OCTOBER 8 — Sri Lanka has found itself in a furious national argument about a convicted man’s clothes.

Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero is back in prison, serving the remainder of a six-year sentence for contempt of court. The Supreme Court has invalidated the presidential pardon that freed him. Then he appeared in court without his saffron robes, wearing prison-issued clothing. Now senior Buddhist prelates have objected, saying the decision to remove a monk’s robes belongs to the Sangha, not prison officials. They also argue that prison rules allow a prisoner to wear the clothes he normally wore before conviction — which, in his case, means robes.

That is the official argument. But the public question is harder to dodge: why is the robe the emergency?

The prelates say they respect the court’s judgment. Their letter does not ask that his conviction be erased. It says no Sangha council has ruled that he committed a parajika offence — the most serious category of monastic transgression — or that he should be expelled from the Buddhist order. This makes the dispute, in their view, about religious authority and prison procedure, not a defence of his conviction. That distinction matters. But it does not make the spectacle any less absurd: the law has put a convicted man in prison, and the country’s religious establishment is now fighting over whether he should be allowed to wear the uniform of spiritual authority while appearing before the courts.

A robe is not just cloth. It is a promise. To many people, it signifies restraint, compassion and a life devoted to something larger than oneself. It carries a moral authority that no tailor can sew into fabric. That is precisely why it should not be treated as a costume that automatically commands reverence, whatever the wearer has done.

The argument here is not that every monk is responsible for every offender who has worn robes. Nor does an accusation make someone guilty. But the record is serious enough to demand more than a dispute about appearances. Australia’s ABC reported today that Naotunne Vijitha, a Sri Lankan-born former chief monk at a Melbourne temple, was sentenced to 13 years and two months after being found guilty of 17 offences against six girls. In Sri Lanka, a high court sentenced monk Mulleriyawa Wimalatissa to an effective ten years for sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy who had come to a temple for ordination.

And these are convictions. A separate set of figures must be handled carefully: Sri Lanka’s National Child Protection Authority told OCCRP it received complaints against 285 Buddhist monks between May 2023 and May 2026. Twenty-seven were referred for criminal charges; the agency said it did not know how many resulted in convictions. Those are allegations, not findings of guilt. But they are a reason to strengthen child protection and accountability — not to make the robe itself the centre of the national conversation.

History offers another uncomfortable reminder that robes do not make the wearer incapable of violence or political ambition. In 1959, the Buddhist monk Talduwe Somarama shot Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who died the following day. Somarama was convicted of murder and hanged in 1962. It is a grotesque historical irony: a man wearing a symbol of peace used it to approach the prime minister before opening fire. That crime does not indict Buddhism. It does indict the lazy belief that religious appearance is proof of moral character.

There is a still larger problem: politics has repeatedly turned Sinhala-Buddhist identity into an electoral instrument. In 1956, the promise of Sinhala primacy and protection of Buddhism helped carry politicians to power; Sinhala became the sole official language, deepening the exclusion felt by Tamils. Later, hard-line Buddhist nationalist groups and politicians helped turn minority communities into targets. Human Rights Watch documented the 2014 anti-Muslim violence that followed a rally led by the Bodu Bala Sena, and described Gnanasara as a leader long associated with inciting anti-Muslim violence.

This is how a country gets trapped: first, politicians enlist religion to win votes; then religious status becomes politically untouchable; then ordinary questions of law and accountability are presented as attacks on faith. The robe becomes a shield. The moment anyone asks what is underneath it, the argument changes from “What did this person do?” to “How dare you question the robe?”

And Sri Lanka is not constitutionally secular in the ordinary sense. Its Constitution gives Buddhism “the foremost place” and makes the protection of the Buddha Sasana a duty of the state, while also guaranteeing rights to other religions. That special constitutional standing makes it even more important that public religious authority be exercised with humility—and that it not be confused with immunity.

If the prison authorities have misread their own regulations, that should be tested in court. If the Sangha believes only it can decide whether a monk is disrobed, it can make that case without pretending that a prison uniform is an assault on Buddhism. The reported robe decision concerns what a prisoner wears; it does not itself overturn his conviction or sentence. The judiciary has spoken on the pardon. The courts should be allowed to speak on the sentence. The prison should explain its rules. And the clergy should ask what the public sees when it fights harder for a convicted man’s robes than for the dignity of the people harmed by men who exploited religious trust.

A faith is not disgraced when a prisoner wears prison clothes. A faith is disgraced when its most powerful guardians seem more alarmed by the removal of a robe than by the conduct that sent its wearer to prison.

The robes can be returned. The moral authority they represent is harder to restore.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.