By Mohamed Harees –

Lukman Harees

“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”― Georg Hegel

The controversy surrounding the Sambodhi Temple in Trincomalee had all the tell-tale signs of opening old racial wounds, by creating communal distrust, particularly between the Buddhists and the national minority communities living in the NE. Many well-known faces among the rogue sections of the Maha Sangha were seen to rub shoulders with Sinhala opposition party leaders with racist agendas, especially the Rajapaksas, to provoke the Sinhala-Buddhist community by various means. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake however told Parliament this week that his government would “never allow racism” in the country, insisting that all major religious communities reject divisive politics as he addressed this controversy. He assured that Sri Lanka’s present and future political agendas would not be shaped by racial lines.“ The Buddhist community will not allow racism, and the Hindu and Muslim communities will also reject it”. Will the political will to heal racial fault lines prevail over majoritarian pressures? Sri Lanka prays it would!

Political racism in Sri Lanka has repeatedly been mobilized to gain power, silence dissent, and fracture communities, and a minority of politically active Buddhist monks has often been central to this project. Sinhala–Buddhist nationalism, nurtured from the colonial period and entrenched after independence, created a state that privileged Sinhala and Buddhism and treated Tamils, Muslims and other minorities as perpetual outsiders rather than equal citizens. This legacy still shapes public life, and unless confronted, it risks dragging Sri Lanka back toward open racist politics and cyclical violence.​

How political racism captured the state

Post-independence parties quickly learned that appealing to “race, religion and language” was an easier route to mass mobilization than class-based or rights-based politics. Key turning points included, 1. language and citizenship policies that systematically disadvantaged Tamils and “plantation Tamils”, embedding ethnic hierarchy in law and administration, 2. constitutional provisions (such as giving Buddhism the “foremost place”) that symbolically and practically fused the state with Sinhala–Buddhist majoritarianism, and 3. a political pattern in which each government’s limited conciliatory moves toward minorities were undercut by opposition parties and populists escalating racist rhetoric for electoral gain, feeding a cycle of backlash and pogroms.​

This institutionalization of Sinhala–Buddhist dominance hollowed out the idea of a shared republic and normalised the notion that minorities could be punished whenever it suited the needs of majority politics.​ Scholars and civilsociety commentators have shown how Article 9 of the Constitution has been used to justify SinhalaBuddhist nationalism, and interpreted politically as constitutional confirmation that Sri Lanka is a SinhalaBuddhist state, used by nationalist monks and politicians to oppose devolution, minority language rights and religious equality because such reforms would “undermine” the foremost place of Buddhism.​ Thus, Article 9 functions as a symbolic and legal anchor for majoritarian projects, even though it coexists with formal guarantees of religious freedom.

Role of extremist monks and rogue organisations

Most monks in Sri Lanka do not preach hatred, but small, highly vocal groups of clergy have acted as shock troops of political racism. From the 1950s onward, sections of the sangha were brought “out of the monasteries and on to the hustings,” turning religious authority into a direct political weapon. Over time, hardline monks and their allies framed Sri Lanka as an exclusively Sinhala–Buddhist land that must be defended from Tamils, Muslims and Christians, treating compromise as betrayal.​ Monk-led parties and movements entered parliament and the streets, giving religious legitimacy to chauvinist projects and to the brutal conduct of the civil war.​ Further, new militant groups such as Bodu Bala Sena used coordinated campaigns, hate speech and street violence to target Muslims—storming institutions, harassing businesses, inciting riots, and attacking mosques—often with weak or selective state responses.​ When segments of the clergy call for boycotts, segregation or “defence” against minorities, and the state fails to hold them to account, it signals that racism is once again an acceptable instrument of politics.​

Several well-documented episodes since 2012 show direct involvement of ultranationalist monks and monk-led groups in violence and intimidation against minorities, particularly Muslims. In June 2014, an antiMuslim rally took place in Aluthgama led by the Buddhist extremist group Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and its ultra racist firebrand secretary Gnanasara (Thera), followed by many other anti-Muslim riots in Digana and Post Easter violence in NW Province. Earlier and later incidents included organised campaigns of harassment and violence against halal certification, Muslim businesses, mosques and Christian churches, where monks from BBS and allied groups were visibly present, delivering inflammatory speeches and leading or blessing crowds that then engaged in attacks.​ These incidents illustrate how a small but vocal section of the sangha has acted as a catalyst, using religious authority to legitimise antiminority mobilisation.

Since the early 2000s, several monkled or monkaligned formations have also shaped policy and political discourse. Apart from Sihala Urumaya , other formations such as Sinha Le and smaller SinhalaBuddhist nationalist fronts have also cooperated with or echoed monkled groups, particularly around elections, pressing mainstream parties to adopt harder lines on devolution, minority rights and accountability.​ These alliances have helped normalise chauvinist frames inside state institutions and lawmaking processes.

