expertise, institutional capacity and stakeholder knowledge required to do so. What is needed now is the willingness to bring these fragmented sources of knowledge together and examine the rice sector as one interconnected system.
Our ancient civilisation understood the importance of interconnectedness: land, water, agriculture and society were organised as parts of a larger whole. Perhaps, in confronting the modern rice conundrum, we need to rediscover that systems wisdom, this time supported by modern science, technology, real-time data and transdisciplinary thinking. The time has come to stop merely managing the rice crisis. It is time to fix the system that keeps producing it.
It is against this backdrop that the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS) proposes to convene shortly a “National Policy Dialogue and Action Forum on the Rice Conundrum in Sri Lanka” , bringing together the key stakeholders across the rice system. The Forum is intended to provide a platform for moving beyond piecemeal and reactive interventions towards a coordinated, evidence-based and transdisciplinary systems approach, one capable of generating lasting and pragmatic solutions to what has become an “island-shaking national issue” .
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Public emotion, public conscience and institutional responsibility
Kawantissa’s death has already prompted several official responses.
Investigations are under way, an expert committee has commenced its work, and the Government has announced arrangements involving the security forces for the protection and surveillance of 13 prominent wild tuskers.
These developments deserve to be recognised. They demonstrate that the public concern surrounding Kawantissa’s death has attracted the attention of the highest levels of government.
Their eventual effectiveness, however, cannot yet be assessed. An announcement is an expression of intention.
An investigation is a process of establishing facts. Neither, by itself, constitutes an outcome. This distinction is central to understanding the relationship between public emotion and institutional responsibility.
A nation may mourn an animal sincerely without fully examining the circumstances of its death. It may initiate investigations without yet knowing what those investigations will establish.
It may announce measures whose eventual significance can be determined only through experience. Public emotion, public conscience and institutional accountability are closely related, but they are not interchangeable.
The first reflects how deeply an event affects us. The second concerns what that event compels us to recognise. The third concerns whether those entrusted with responsibility can demonstrate how that responsibility has been discharged.
Panamure provides a remarkable historical example of how public emotion can develop into a wider change in social attitudes. But the challenge facing Sri Lanka today is more complicated.
In 1950, public concern was directed towards an established practice that had become increasingly difficult to defend. In 2026, the questions concern the performance of institutions operating within a conservation framework that society already considers necessary and legitimate.
It is relatively straightforward to condemn a practice that history has rejected. It is considerably more difficult to examine the effectiveness of institutions whose purpose we support and whose personnel may be working with considerable dedication.
Yet the maturity of a society can be judged, in part, by its willingness to make precisely that distinction.
Respect for an institution should never be confused with the assumption that the institution is beyond scrutiny. Nor should legitimate scrutiny be mistaken for hostility towards those who serve within it.
The elephants we mourn and the elephants we never knew
There is another dimension to Kawantissa’s death that deserves reflection.
Why does the death of one famous tusker provoke such extraordinary public emotion when the deaths of many other elephants receive comparatively little attention? The answer is understandable.
Kawantissa had an identity familiar to thousands of people. His appearance, size and remarkable tusks made him recognisable. Photographs and personal encounters established an emotional connection that anonymous animals rarely enjoy.
Such connections are important. Individual animals can bring the wider significance of wildlife conservation into public consciousness in ways that statistics and scientific reports sometimes cannot.
Yet there is a danger in allowing our emotional response to be determined principally by an animal’s fame or physical magnificence.
Every year, elephants die without becoming national news. Some are females raising calves. Others are young males navigating increasingly fragmented habitats. Some are ageing animals that have survived for decades without attracting the attention of photographers or the public.
Their lives do not become less valuable because they lack magnificent tusks or memorable names. Nor should the suffering of communities affected by elephants disappear from our understanding of conservation.
For many rural families, the presence of wild elephants is accompanied by genuine fear, economic hardship and sometimes devastating personal loss.
A farmer whose harvest has been destroyed, or a family that has lost a loved one in an encounter with an elephant, experiences this shared landscape very differently from a wildlife enthusiast admiring a magnificent tusker.
Both experiences are part of Sri Lanka’s conservation reality.
