Bodu Bala Sena and the Boru (fake) Police

Bodu Bala Sena and the Boru (fake) Police

C. Wijeyawickrema, LL.B., Ph.D.

                I cannot remember if it was in the 1960s or 1970s that a civilian volunteer police force was created in Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Each big police station had a volunteer police support group. In Panadura, I can remember we teenagers called it Boru Police (fake or false police). I can understand it now as an idea similar to the present day village protection force, one of whom for example, one day saw the conman Sakviti's wife walking on the road and reported it to the regular police.  The real police that I saw as a child was a constables wearing kakhi shorts working hard to please others higher in rank starting with those above the constable. Later in my life I was able to find out that it was semi-slavery system for lower ranks until in 1971 the JVP uprising made numbers more important than the rank. Stupid JVP youth from poor families killed poor constables instead of kidnapping SPs or ASPs in which case police constables would have been at least in secret sympathy with JVP rebels.

                 We were told then that police does not have each of the attributes they were supposed to possess, namely P (politeness),O (obedience), L (loyalty), I (impartiality), C (courtesy) and E (efficiency).  By the 1990s police lost any remaining respect and dignity when SSPs were deployed to guard the BMWs of crook politicians. Today, people are so scared to step into a police station that so many crimes go unreported. Politicians corrupted police so much that an honest officer cannot be a happy police officer. The society is corrupt so much that I heard a story that policemen now ask bribes (jarava) saying they too have to find money to pay for their children's tuition classes.  In a country based on fake and faking, the biggest joke is to have the Ashoka Dharma Chakraya as the logo of police department. It was like JRJ had a postage stamp with the phrase, "Dharmista Samajayak."  JRJ, R Premadasa and CBK produced the most unjust periods in the country's history. I hope MahindaR will prevent his name also getting into this category of failed rulers as he came from a village.

                A good police service is a gem for a country and a community. I heard that Scandinavian countries have the best police. Police corruption is found all over the world and poor people suffer from it most.  In America police is a city service and the corruption in most city police is shamefully high.  In a way in Sri Lanka police service is more important than health or education services. Police also got caught with the JRJ-promoted capitalist system where big fish eating the small fish has become the norm. Add to this the fear of death people had for 30 years, hidden in their subconscious making them so selfish, competitive, greedy and suspicious of everything and everybody. Moral values are in serious decline. The outward manifestation of this unrest in mind can be seen in the case of Buddhists by the rush to build new Buddhist temples or planting Buddha statutes in street corners or free food and drink places during Vesak. Defects in inner spiritual quality are expected to be covered by an exhibition of external material objects and loudspeakers chanting pirith.

                This societal decay is a direct result of destruction of Sri Lanka by Colombo-based politicians for the past 60 or more years. It became a crisis after the bahubootha constitution of JRJ and the new system of elections. Now no respectable, decent citizen can become an elected member of any political unit. The behavior of MPs in parliament, both government and opposition makes one sick. The entire country is ruined by this political party system and each day is a step toward indiscipline, more corruption, more crimes and sex crimes. Both government and opposition parties are responsible for this. In this crisis situation, Christian evangelists, Taliban-type Islam agencies, NGOs wanting to break Sri Lanka are busy in harvesting clients.

                Police can be a valuable, admired service. But it will take time and an overhauling from A to Z of Sri Lankan society and politics. I can think of at least one historical attempt of police and civilian cooperation. In the 1940s Ven. Kalukondayave Pragnasekara  Maha Nayaka Thero joined with Justice Akbar and the young ASP Osmond de Silva to form Village development and crime eradication societies in the island. It became so successful that the establishment (ruling black-white elites) got very upset, and did everything to cut off police from villagers.  The ASP was transferred from region to region. When all that failed, Osmond Silva was sent as head of the police training center at Bambalapitiya so that farmers cannot meet with him. This was also the time young Marxists were in the Malaria eradication work, but they did not support police-people community work sponsored by Buddhist monks.  A temple is more effective than a police station in social rebuilding and healing.

                This is what minister Keheliya Rambukwella (KR) did not know when he made an arrogant statement that if Bodu Bala Sena organizes an unofficial police, the official police will arrest them. He needs to know that official police has become a boru police, via corruption and inefficiency. Except for the Defence Ministry, all other government entities have become false units filled with political catchers and incompetent workers. Compartmentalization to provide job slots to MPs as ministers has gone to an extreme making Sri Lanka cabinet a joke in the world. Agriculture, trade, education for example, cannot be efficiently managed as so many separate ministries. Buddhism ministry is a joke when you see video examples of thieves roaming in cities as Buddhist monks. Archeological Dept is another curse when ancient Buddhist ruins are bulldozed by businessmen supported by non-Buddhist politicians. The method justifiably used by MahindaR to overcome the hurdle of not having a majority in the parliament by giving ministry jobs as bribes to opposition MPs has now made MahindaR a prisoner to crooked politicians who in fact opposed Mahinda Chinthanaya in 2005.

