Three Sri Lankan Monks Launch Anuradhapura Hunger Strike Over 38-Square-Kilometre Sacred Zone Expansion

Three Buddhist monks launched an indefinite hunger strike in Sri Lanka's ancient city of Anuradhapura on Wednesday, demanding the government scrap an expansive redevelopment master plan for the historic pilgrimage cradle.

Negotiations have stalled. The fast escalates weeks of simmering friction over an official gazette issued on February 27 by the National Physical Planning Department, which maps out an updated Anuradhapura Sacred Area Development Plan. While state planners frame the scheme as an infrastructure overhaul designed to modernize civic sanitation, transit routes, and pilgrim logistics across the UNESCO World Heritage site, monastic factions view the blueprint as a direct encroachment on Sri Lanka's foremost Buddhist sanctuary.

The 38-Square-Kilometre Expansion Blueprint

Under the contested gazette, state planners intend to widen the designated sacred perimeter from 28 to 38 square kilometres. The proposal introduces protective enclosures around key archaeological monuments—including a planned environmentally friendly bio-fence near the Ruwanweli Maha Seya stupa to deter stray animals—alongside upgraded sanitation corridors and visitor amenities. State officials confirmed the framework was assembled alongside the Urban Development Authority and the Department of Archaeology.

But monastic critics fear structural modernization will dismantle the sanctuary's 2,200-year-old character. Demonstrators raised alarm over possible administrative curbs on traditional worship and pointed to an on-site marker identifying an area within the Atamasthana—the eight revered sacred shrines—as a Kali Kovil, stoking anxieties over unauthorized religious expansion.

Ruchira Vithana, Director General of the National Physical Planning Department, flatly dismissed allegations that the gazette sanctions new religious complexes or curtails public worship. Archaeological surveys confirm the existence of historic 10th-century Kali Kovil ruins at the location, Vithana noted, but physical investigations found zero evidence of a newly erected Rama Kovil or unauthorized shrines. He reiterated that the statutory Archaeology Ordinance strictly outlaws unapproved construction throughout the perimeter.

Standoff at Ruwanweli Maha Seya and Defiance of Court Orders

Police lines had already fractured earlier this week. The agitation, spearheaded by Ven Balangoda Kassapa Thera, boiled over when demonstrators clashed with law enforcement over the unauthorized erection of an elevated timber structure near the stupa. A local magistrate's court subsequently ordered protesters to immediately vacate the precincts surrounding Ruwanweli Maha Seya and the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi—the sacred fig tree rooted from the original sapling under which Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment—and dismantle all temporary encampments.

The demonstrators refused to move.

Kassapa confirmed to reporters that the three fasting monks had refused all solid sustenance since Tuesday afternoon, instructing gathered crowds not to supply liquids in a bid to force executive concessions. In addition to demanding the total rescission of the February 27 gazette, the strikers hitched their fast to a political ultimatum: the immediate release of prominent Buddhist monk Galagodaatte Gnanasara. Gnanasara recently returned to prison to serve out the balance of a six-year sentence for contempt of court linked to the disappearance of a Sri Lankan journalist.

Government authorities must now weigh public health interventions as the fasting monks enter their second day without sustenance, while local police face the looming deadline to enforce the magistrate's outstanding eviction order around the Atamasthana core.