The protection of elephants and the safety and wellbeing of people cannot be considered separate moral concerns.
They are inseparable dimensions of a relationship shaped by history, land use, development and the changing circumstances of both humans and wildlife.
Kawantissa’s death is particularly powerful because one recognisable animal has brought a much larger and more complex national reality into public view.
But that reality will remain long after the immediate public grief has subsided.
Seventy-six years after his death, Panamure Eth Raja remains an enduring presence in Sri Lanka’s cultural memory.
His story has inspired songs, artistic representations, commemorations and generations of retelling.
The details have sometimes become blurred by folklore, but the emotional significance has survived.
Yet the real importance of Panamure extends beyond remembrance.
His death became associated with the end of an established practice. That is why the story continues to matter.
Kawantissa, too, may become an enduring national symbol.
His magnificent image has already been preserved in countless photographs. His life and death have attracted widespread attention. Tributes and commemorations have expressed the depth of public affection for him.
But there is an important difference between preserving the memory of an animal and understanding the historical significance of its loss.
A monument preserves remembrance. A photograph preserves appearance. A story preserves emotion. None of these, by itself, establishes that society has learnt anything from the circumstances of an animal’s death.
The true legacy of an event is often determined not by the intensity of the response it provokes at the time, but by what future generations can identify as having changed because of it. This does not diminish the sincerity of public grief.
It places that grief within a larger historical perspective.
What makes Panamure remarkable is not simply that the country loved an elephant who died.
It is that the event became part of a wider transformation in how society viewed the capture of wild elephants.
The question is whether Kawantissa’s death will acquire a similarly meaningful place in our conservation history.
At present, that question remains unanswered.
Future generations may look back upon 1950 as a turning point in Sri Lanka’s relationship with wild elephants.
They may recognise the death of Panamure Eth Raja as an event that helped bring a long-established practice to an end.
They may also look back upon October 2026 and examine the circumstances surrounding the death of Kawantissa.
But their assessment will extend beyond the two elephants.
They will encounter the history of a country that moved from colonial-era practices of elephant capture to a modern system of wildlife conservation.
They will see the establishment of scientific institutions, protected areas, legislation and professional services.
They will recognise the enormous advances in understanding elephant ecology and behaviour.
They will also confront the continuing record of elephant deaths, human-elephant conflict and the difficult relationship between conservation responsibilities and development.
And they may ask a question that is even more uncomfortable than the one we are asking today.
Did Sri Lanka’s commitment to protecting wildlife evolve as rapidly as its knowledge of wildlife?
Perhaps the most important lesson of Panamure is not that the public once became outraged by the death of an elephant.
It is that society became willing to reconsider something it had previously accepted.
That willingness to question established assumptions is fundamental to genuine progress. In 1950, the question concerned the morality of capturing wild elephants.
In 2026, it concerns the effectiveness of the institutions entrusted with their protection.
It also reveals why the death of Kawantissa deserves to be considered within a much larger historical context.
We cannot bring back Panamure Eth Raja. We cannot bring back Kawantissa.
Nor can we assume that every tragedy has a simple explanation or that every death could have been prevented.
But history gives us the opportunity to judge the distance between what a society claims to value and what its actions and institutions actually achieve.
Seventy-six years ago, an elephant died and an established practice came to an end.
Today, another extraordinary elephant is gone, in a country possessing far greater scientific knowledge, stronger institutions and technologies unimaginable to the generation that witnessed Panamure.
Have we mistaken the existence of conservation institutions for evidence that conservation is succeeding?
That is the uncomfortable question connecting these two tragedies.
Panamure Eth Raja became part of history because his death helped change a nation’s attitude towards wild elephants.
Kawantissa has now become part of that same history.
Whether his death will also mark a meaningful turning point remains to be seen.
Ultimately, history will not judge Sri Lanka by how deeply it mourned these magnificent animals, but by how far it progressed in understanding and fulfilling its responsibility towards those still living. (Concluded)
Author: Dilum Alagiyawanna is a telecommunications engineer turned environmental and wildlife conservationist, citizen scientist and wildlife documentary filmmaker. His work bridges science, public policy and sustainable development, with particular emphasis on the long-term conservation of Sri Lanka’s elephants and other threatened species.