Impunity for racist monks in Sri Lanka has been produced less by a lack of law than by a repeated refusal to apply it to powerful ultranationalist clergy. For years, figures linked to groups such as Bodu Bala Sena delivered openly inflammatory speeches, led mobs, and targeted Muslim and Christian sites, yet were rarely arrested promptly, seriously investigated, or brought to conviction, even when communal riots followed almost immediately afterward. Human rights organisations and international observers have repeatedly warned that this pattern of selective enforcement – strict laws on paper, but minimal accountability for monkled hate campaigns – entrenched a culture of impunity that both legitimised political racism and left minority communities feeling unprotected by the state.

How the social fabric has been damaged

The long civil war, anti-Tamil pogroms, and more recent anti-Muslim campaigns were not spontaneous eruptions of “communal tension”; they were political projects built on sustained racist messaging and impunity. The consequences include deep fear and mistrust among Tamils, Muslims and Christians, who have seen the state and majority mobs turn against them with little protection or justice as well as normalisation of hate speech, conspiracy narratives and collective blame, especially through rallies, media and now social media, which makes everyday coexistence fragile.​ Further, there is also silencing of dissenting Sinhala–Buddhist voices, including moderate monks who have themselves been threatened, attacked or humiliated when they call for pluralism and minority protection.​ Consequently, Sri Lanka’s economy, rule of law, and prospects for genuine reconciliation all suffer when politics is organised around the fear of the “other” rather than around shared needs, such as jobs, education, health, and justice.​ Rajapaksa-era politics especially deepened and instrumentalised racism by systematically presenting SinhalaBuddhist dominance as the natural order of the state, and minorities as permanent security threats or “guests.”

Responsibility of the Present Government

Given this history, this NPP government that claims to represent the whole country and abhor racist politics has a clear responsibility not to allow racist forces—whether disgruntled politicians or rogue sections of the sangha—to define the national agenda again. It is commendable that AKD has unequivocally publicly rejected racist rhetoric and mobilisation, including when it comes from politically influential monks or coalition partners, and clear enforcement of laws against incitement and violence.​ There is also an imperative need to protect peaceful critics, journalists, minority leaders and moderate religious figures who speak against chauvinism, so that extremists do not monopolise democratic debate.​  There should also be concrete policy moves that demonstrate equal citizenship—fair language and education policies, anti-discrimination enforcement, impartial policing and meaningful power-sharing—so that racism loses its political appeal.​

Sri Lanka has paid an immense price in lives, trust and opportunity because political leaders chose majoritarian racism over democracy and pluralism. Preventing the country from sliding back into a racist state is not only a moral imperative; it is a basic condition for stability, economic recovery and a decent future for all communities.​ Political racism in Sri Lanka has been fuelled by specific incidents, legal ambiguities, and organized alliances between hardline monks and politicians, but there are also legal and civic tools available to resist this spiral. Below is a concise, evidence-based overview structured around your five questions.

Legal measures to curb hate speech and interfaith efforts to rebuild trust

Sri Lanka already has a legal toolkit that, if applied impartially, can curb hate speech and incitement by any actor, including monks and politicians. The ICCPR Act No. 56 of 2007, which inter alia criminalises advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred and the Penal Code, which criminalises acts intended to insult religion or provoke religious disharmony, are two examples.  Reports by Sri Lankan legal NGOs stress that the problem is selective and politicised enforcement rather than lack of law; they call for clear prosecutorial guidelines, training of police and prosecutors, and protection of free expression while targeting genuine incitement.​

Despite the damage caused by political racism, many civilsociety, NGOs and religious actors have worked to repair relationships and build a shared civic space. Post-war interfaith initiatives to create dialogue platforms, joint peace education programmes and rapidresponse mechanisms to defuse local tensions, as well as challenge stereotypes that fuel mobilisation by nationalist monks and politicians.​ These experiences suggest that when state authorities enforce anti-hate laws fairly, and when interfaith actors visibly stand together against racism, community confidence and social cohesion can slowly be restored.

Finally,

Preventing Sri Lanka from once again being weaponised as a racist state demands clear choices: political leaders must refuse to trade in ethnoreligious fear, the law must be applied equally to all who incite hatred or violence, and moderate voices within every community – including the Buddhist clergy – must be given space and protection to lead. The country’s history shows that whenever racism is allowed to define policy and public discourse, the result is not “security” but pogroms, war, economic ruin and a generation of traumatised citizens. Sri Lanka has already paid that price; the task before the present government and wider society is to defend a genuinely pluralist republic in which every person, regardless of ethnicity or faith, can belong as an equal and help rebuild the social fabric on the foundations of justice, truth and shared dignity.