By Amarasiri de Silva –

The socio-political history of Sri Lanka in the early twenty-first century cannot be evaluated without examining the rise of activist Buddhist monasticism, a phenomenon that dramatically reshaped the nation’s governance, civil relations, and collective identity following the end of the civil war. At the absolute centre of this ideological and political storm stands Ven. Galagoda Atte Gnanasara Thero, the co-founder and General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force. His public career—spanning political activism, grassroots agitation, legal confrontations, executive appointments, and judicial incarceration—represents one of the most fiercely debated legacies in modern South Asian history. To his dedicated followers, Gnanasara Thero emerged as an indispensable guardian of the Sinhala-Buddhist majority, an unyielding defender of ancient cultural heritage, and a protective voice warning against socio-religious transformations. To his detractors, international human rights organizations, and minority communities, he is viewed as the face of militant majoritarian nationalism whose incendiary rhetoric disrupted communal harmony and undermined the rule of law.

Born Nuwansiri Kumara on 4 March 1975 in Galagodaattha, Karandeniya, in the Galle district, forms a prominent and numerically significant segment of the local population. he grew up in a rural agricultural family as the youngest child of Walawwe Durage Gunawathie. He attended Yakkatuwa Junior School and later Bandula Senadheera Vidyalaya. He entered the Buddhist monastic order while studying in Grade Seven and subsequently became known as Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara. His monastic education began at the Wathuruwila Aranya Senasanaya in Galle, followed by studies at the Sarananda Pirivena in Anuradhapura and the Vidyodaya Pirivena in Colombo. He later obtained a BA based on Buddhist philosophy from the University of Kelaniya and an MBA and served as principal of the Kalupaluwawa Pirivena.

His emergence as a public figure coincided with a wider Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist revival in the early 2000s. Understanding his platform requires contextualizing him within a historical lineage of Sri Lankan Buddhist monastic activism (Bhikku activism). In Theravada Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks have long occupied a dual role as spiritual guardians of the doctrine (Dhamma) and protectors of the nation (Desha), a tradition rooted in the chronicle literature of the Mahavamsa. In the mid-twentieth century, senior monks like Ven. Henpitagedara Gnanasiha Thero represented an intellectual, policy-driven mobilization that engaged deeply with anti-colonial, left-nationalist politics and state administration. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, this tradition underwent a charismatic revival through Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero, who used mass broadcast media to advocate for moral self-purification, temperance, and resistance against foreign religious encroachments. Soma Thero’s sudden death in 2003 catalysed a dramatic shift toward formal political organization among monks.

This trajectory finds its critical theoretical framing in the landmark 1992 study by Harvard anthropologist Professor Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, titled Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. Writing in the shadow of the 1983 anti-Tamil pogroms and the ongoing civil war, Tambiah examined how a religious philosophy historically cantered on non-violence (Ahimsā), self-restraint, and ethical detachment had become re-interpreted to legitimate majoritarian political dominance, ethno-religious chauvinism, and collective violence. Tambiah traced how nineteenth-century Protestant Buddhist revivalism—pioneered by Anagarika Dharmapala—re-cast monks from ascetic recluses into socio-political combatants who viewed the defence of language, land, and faith (Bhasa, Desha, Agama) as an absolute moral imperative.

When analysed through Tambiah’s analytical lens, Gnanasara Thero appears not as an anomaly, but as a direct contemporary manifestation of the historical processes detailed in Buddhism Betrayed? Tambiah argued that when monastic activism shifts from spiritual stewardship to majoritarian statecraft, the core ethical tenets of Theravada philosophy are effectively subverted, or “betrayed,” in favor of political power and existential grievance. Gnanasara Thero’s operational model represents the post-war culmination of this trend. Where mid-twentieth-century monks mobilized around anti-colonial policy and the 1956 Sinhala Only movement—and where late-eighties movements like the Mawbima Surakime Vyaparaya (Movement for the Protection of the Motherland) fought state concessions to Tamils—Gnanasara Thero redirected this historical apparatus toward new internal anxieties in the post-2009 era.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) was established in 2004, and Gnanasara Thera worked closely with the movement. The party was formed as the world’s first political party comprised exclusively of Buddhist monks, aiming to champion Buddhist interests within the state apparatus. Gnanasara Thera was among the founding generation of these activists and ran as a parliamentary candidate in the Colombo District during the 2004 general elections. However, over time, dissatisfaction developed among a younger generation of monks with established nationalist political parties, and he became one of the figures leading that tendency. While senior contemporaries such as Ven. Medagoda Abhayatissa Thero and Ven. Bengamuwe Nalaka Thero continued to work within established academic, trade union, and presidential advisory channels, Gnanasara Thero and his peers grew impatient with democratic coalition-building. They believed that parliamentary politics diluted the urgency required to protect Sinhala-Buddhist rights, creating a demand for extra-parliamentary direct action.

The defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009 produced both a sense of victory and a feeling of insecurity within sections of Sri Lanka’s Sinhala-Buddhist society, while the rise of the Islamic State organisation was taking place internationally. While the military victory eliminated the immediate threat of territorial separatism, it created a complex psychological and political atmosphere. Within certain segments of the majority population, victory was viewed as a historic opportunity to re-assert the primary status of Sinhala-Buddhist culture across the entire island, yet anxieties simultaneously grew regarding new external and internal socio-religious influences. Where earlier civil organizers like Ven. Ulapane Sumangala Thero focused primarily on national anti-imperialism and domestic economic policy, the emerging post-war movement turned its gaze toward internal demographic shifts and minority cultural practices.

In 2012, Gnanasara Thera and Kirama Wimalajothi Thera founded the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS). Its headquarters at the Sambuddha Jayanthi Mandiraya in Colombo was opened by then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Gnanasara Thera became the organisation’s secretary-general. Initial support from figures like Ven. Kirama Wimalajothi Thero—a respected scholar and publisher—provided the BBS with crucial institutional legitimacy and administrative backing. The BBS was structured not as a traditional political party seeking votes, but as an extra-parliamentary pressure group capable of direct action, mass mobilization, and uninhibited public agitation.

The core argument put forward by Gnanasara Thero through the BBS was that the Sinhala-Buddhist majority faced a slow, existential decline due to institutional neglect, globalization, aggressive proselytization, and shifting demographic patterns. He asserted that while ethnic minority groups had dedicated political parties and international networks defending their interests, the majority community remained fragmented and politically underrepresented in matters regarding its heritage. Through large public conventions, such as the historic Maharagama rally in February 2013, Gnanasara Thero outlined a vision of national protection. He argued that Sri Lanka was fundamentally a Sinhala country that must preserve its historical identity, famously cautioning that Western democratic models should not erode the ancestral rights of the island’s majority.

A central component of Gnanasara Thero’s platform focused on the protection of Buddhist historical and archaeological monuments. Across the Northern and Eastern provinces, decades of conflict and displacement had led to the destruction, neglect, or alteration of ancient monastic complexes, stupas, and sacred ruins. Gnanasara Thero and the BBS undertook public campaigns demanding state intervention to halt illegal encroachments on archaeological reserves. Supporters viewed this work as a vital service toward national upliftment, crediting him with forcing the Department of Archaeology and civil authorities to take action against the destruction of heritage sites that documented the island’s ancient history. For his followers, these efforts were not merely political; they were a duty to preserve the physical evidence of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist civilization for future generations.

Furthermore, Gnanasara Thero directed his activism toward economic self-reliance and social protection for the Sinhalese populace. He frequently criticized the structural neglect of rural Sinhala youth and small business owners, claiming that major economic sectors were increasingly dominated by corporate monopolies or foreign-backed commercial interest groups. The BBS established vocational, cultural, and educational programs aimed at strengthening youth consciousness and moral discipline. On foreign policy, Gnanasara Thero led public protests against the treatment of Sri Lankan domestic workers in the Middle East, demanding that the state institute stringent protections for vulnerable citizens working abroad. These initiatives resonated deeply with lower-middle-class and rural Sinhala communities who felt alienated by urban elites and globalized economic policies.

However, the defining and most polarizing dimension of Gnanasara Thero’s activism emerged through his intense campaigns against minority cultural and religious practices. Moving beyond the moral sermons of Soma Thero or the academic lobbying of Abhayatissa Thero, his speeches directly targeted halal food certification systems, Islamic dress codes, conversion activities by evangelical groups, and traditional family laws. The BBS argued that halal certification constituted an unnecessary financial imposition on non-Muslim consumers and represented a gradual attempt to introduce religious codes into the national economy. Facing intense public pressure orchestrated by Gnanasara Thero, the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU) eventually relinquished its commercial halal branding system, an outcome celebrated by BBS supporters as a victory for indigenous commercial autonomy.

Despite these perceived victories among his base, Gnanasara Thero’s operational methods generated widespread social instability and drew intense criticism globally. His public address style was marked by high emotional intensity, forceful body language, and direct confrontational rhetoric that frequently utilized coarse language uncharacteristic of traditional Buddhist monastic decorum. This aggressive stance led to internal friction within the BBS itself, causing moderate co-founders like Kirama Wimalajothi Thero to eventually distance themselves from the movement’s militant direction. Critics argued that under the guise of protecting the nation, his public meetings cultivated paranoia, xenophobia, and communal hatred. The aggressive posturing of the BBS frequently coincided with outbreaks of inter-religious violence. Following an impassioned speech by Gnanasara Thero in the coastal town of Aluthgama in June 2014, violent anti-Muslim riots erupted, resulting in fatalities, destruction of property, and severe damage to inter-communal trust. Similar patterns of violence occurred in Digana in 2018 and across various locations where evangelical churches and minority-owned businesses were targeted.