A surplus built on unbuilt roads is not a fiscal achievement. It is a postponement.
In September, the headlines were cheerful. Sri Lanka’s government posted an overall Budget surplus of Rs 9.5 billion for the first half of 2026, against a deficit of Rs 405.6 billion a year earlier. For a country that defaulted barely four years ago, the word “surplus” carries almost magical weight.
The magic lasted one month. In July alone the government ran a deficit of Rs 119 billion, wiping out the half-year gain. By end-July the cumulative position was a deficit of Rs 109.7 billion. That is still far better than the Rs 556 billion deficit of January–July 2025, and credit is due. But the surplus, as a description of where we stand, is already history.
With the 2027 Budget about to be presented, and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake having pledged tax relief, it is worth asking what that surplus was actually made of.
The first engine was revenue. Tax collections in the first half rose 25.9% to Rs 2,710.6 billion, already 55.2% of the annual target. A good part of this came from the reopening of vehicle imports, a one-time release of years of pent-up demand. Vehicle taxes are a windfall, not a tax base. Once the backlog is cleared and the rupee weakens further (it has lost over 6% against the dollar this year), that stream will slow.
The second engine was not spending. Capital expenditure and net lending in the first half amounted to Rs 276.6 billion, just 16.1% of the full-year allocation of Rs 1,719 billion. Total expenditure reached only 39% of the annual estimate. Officials blame delays in post-cyclone rehabilitation and projects stuck at the design and bidding stages.
Notice what did not drive the improvement. Interest costs fell only 2.4%. Public sector salaries rose 12%. There was no structural reform of recurrent spending. Put simply, the surplus came from collecting more than expected and building less than promised.
In the accounts, an unspent rupee looks like discipline. In the economy it looks like a bridge not rebuilt after the cyclone, an irrigation channel still silted up, a rural school still waiting for its roof. These costs do not appear on any fiscal table, but they appear in output, in productivity and eventually in tax revenue.
Bankers know this distinction well. A company that reports higher profits by cutting maintenance and deferring investment has not become healthier; it has borrowed from its own future. Credit analysts adjust for it. Fiscal analysts should too.
There is also a political-economy trap. A government that meets its targets by under-executing capital spending learns that the capital budget is the easiest lever to pull. Do that year after year and public investment becomes the permanent shock absorber of fiscal policy. That is the opposite of what a recovering economy with public debt still at 88.8% of GDP needs. Debt is reduced sustainably by growing the denominator, not only by starving it.
Sri Lanka is not alone in this. Across South Asia, governments under pressure from creditors and the IMF have discovered the same shortcut: the quickest way to a better fiscal number is to spend less on building things. (See Table 01)
Pakistan’s record deficit is the closest parallel. Islamabad has been praised by rating agencies for fiscal discipline, yet its growth remains sluggish and its development programme has repeatedly been pared back to meet fiscal targets. Bangladesh, with one of the lowest revenue ratios in the world, narrowed its deficit largely because money budgeted was not disbursed. Nepal is the cautionary tale in its starkest form: year after year it collects most of its revenue but spends less than half its development budget, and the country’s infrastructure deficit has become structural.
India is the outlier. New Delhi has chosen to consolidate gradually, bringing its deficit down a few decimal points a year, while protecting and expanding public capital spending as the engine of growth. Its deficit is not small, but its public investment is large, sustained and visible. The lesson is not that India is right and the rest are wrong; India has a deeper domestic bond market and far more fiscal room. The lesson is about sequencing. Consolidation that protects investment compounds into growth. Consolidation that sacrifices investment compounds into the next crisis.
Sri Lanka’s half-year numbers place it firmly in the first group: the Pakistan-Bangladesh-Nepal pattern of looking good on paper by building less on the ground.
Tax relief: can the arithmetic hold?
The President has promised tax relief in the 2027 Budget while protecting revenue targets. Both can be true only if this year’s revenue surge proves durable. The Institute of Policy Studies has already warned that Sri Lanka has little room for either tax hikes or tax cuts, and the IMF programme still hinges on revenue reaching about 15% of GDP.
