The Sri Lankan cabinet has approved a programme titled ‘Sri Lankan Day’, which it claims will promote “unity and understanding”, and declared that its organisation and implementation will be overseen by the Ministry of Buddhasasana.
Scheduled to take place from 12 to 14 December 2025 at the Colombo Municipal Council Grounds and Vihara Maha Devi Park, it will see both public and private sector involvement.
Though the event will purportedly celebrate the island’s diversity, it will still be organised by the Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs. Sri Lankan politics continues to be dominated by Sinhala Buddhism with the powerful Buddhist clergy still wielding significant influence. Sri Lanka’s constitution also continues to give Buddhism primacy on the island’s declaring that it is the duty of the state to “protest and foster” the Buddhasasana.
The declaration of such an event comes as large parts of the Tamil homeland in the North-East remain heavily militarised and Tamils continuing to complain of racism and rights abuses, as well as ongoing colonisation efforts by Sinhala Buddhists. Just recently, Karai Thuraipattu Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman Chinnarasa Logeswaran condemned the Department of Archaeology for seizing Tamil farmlands in Mullaitivu. He accused the department of using archaeological protection as a pretext to take over lands in Kumulamunai, Thanni Murippu, and Kurunthurmalai—areas long cultivated by Tamil farmers—as part of a wider effort to expand Sinhala-Buddhist presence in the region.
Earlier this month Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Buddhasasana also inaugurated a new Buddha Sasana Council, signaling a growing alignment between state policy and Buddhism. This comes amid rising concern over religious freedom: in 2024, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended placing Sri Lanka on a special watchlist for serious violations.