                It is because of this predicament of the MahindaR administration in general and the decline of Buddhst values in particular, that the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) is announcing that people must become unofficial police officers. It said its mission is to clean its own land (spoilt Buddhist values) first, but if one wants to eradicate Dengue others lands also enter into the picture.  Most government agencies are corrupt or bias against the Sinhala Buddhists, they are acting knowingly or unknowingly against Buddhist interests, NGOs are mostly non-Buddhists and systematic Islamic and Christian unethical conversions work is rampant with international dollars, and therefore Buddhists must be even more vigilant. If KR thinks he can stop this, he must be still living in the pre-2005 anti MahindaR era that he later gave up. KR subsequently played a big public role in winning the war against Prabakaran, but peace we now have is not real peace for Buddhists and Buddhism.

                Retired geography professor G. H. Peiris in his book, Sri Lanka: challenges of the new millennium (2006), at p. 357, indicated the growing militant trends among Muslim youth in the Eastern Province. This is similar to what the late professor Tennakoon Wimalananda pointed out in the 1960s against Tamil DMK activities in Sri Lanka which the then PM Dudley Senanayake decided to ignore. The Halal issue is the tip of the Islam-Arabic-Taliban iceberg in Sri Lanka. Willing to bend over backwards to get Muslim votes to stay in power KR did not want to follow rules of reasonableness. Do we in Sri Lanka need Halalization? Do we in Sri Lanka need facial masks in streets and public schools? These are not human rights issues. These are Sri Lankan Sinhala Buddhist heritage protection related peaceful coexistence issues.

                BBS said at the Maharagama Conference that it does not want to have a conflict with the government and it will not support any political party. BBS also says on its website that it is not for violence. Buddhists have enough examples of taming others: Upatissa Damanaya, Nalagiri Damanaya and Angulimala Damanaya. The best evidence of BBS words and actions come from youtube videos. The Colombo Telegraph showed a video against Ven. Gnanasara. Buddhists do not think monks are saints. They make human mistakes. The incident shown was a conspiracy to provoke him. Why would expressway leaving exit gatekeeper detain a vehicle for more than two hours because it had a defective tail light?  I saw a video of Pope John Paul getting angry when he was in Nicaragua. FBI had tapes of Martin Luther King having illicit sex. Most American presidents and senators were not that moralistic in their private sex life.  It is better if the monk did not get angry, but it also shows he is not a fake politician. Those who are genuine in their public work get angry and angry outbursts are not uncommon. Only politicians can pretend with toothpaste smiles.

                With Sri Lanka now having a (mostly) boru police, BBS is trying to help the country with a volunteer force with thousands of eyes to help the boru police to become a real police. Therefore, the minister should thank BBS in its noble plan. I do not think BBS can be stopped by anybody because what it is doing is following the reasonable path or the Middle Path in Buddhism. Nobody in Sri Lanka should think that Buddhist monks did not play a key role in defeating Tamil terrorists.  Ven. Elle Gunawansa told me that he did everything other than taking a gun to win the war. He was at the battle front with soldiers. When Gotabhaya Rajapakse was the only one who said "this war is winnable," it was the active Buddhist monks who gave strength to the shaking legs of politicians to fight a just war. In a world of 7-8 billion people, Sri Lanka's 15-20 million Sinhala Buddhists cannot use the Dhammapadaya to prevent aggression against them by billions of Christian and Islamic evangelists and the organized new anti-Buddhist weapon of Interfaith joke.  We do not have to follow anymore Nanda Malini's song, "do not take the navaguna wela to fight a war," but readiness and willingness to undertake surgical operations is a must in a world full of guns and bombs. Not following this rule resulted in the death of Buddhism in so many countries such as India, Iran, Afghanistan, Malaysia, Korea, Maldives Islands and the Philippines.  A Buddhist Jataka story gives a good example in this regard. During a famine the Bodhisatva Nagaya went in search of water and ended up in an old woman's kitchen. When the woman took a stick to hit the Nagaya, it showed it full fan. The woman surprised and frightened holding her hands up in worshipping mode said, "Lord, please pardon me for my mistake in thinking that you were a garadiya, please leave my kitchen." The unbelievable support BBS is receiving from people and the amazing level and amount of attacks directed against it from local and foreign agents is an indication that BBS is already a recognized Nagaya.  The entire Sri Lankan political establishment is shaking in fear as if Ven. Soma's ghost is back.