The risk is a familiar one. A temporary windfall from vehicle imports is used to justify a permanent cut in rates. When the windfall fades, the revenue gap reopens, and the adjustment falls once again on capital spending, the one item no one defends loudly. Sri Lanka has been here before: the 2019 tax cuts, made in the name of stimulus, preceded the collapse.
So the question for the Budget is not whether relief is desirable. It is whether relief is funded by something permanent.
Set a minimum execution floor, say 70% of the allocation, and require the Treasury to explain any shortfall to Parliament. A surplus achieved below that floor should be reported as such.
* Publish a quarterly execution scorecard.
Allocation, disbursement and physical progress by ministry and by major project. What gets measured in public gets built.
* Treat the vehicle-tax windfall as temporary.
Park it in debt reduction or a capital fund, not in permanent rate cuts. Permanent relief should be matched by permanent revenue.
Indexing PAYE thresholds for inflation, or reducing compliance costs for SMEs, delivers relief where it matters at a fraction of the cost of across-the-board rate cuts.
* Fix procurement before adding money.
If projects stall at design and bidding, a bigger allocation simply means a bigger underspend. Standard bidding documents, firm decision deadlines and a project-preparation facility would do more than another headline number.
A surplus is welcome. But the test of fiscal health is not the balance in June; it is whether the country is collecting sustainably and investing what it promised. On that test, 2026 is still a work in progress.
Our neighbours offer both the warning and the way out. Pakistan and Nepal show how easily a temporary squeeze on development spending becomes a permanent habit. India shows that a country can reduce its deficit and still build. Sri Lanka has done the hard part: it has restored revenue and regained a measure of credibility. The 2027 Budget is the moment to decide which path we follow. A government that has earned the right to say “surplus” should now earn the right to say “built”.
(Prof. C. A. Saliya, is a charted accountant, academic, researcher and former banker. He is the author of SAMAJA GAVESHAKAYA and Springer Publication DOING SOCIAL RESEARCH. He can be contacted at [email protected] . The views expressed in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the organisations with which he is affiliated.)
The government enjoys a two-thirds majority in Parliament and has a cohesive group of parliamentarians, making it difficult to challenge through parliamentary means. Its potential vulnerability lies elsewhere. Extra-parliamentary mobilisation could bring together political opponents, religious authorities and sections of the public in ways that parliamentary arithmetic alone cannot contain. Three proposed laws on the table, the legislation on Protecting the State from Terrorist Activities, the Prevention of Organised Crimes legislation, and the legislation on NGO Registration and Supervision are all directed at centralizing power in the state at the expense of the people’s rights and freedoms.
The unexpected challenge that the government had to face in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to revoke the presidential pardon given to the well-known Buddhist monk Ven. Galagodaatte Gnanasara would come as a warning about the extra-parliamentary methods that might be used to undermine it. The episode demonstrated that even a government with an overwhelming parliamentary majority is not immune to political pressures that can arise outside Parliament. Leaders who initially attempted to resist the political demands of the Buddhist clergy have often found themselves compelled to retreat or accommodate them when the opposition became too difficult to withstand. This may be one important factor in the emergence of three pieces of legislation intended to strengthen the coercive powers of the state.
The disrobing of Ven. Gnanasara by prison authorities prior to coming before the judiciary became a matter canvassed at the highest levels of the Buddhist clergy. What began as a dispute over the monk’s robe rapidly escalated into demands for a presidential pardon, accompanied by calls for President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to resign if he refused to grant one. Opposition political parties mobilised behind these demands, organising public marches and demonstrations in support of the monk. The political use of Buddhism and Sinhalese nationalism has been a feature of Sri Lanka’s modern political history. Few politicians seeking to capture or retain political power have dared to confront this phenomenon head-on.
The experience of Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike is instructive. Having reached an agreement with Tamil leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam in 1957 to address Tamil political grievances through regional councils and the devolution of certain powers, the prime minister came under intense opposition from Sinhala nationalist forces, including Buddhist monks. The protests contributed to his decision to abrogate the agreement. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s experience as both prime minister and president also illustrates the constraints under which political leaders have operated when attempting to advance reconciliation and power-sharing. His peace initiatives and efforts to negotiate a political settlement during his periods in office encountered determined opposition from Sinhala nationalist forces.
