The Shame of a Nation

Photo courtesy of BBC

“If a monk, after taking on a monk’s training and way of life, without first renouncing the training and revealing his weakness, has sexual intercourse, even with a female animal, he is expelled and excluded from the community.” The Buddha (Final Ruling – Vinaya Pitaka – The Chapter on Offenses Entailing Expulsion)

A man walks down a corridor with heavy steps, as if weighed down by the stack of files in his hand. He stops to pick up a crumpled piece of paper and put it into a trash can, a small act which reveals much. His destination is the office of his new boss, a smartly dressed young woman. He places the files on her table, the gesture indicative of resignation, official and psychological. He has been an investigative officer for 20 years, he informs his new boss, but was never allowed to do his job with head held high. The files pertain to abandoned investigations. His new boss tells him to take the files back and resume work because now his goals and the goals of the administration are the same. When the official leaves, there is a spring in his step and hope in his eyes.

In the run up to the 2024 presidential election, the NPP ran a series of thematic ads. An Independent Public Service was the title of the above ad. Justice for all was a pillar of the NPP platform. A future NPP government will end impunity, the country was assured; every crime, irrespective of the status of the alleged perpetrator, will be investigated and justice done.

What happened to that promise when a 14-year old child accused a powerful and wealthy monk of purchasing her from her own mother for Rs.100,000 and raping her?

The case of Child X and the head-monk of Atamasthana is a test case for the government, the opposition, the Sasana, the country and each one of us citizens. The victim belongs to the bottom most layer of society, the poorest and the most powerless. The alleged perpetrator hails from an aristocratic family. He is also one of the most powerful monks in the country – the head of the eight holiest places of Buddhism: Sri Maha Bodhi, Ruwanweliseya, Thuparama, Lovamahapaya, Abhayagiri, Jetavanaramaya, Mirisewetiya and Lankaramaya.

Given the massive imbalance of power, this case belongs among the abandoned investigations the honest official refers to in the NPP ad. The kind of case previous administrations would have ignored, shushed up, swept under the carpet of forgetfulness; the kind of case the NPP pledged to bring to just and transparent conclusion.

That was the promise. The reality is turning out to be antithetical. Faced with a crime where the victim is quintessentially non-elite and the alleged perpetrator a repository of wealth and clerical power, the NPP government has opted to follow in the infamous footsteps of its predecessors. It has evaded and obfuscated and sought sanctuary in silence. Other than a watery statement by Minister Saroja Paulraj, not a single NPP/JVP leader has said a word about this case – not the president or the prime minister, not the minister of public security or the minister of justice, not the maverick Lal Kantha or the many women parliamentarians of the NPP. Their silence is echoed by the leader of opposition, every party in the opposition, the chief prelates and other leading monks and the mainstream media (legacy media).

Had it not been for independent journalist Bimal Ruhunuge who lodged a complaint with the National Child Protection Authority (NCPA) and a handful of You Tubers and websites, this case would have died an unnatural death, asphyxiated by the government with the full backing of the opposition and the legacy media.

In the ad, the NPP promises to protect those officials who fight for justice. Once again, reality is otherwise. The officials of the NCPA who champion the cause of the victimised child are being abandoned by the NPP government. According to internet sources, a particularly vicious slander campaign is being waged against the NCPA legal director Sajeewani Abeykoon.

The conclusion is depressingly obvious: under the NPP too, justice is selective, dependent on the status of the victim and of the alleged perpetrator. Behind the banner of renaissance, regression rules.

Justice subverted

According to media reports, Child X’s horror began in 2023, when she was just 11 plus years old.

What she was like before the nightmare of abuse caught her in its unrelenting jaws, we will never know. Was she studious or playful? Was she serious or funny? Did she read books, climb trees or swim in the tanks? Whatever her still unformed nature she would have, like any other child of that age, gone to school, played with friends and dreamt of the future.

What it was like for her to live through that nightmare of abuse (the monk allegedly summoned her every three days) we cannot know. All we know is what the mother said in her statement about that first day. Accompanied by her daughter, she had followed the monk to his living quarters and waited outside while the monk took the child to his room. When the child came out about 10 minutes later, her face was “unhappy/bitter”. When asked, she replied that the monk kissed her face.

Child X would not have known the exact nature of horror awaiting her but the first taste of it was enough to make her look unhappy/bitter. Even if she had been fully informed of her fate, what could she have done? Who could she have turned to for protection? Her parents who sold her? The police? After all, if the allegations are accurate, on the way to the monk’s room, she would have walked past his police guard. Living all her short life in Anuradhapura, she would have also known the power of Atamasthanadhipathi monk. Since her parents sold flowers and bees honey near Ruwanweliseya, their livelihood too was in his hands. What could a child do in such circumstances but succumb and survive any which way she can?

It is such a child that Dilum Amunugama called a prostitute. Egregious as his words were, the wordlessness of his party leader Dilith Jayaweera, his colleagues in the Sarvajana Balaya Party and the wider opposition and his opponents in the government is no better. Their symphony of silence tells us all we need to know about the cowardice, opportunism and moral complicity of our political class. (Incidentally, who will be the first politician to kneel before an alleged child-rapist and ask for his blessing?)

