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In Sri Lanka, where engineered ‘community tensions’ can erupt out of the blue, so to speak and as suddenly subside, it was no surprise to see that, just two days after the so-called ‘unrest’ in Trincomalee this week between local monks aggravated by the rhetoric of political monks further aggravated by politicians of the Government and the Opposition catapulting themselves into the controversy, the site itself was singularly devoid of any movement beyond a rundown beach café fronted by the sparkling blue sea.

How a mundane removal of a beach café spiraled into ‘conflict’

No monks sat in protest, (despite images crowding national television earlier), there were no policemen standing at guns ready and no angry citizens crowded the scene which was deserted except for a bored canine lazily sunning itself at the entrance. ‘This was a needless clash’ a (Sinhala) public official told me with a demonstrable degree of annoyance, ‘it is good to see that despite the rhetoric of politicians and monks, no communal tensions were stirred; all this is media publicity.’

He added, ‘the Sinhalese as well as the Muslims and the Tamils will not respond to these provocations. They have seen the damage that this can do.’ An overly optimistic assessment perhaps but nonetheless interesting, the remarks reflected the deep frustration of government officials left to ‘cope with’ the devastation of communities in this multi-ethnic District when ambitious men of power, some wrapping priestly robes around them, seize the moment for political advantage.

At the heart of the fracas was a mundane operation by officials of the Coast Conservation Department (CCD) to demolish an illegally built beachfront café on land allegedly ‘owned’ by a well-known Buddhist temple in Trincomalee town, the Sambuddha Baudhdha Vihara. Following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which devastated Sri Lanka’s coastal areas, regulations were issued prescribing a ‘no-build’ conservation perimeter. This was just one of many others already removed or targeted for removal.

Comedic nonsense amidst the sudden appearance of a Buddha statue

Earlier in the month, the CCD had issued a removal notice to the café unsteadily erected a few years ago but had given further time when the operators running the café had agreed to remove the structure themselves. It was in the midst of this extension that the placing of a new Buddha statue on site and the starting of new construction had led to the CCD complaining to the city police which had proceeded to remove the statue following a call made to the Public Security Minister.

Predictably the removal of the statue was accompanied with vice versa allegations of monks assaulting the police and the police assaulting the monks. To add a trace of comedic nonsense, the Buddha statue was then removed (ostensibly according to the Government, for ‘safekeeping) and thereafter restored to the same site. This is where the status quo remains. Trincomalee seems peculiarly noted for groups which trot out religious symbols in attempts to assert dominance as part of a common modus operandi.

In some instances, these attempts have been wildly successful. In 2005, the Trincomalee three wheel drivers association (TWDA), a fascinating acronym if there ever was one, erected a statue of the Buddha in the heart of the city under cover of darkness. This led to another group with an equally fascinating acronym, the Trincomalee District Tamil Peoples Forum (TPF) engaging in a ‘hartal’ (closure of shops and commercial operations). This in turn led to skirmishes between Tamil and the Sinhalese communities.

Trajectory of the ‘statue dispute’ different in 2025

Some deaths and several injuries resulted on both sides. Despite a judicial intervention and the assessment of the Attorney General that the statue was ‘unauthorised’, the unrest continued with leading political figures waving the communal banner and proclaiming that the ‘Sinhalese had been victimised.’ Monks joined the fray, most particularly Athureliya Rathana Thero and Ellawala Medhananda issuing fiery statements. Some monks said that the statue would be removed only over their ‘dead bodies’ and that they cared little for courts.

As the United Peoples’ Freedom Party (UPFA) Government of Chandrika Kumaratunga dithered, the Attorney General (at the time, of ethnic Tamil nationality) himself came under fierce fire. That incident earned the Government little credit, demonstrating how the law becomes subordinated to engineered political rhetoric around Buddhist ‘supremacist’ ideology. This was in total contrast to the teachings of the Gautama Buddha which decried religious images in the first instances, calling upon adherents to exercise only the critical power of their minds.

Twenty years later and this time around, the trajectory of the dispute over a different Buddha statue had a different turn with (thankfully), no undertones of communal tensions at least so far. My enthusiastic conversationalist, (curiously so for normally reticent public officials), told me, half in jest, that, ‘this is a Sinhala-Sinhala clash, between the police and the officials.’ In explaining why the café in dispute must be continued, monks belonging to the temple have complained that temple land should be used to generate income for the temple, asking, ‘so what is wrong with that?”

Is the Government blowing hot and cold at the same time?

Nothing in the strict civil sense, one would say, except to qualify that those commercial structures should not be in violation of existing regulations, including that of the CCFD. In this mix we also have the Bodu Bala Sena making publicized visits to the site, venting its outrage that the ‘power of the Buddhist clergy’ could be challenged by the police. In that context, the call by the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) party asking Tamil members of the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) Government to resign over the ‘blow hot, blow cold’ policy of the NPP Government is misplaced.

This was on the basis that the Public Security Ministry’s actions (first asking the police to remove the statue and then restoring it), made a mockery of the NPP’s fabled promise that all would be equal before the law. That logic in underscoring the equality of the law has some merit. However, the point at which the ITAK goes somewhat off track is in confining its call for Tamil parliamentarians to resign. Ideally, all NPP parliamentarians with conscience should have been called to resign over the NPP’s failure to keep its much trumpeted ‘equality’ flame burning.

This is said tongue-in-cheek as it were given that searching for parliamentarians with consciences invokes the worst oxymoron of sorts. In the meantime, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake made a special statement in Parliament asking why the controversy is continuing as it had been ‘settled’ with the statue being restored. But does the restoring of a hurriedly brought Buddha statue to prevent an unauthorised café built on temple land being demolished, really ‘settle’ the problem, his Government must be asked?

The legal question in issue

It is right and proper that President Dissanayake has called for a ‘full report’ on the matter from the Public Security Minister. But it is also undeniable that the initial clumsy handling of that dispute over the removal of the café by the Ministry only fanned the flames. And the President was also off the point when he denigrated the dispute as being ‘racist.’ Unlike in 2005, this is not a racist or communal clash but ‘religious ideology’ being used to justify a commercial motive. That difference must be clearly understood.

Easy talk of racism must be abstained from lest that further aggravates the dispute.  Stripped to its bare bones, the question is blindingly simple. Can Article 9 of the Constitution giving Buddhism the foremost place be used as a cover to encourage commercial activities in violation of coast conservation regulations even on temple land, quite apart from the vexed appearance of a Buddha statue?

Perhaps the President may answer that question once the ‘full report’ that he has called for, is given to him.