By Rohana R. Wasala

Continued from Friday, July 25, 2025

One is tempted to ask whether it is on purpose that president Anura Kumara Dissanayake has given the portfolio of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to Hiniduma Sunil Senevi who is alleged to come from a non-Buddhist background, instead of to a more acceptable MP with the requisite qualifications for the job, chosen from his massive parliamentary majority. This impression was reinforced in me when I heard the news that SJB MP Dayasiri Jayasekera speaking in parliament during a heated exchange on July 22 made an improptu reference to Sunil Senevi’s deputy Gamagedara Dissanayake of the NPP, also present in parliament at that time, identifying him as the Buddhist monk who threatened the lay custodian of the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy, the Diyawadana Nilame, by holding a kris knife to his neck when a group of JVP cadres attacked the foremost Buddhist shrine on February 8, 1989. MP Dayasiri Jayasekera was refuting the claim that no records pertaining to that attack exist, made by the Minister for Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Ananda Wijepala in reply to a question earlier put to him by another  SJB MP, Rohini Kavirathne. YouTuber Abheetha Edirisinghe (SL Leaders), on July 23, 2025, revealed more information about the Deputy Minister for Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs: Gamagedara Dissanayake was in robes then as a monk known as Thibbotuwawe Gnanarathana of Deepaduttaramaya of Doragamuwa, Wattegama, Pathadumbara. It’s not known whether he still remains a Buddhist or not..

By appointing such characters to be in charge of Buddha Sasana affairs, is president Anura Kumara Dissanayake flaunting his secularistic nonchalance towards the pivotal Article 9? Not likely, in my opinion. Having been in continuous parliamentary politics for twenty-five years, thanks exclusively to the support that the voters, the majority of whom are Sinhalese Buddhists, have extended to him to date, he would be the last to cock a snook at the place of special recognition given to Buddhism by the Constitution.

Article 9 is listed under Chapter 2 of the  Constitution which is exclusively devoted to Buddhism. The importance of the area of governance covered by that term (Buddhism) is underscored by the fact that it is placed next to the topics of primordial importance: ‘The People, the State and Sovereignty’ described in Chapter 1. Article 9 (coming under Chapter 2) states: ‘The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place…….’. It is not possible that the president wants to openly show contempt for Article 9 because he knows too well that it is totally compatible with secular democracy, and that it does not give Buddhism the status of a state religion that would impinge on the rights of adherents of minority religions.

But what about the neophyte MPs of his alliance, the NPP, who got swept into parliament in November 2024 on the crest of a popular wave of electoral support generated by his, realistically speaking, less than unqualified success at the presidential election held hardly two months before, in September? Though the parliament is filled with them, even the ruling party hierarchy look down upon most of them as ‘paa pisi’ (door mats) and ‘pol leli’ (dry coconut husks). My personal opinion is that these abysmally ignorant self-styled secularists or so-called ‘niragamikayas’ of the JVP/NPP, given little significance for policy-making, have  seriously misunderstood the meaning of ‘secular’ as merely ‘niragamika’ (Sinhala: without any religious affiliation). The Sinhala term is actually derived from Sanskrit; it is a combination of the two elements nir + agamika, which these newly elected parliamentarians might understand, depending on their level of general knowledge, cultural and linguistic sophistication, and common sense, as ‘without any religion’ or ‘rejecting religion altogether’, or ‘non-religious’, or ‘areligious’, or ‘irreligious’, and hence, happily ‘amoral’, or even ‘immoral’!. They also seem to labour under the additional misconception that Buddhism is your typical religion with all the inherent negative attributes usually associated with all normal religions such as dogmatic beliefs that must be accepted as incontrovertible truths and followed without questioning, otherworldly attitudes that obstruct a person’s material advancement and that accommodate unconscious antisocial self-centredness. 

But Buddhism is essentially a nonreligious, moral ethical philosophy (that is, Buddhist spirituality has no connection with religion). It nevertheless needs to assume the religious cultural form of a conventional religion in order to survive among actual religions. Very much the same thing may be said about Hinduism, in spite of the apparently chaotic and obscurantist (= that which prevents knowledge of facts) nature of its practical popular forms. But here I am taking you towards the deep end. Let’s swim back to the safer side. 

Historically speaking, Buddhism emerged in the spiritual matrix of Hinduism. We shouldn’t forget that Siddhatha Gautama who became Buddha was born a Hindu. Hinduism and Buddhism are not religions (Ask the famous Sadhguru/Jagadish Vasudev of Tamil Nadu, founder of the Isha Foundation, Coimbatore, South India). Hinduism and Buddhism  professed as religions  by over eighty percent (80%) of the Sri Lankan population are the most secular (liberal democracy) friendly, and, at the same time, mutually compatible  spiritual traditions that together make for  peaceful coexistence among the diverse ethnic/religious communities within multifaith Sri Lanka. Secularism is no threat to Hindus, nor to Buddhists. (Actually, solidarity between these two groups is the key to Sri Lanka’s national unity.)  