The suspect-monk is only a suspect. As a citizen of a democratic country, presumption of innocence is his constitution guaranteed fundamental right. A speedy, transparent and fair trial is in his best interest because that would give him a chance to prove his innocence not just before the law but also before the tribunal of the people. Unfortunately, his own evasions and the police’s dilatory tactics have created serious doubts about the probity of the process of justice.

The timeline of the case is instructive in this regard.

          April 10: Child X gives her statement to the Nittambuwa police, naming the monk as her initial abuser.

          April 22: After 12 days of inaction by the police, independent journalist Bimal Ruhunuge lodges a complaint with the NCPA. Curiously, the police had omitted to keep the NCPA informed about this case.

          April 23: The NCPA enquires from Senior DIG Sajeewa Medawatte whether the investigation has begun and is told there is a delay.

          April 24: The NCPA chairperson, former high court judge Preethi Inoka Ranasinghe, writes to DIG Medawatte advising him to obtain court orders to send the underwear of Child X (which she had buried) for DNA testing, get a travel ban on the monk, video-record Child X’s statement in the presence of NCPA officials and get the records of her phone (allegedly given to her by the suspect-monk). The NCPA also informs the DIG that the police should arrest the monk if reasonable suspicion exists and produce him before the courts.

         April 27: The police present a report to the courts about the incident but refrain from naming suspects.

         April 30: The NCPA writes to Senior DIG Medawatte with a copy to the IGP enquiring why the monk has not been arrested despite the existence of a prima facie case.

         May 4: The police produces the mother of Child X before the magistrate. The monk is still not named a suspect.

         May 8: Consequent to a motion filed by the NCPA, the court orders the monk’s arrest. That evening, he enters the Nawaloka Hospital.

         May 9: The police arrest the monk but he remains in the Nawaloka Hospital, as per medical instructions.

         May 13: Fort Magistrate orders the monk to be remanded until 22 May.

         May 15: The monk is finally transferred to the National Hospital.

         May 22: The monk is produced before the Anuradhapura magistrate court and given bail.

The NCPA reportedly asked the deputy director general of the National Hospital for a full report of the monk’s health. The deputy director general appointed a committee of six doctors. The committee concluded that the monk was in good health and whatever minor ailments he suffers from are normal given his age. Judicial medical officer Prof Clifford Perera came to a similar conclusion after studying his medical records.

The statements by Child X and her mother, given separately, reportedly tally with each other. The description Child X gave of the monk’s living quarters was proven to be accurate during the site inspection. There has been over 80 phone calls between the monk and Child X.

Would the police have dragged their collective feet for so long had the suspect been a layman or even a monk with less social and economic power? Why did the AG’s Department not send a representative to the Anuradhapura court on May 22 despite requests by the police and the NCPA? According to media reports, the monk had called the hospital where the child is being held and tried to put pressure on the employees not to talk. If the child’s location is a secret, how did the monk find it out? Given all these worrying developments, what will there be at the conclusion of this case – justice or the sort of rank impunity the NPP pledged to end?

Forgetting the Buddha’s example 

The first Vinaya rule made by the Buddha concerned a monk named Sudinna. The only son of wealthy parents, Sudinna tired of lay life and became ordained. The parents, having failed to persuade him to return to lay life, pleaded with him to engage in sexual intercourse with his former wife in order to birth an heir for their vast wealth. Monk Sudinna agreed.

When the Buddha heard the story, he didn’t remain silent (like our chief prelates) or try to hush things up for the sake of the Sasana (like our government, opposition and legacy media). Instead, he summoned monk Sudinna, uncovered the truth and then said, “Foolish man, it’s not suitable, it’s not proper, it’s not worthy of a monastic, it’s not allowable, it’s not done… Foolish man, you’ve practiced what is contrary to the true Teaching… You are the forerunner, the first performer of many unwholesome things. This will affect people’s confidence, and cause some to lose it”. The Buddha then laid the Vinaya rule against clerical sex, “For the well-being of the Sangha, for the comfort of the Sangha, for the restraint of bad people, for the ease of good monks, for the restraint of the corruptions relating the present life…to give rise to confidence in those without it, to increase the confidence of those who have it, for the longevity of the true Teaching…”

Monk Sudinna engaged in a single act of consensual sex with an adult woman who was his wife in lay life. Pallegama Hemaratana Thero has been accused of a deed far more heinous, the trafficking in and raping of a child. Given the gravity of the alleged offense, the chief prelates should have removed the suspect-monk from the august position he currently occupies until the case is over. Unfortunately, they are yet to issue a statement explaining their own stance regarding this case even though the locus of the alleged crime was just next door to the Sri Maha Bodhi. Clearly, they have forgotten the Buddha’s words, that monks engaging in sexual intercourse “is contrary to True Teaching”, “unwholesome” and “will affect people’s confidence, and cause some to lose it”. By not abiding by the Buddha’s words, by seeming to be complicit in a horrendous crime, they are contributing not to the protection of the Sasana but its debasement.

The silence of the chief prelates is in a sense suitable, for what exists in Sri Lanka today is not quite the Sasana of the Buddha. It’s more the Sasana of monk Mahanama who, in total violation of the Buddha’s teaching, justified the killing of millions for the protection of Buddhism in his obviously apocryphal story about King Dutugemunu’s conscience. It is also the Sasana of King Kirti Sri Rajasinghe who, in total violation of the Buddha’s teaching, introduced caste into monkhood. Will it also become the Sasana of Pallegama Hemaratana where clerical sex is permitted, including non-consensual and child sex?