Human rights organizations, legal scholars, and social scientists echoing Stanley J. Tambiah’s thesis maintain that Gnanasara Thero’s framework of “upliftment” was fundamentally flawed because it sought empowerment through the systematic marginalization of minority communities. Critics pointed out that true national progress in a post-war multi-ethnic state requires inclusive nation-building, social cohesion, and mutual trust. By framing non-Buddhist traditions as existential threats to the state, Gnanasara Thero’s rhetoric deepened post-war fractures, creating an environment of suspicion that undermined national stability. Moreover, critics argued that his actions distorted the core philosophical teachings of Theravada Buddhism—such as non-violence (Ahimsa), compassion (Karuna), and loving-kindness (Metta)—replacing them with an ethnocentric ideology cantered on grievance and defensive dominance, precisely as Tambiah warned decades prior.

Gnanasara Thero’s confrontational approach extended beyond public rallies and brought him into direct conflict with the Sri Lankan judicial system and state institutions. In January 2016, he entered the Homagama Magistrate’s Court during judicial proceedings investigating the forced disappearance of journalist Prageeth Eknaligoda. During the hearing, he disrupted court proceedings, harangued the presiding magistrate, and verbally threatened Sandhya Eknaligoda, the victim’s wife who was seeking justice for her missing husband. This incident led to landmark legal proceedings against the monk. In August 2018, the Court of Appeal convicted Gnanasara Thero on four counts of contempt of court, sentencing him to nineteen years of rigorous imprisonment, to be served concurrently over six years.

His imprisonment marked a dramatic moment in Sri Lankan legal history, demonstrating that monastic status did not grant complete immunity from judicial accountability. However, the legal saga took another controversial turn in May 2019 when outgoing President Maithripala Sirisena granted Gnanasara Thero a full presidential pardon, allowing him to walk free after serving less than a year of his sentence. The pardon was issued shortly after the devastating 2019 Easter Sunday suicide bombings carried out by radical Islamist extremists. In the aftermath of the bombings, supporters of Gnanasara Thero argued that his earlier warnings regarding local extremist networks had been vindicated, elevating his political influence once again.

The apex of Gnanasara Thero’s official influence occurred under the presidency of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. In October 2021, President Rajapaksa appointed Gnanasara Thero to head a high-profile Presidential Task Force mandated to draft recommendations for “One Country, One Law”. The task force was assigned to formulate legislative proposals that would harmonize Sri Lanka’s legal framework by replacing regional and religious personal laws—such as the Kandyan Law, Thesawalamai, and the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA)—with a single, uniform civil code. While proponents viewed the appointment as a decisive step toward legal equality and national integration, legal scholars, civil society activists, and minority representatives expressed shock and opposition. They argued that selecting an individual with a history of contempt convictions and controversial anti-minority rhetoric to lead national legal reform was inherently exclusionary and undermined the impartiality of the legislative process.

The legal and political trajectory of Gnanasara Thero continued to shift in subsequent years, highlighting the ongoing tension between majoritarian political patronage and the rule of law. Subsequent legal challenges brought by Sandhya Eknaligoda and civil rights activists challenged the constitutional validity of the 2019 presidential pardon. The Supreme Court of Sri Lanka eventually reviewed the executive action, declaring President Sirisena’s pardon unconstitutional, null, and void, affirming that executive power cannot be exercised arbitrarily to bypass judicial accountability. Consequently, Gnanasara Thero was ordered to return to prison to serve out the remaining duration of his judicial sentence.

When placed along the historical spectrum of Sri Lankan political monasticism—and examined through the analytical lens of Stanley J. Tambiah’s Buddhism Betrayed?—Gnanasara Thero represents a radical departure from both the ideological statecraft of Henpitagedara Gnanasiha and the moral media revivalism of Gangodawila Soma. While his contemporaries like Medagoda Abhayatissa and Bengamuwe Nalaka chose to operate through academic corridors, trade unions, and direct political advisory roles, Gnanasara Thero transformed post-war anxieties into an extra-parliamentary movement built on confrontational street agitation and majoritarian mobilization. To his supporters, he remains a courageous patriot who stepped beyond monastic quietism to defend an ancient heritage and warn against security threats. To his critics and scholarly observers of ethno-religious violence, he stands as a quintessential case study of political monasticism: a deeply divisive figure whose majoritarian campaigns eroded legal norms, heightened inter-communal conflict, and compromised the multi-ethnic fabric of modern Sri Lanka.