But unfortunately, it is a group of young Buddhist monks who rail against secularism the loudest, believing that it means total rejection of religious values in politics and in general civil society, while their Hindu, Christian, and Muslim counterparts, knowing the truth about secularism in governance, hold their peace.                                        

Nevertheless, we cannot ignore these ‘embattled’ young monks’ patriotic intentions. They must be taught about the importance of secularism (= keeping religion and other matters separate from each other) in governance, civil administration, art, entertainment, in fact, in all spheres of human activity. AI offers the following definition: ‘Secularism is the principle of separating religion from other aspects of life, particularly government and public institutions. It advocates for a society where religious belief is a private matter and the state does not favor or discriminate against any particular religion. Secularism promotes freedom of thought, conscience, and religion for all, ensuring that individuals can hold diverse beliefs without facing coercion or disadvantage’. 

However, in the real world, religion does not always manifest itself as a strictly private matter. Religions become socio-political markers that identify separate ideological groups of people. It is a well known fact that religions promote herd mentality among individuals within a larger group. It makes them conform to beliefs, morals and ethics, and attitudes of the majority (within a community), though they do not privately subscribe to those beliefs, attitudes, etc. So, religions have great political power.  In the world today, for example, Christianity and Islam are both politically powerful in different, sometimes, mutually hostile ways, as in Western and Middle Eastern countries respectively. A common observation is that secular democracy is more prevalent in the Christian West than in the Islamic Middle Eastern states. However, secular democracy is strongest in the Hindu and Buddhist majority countries including India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc. Hinduism and Buddhism do not seek world dominance. They only offer a firm moral anchor for individuals and groups based on non-violence, wisdom, and universal compassion.

 A memorable instance that showed the efficacy of this attitude was when Finance Minister J.R. Jayawardane of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) who attended the San Francisco Peace Conference held in 1951 made a powerful speech in which he quoted from the Dhammapada: ‘Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world – By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is an ancient Truth’, and made a passionate appeal on behalf of Japan, which was struggling after its defeat at World War II; he requested that the demand for war reparations be disclaimed; he said his own country was not going to accept any such compensation money from Japan. Jayawardane’s words were a clarion call for the humane treatment of Japan by the victorious side as well as a morale booster for that country. The grateful Japanese built a statue of J.R. Jayawardane in his honour at the Kamakura Temple in Kanagawa in Japan, which is being carefully maintained even today.

Though today we tend to look upon secularism as something modern imported from the West, a glance at our own history shows that from the very beginning, even before the advent of Buddhism, our rulers adopted a secular mode of governance that was nevertheless subject to wholesome moral standards where Brahman priests and later  Buddhist  monks played only an advisory role for the king, speaking up in the interest of public good, but never took part in governing. The Dasa Raja Dharma or the Ten Kingly Virtues are the moral and ethical duties of a ruler, which emphasize compassionate governance, social justice, and the well-being of the people. They are relevant not only for political leaders, but also for anyone in a position of authority, including business leaders and managers’, as an AI summary explains. No religion is involved here. These are secular principles of good governance. If only Anura Kumara Dissanayake cared to look at what these ten tenets of righteous government are, he would have improved his performance in no time.

In this article (published in two parts), I dwelt on the misunderstood concept of ‘secularism’ that vitiates the JVP/NPP government’s handling of Article 9 of the Constitution. However, the main thrust of president Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s address at the inauguration of the 74th Upasampada Vinayakarma ceremony of the Ramanna Nikaya was to stress his determination to stamp out the evil of  ‘nationalism’ that he seems to have identified as what has been plaguing independent Sri Lanka in the form of the so-called curse of the past 77 years. He appears to be trying to impress on his avowedly secularist party ranks, as well as the meddling outsiders (with strategic geopolitical designs on our country) who are looking over his shoulder, the strength of that resolve.

 But he cannot be unaware of the fact that the Sinhala neologism ‘jaatikavadaya’ was coined about two decades ago as an equivalent to the English term ‘nationalism’ perceived then (at least among us Sri Lankans) as a positive concept identical with patriotism. His current definition of nationalism as an evil that should be suppressed is in accordance with America’s negative interpretation of the concept of ‘nationalism’ in respect of nations/countries that independently choose to promote their own national interests without shaping their foreign policy to subserve ‘the five vital interests’ of the world’s only superpower. This is an idea that I owe to senior American public intellectual, social activist, and former linguistics professor Noam Chomsky. 

Critics have begun to ask whether Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s erroneous substitution of jaativadaya (racism) for jaatikavadaya (nationalism), is a self-conscious ploy to please the Tamil diaspora in the West who secured for him and the alliance he leads the majority of the Tamil votes in the North and the East provinces at the presidential and parliamentary elections held respectively in September and November, 2024, as would be obvious to any unbiased observer.