The government enjoys a two-thirds majority in Parliament and has a cohesive group of parliamentarians, making it difficult to challenge through parliamentary means. Its potential vulnerability lies elsewhere. Extra-parliamentary mobilisation could bring together political opponents, religious authorities and sections of the public in ways that parliamentary arithmetic alone cannot contain. Three proposed laws on the table, the legislation on Protecting the State from Terrorist Activities, the Prevention of Organised Crimes legislation, and the legislation on NGO Registration and Supervision are all directed at centralising power in the state at the expense of the people’s rights and freedoms. The government may believe that strengthening the powers available to the state will protect its democratic mandate against attempts to destabilise it through violence, organised criminal activity or other forms of extra-parliamentary pressure. There are reasons for a government to be concerned about these possibilities.
Sri Lanka has experienced political violence, terrorism and organised crime, while the mobilisation of communal sentiment has repeatedly undermined democratic institutions and efforts at national reconciliation. A government elected on a promise of system change has every reason to protect its mandate and ensure that the law is applied equally to all citizens. However, the means chosen to protect democracy can also undermine it. Laws that confer broad discretionary powers on the state may be used not only against those who engage in criminal activity but also against political opponents, peaceful protesters, civil society organisations and individuals who criticise the government. The distinction between protecting the state and protecting those who exercise power is crucial.
One area of particular vulnerability concerns the ethnic conflict that has plagued Sri Lanka since independence. It has divided the country’s people and, for a time, divided the country geographically, until it was reunited through military force. The end of the war did not resolve the underlying political grievances or remove the capacity of ethno-religious nationalism to generate hatred and fear. The government faces continuing pressure from the ethnic minority communities and the international community to make progress on controversial issues. These include the demilitarisation of the North and East, the return of land occupied by the military, whether legally or otherwise, and accountability for human rights violations, particularly during the war and at its conclusion. If these issues continue to be treated primarily as security concerns rather than as matters requiring political and institutional reform, the conditions that generated conflict will remain.
The government’s handling of the crisis surrounding Ven. Gnanasara offers an example of how such challenges might be addressed. It is noteworthy that the government has not compromised on the issue of a pardon to the convicted monk. At the same time, it compromised on the question of the robe, introducing rules under which members of the Buddhist clergy would not be disrobed without the authorisation of the relevant religious hierarchy. The dispute appears to have been brought to a peaceful conclusion through negotiations between the government and Buddhist monks, rather than through the use of the coercive power of the state. The government maintained its position on the judicial process while finding a way to resolve the immediate dispute through dialogue. This is the approach that the government may wish to pursue on other fronts if it is to achieve the system change for which it received such strong public support.
The government’s electoral mandate gives it an opportunity to address the problems that have weakened democratic governance, entrenched corruption and perpetuated ethnic divisions. The danger in the government passing the three proposed laws is that, once incorporated into the country’s legal framework, they may be used and abused by governments of different political persuasions. Even a government that introduces legislation with good intentions cannot guarantee how its successors will exercise the powers it creates. Nor can it assume that the institutions responsible for enforcing the law will always interpret those powers in ways that protect democratic freedoms. The Prevention of Terrorism Act provides a sobering precedent. Originally introduced as a temporary measure intended to remain in force for six months, it has endured for decades and remains part of Sri Lanka’s legal framework. Its history illustrates how exceptional powers, once granted to the state, can become entrenched even when the circumstances that originally justified them change. The promise that such powers will be exercised responsibly is not an adequate substitute for legal safeguards.
A government elected to transform the political system, and engage in system change, must be mindful that laws enacted to meet immediate political challenges can outlive the circumstances that prompted them. The ultimate test of system change is not simply whether a government can overcome its opponents. The real measure of its commitment to systemic change will be whether it can resist the temptation to acquire powers that it would not wish a future government to exercise against its own supporters. The government’s objective must not be to create a stronger state capable of suppressing dissent so that it can remain in power. Instead, the government must set its sights on bringing to being a more democratic and accountable state. The state that Sri Lanka needs is one that commands the confidence of all its citizens, protects their rights equally and provides peaceful means of addressing their differences.
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