A major political party in Sri Lanka representing the Tamil minority, the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), recently asked its parliamentarian, S Sritharan to step down from the Constitutional Council after he supported the candidature of the government-nominated candidate—a serving military officer attached to the Sri Lanka Army’s Audit Division—for the position of Auditor General. The ITAK has been opposed to the militarisation of civilian institutions in Sri Lanka, especially after the civil war.

Sri Lanka witnessed increasing militarisation of civil administration during the rule of the Rajapakses, both Mahinda and Gotabaya. The UN Human Rights Council Resolution 30/1 of 2015 directed the government “to accelerate the return of land to its rightful civilian owners, and to undertake further efforts to tackle the considerable work that lies ahead in the areas of land use and ownership, in particular the ending of military involvement in civilian activities”. Yet, the pattern set by the Rajapakses continues. In August 2025, Tamils in the Northern and Eastern provinces observed hartals and protested against what they call the continuation of militarisation under the present National People’s Power (NPP) government.

Civilianising the military?

Increased engagement of the military arose as Sri Lanka in 2009 boasted nearly 317,000 personnel; it currently ranks 69th in the world in terms of the strength of its military. Post-war, there was a demand to downsize the military, as maintenance of a large force would impact Sri Lanka’s post-war economy. The then President Mahinda Rajapakse opposed any demobilisation, arguing that it cannot disband those personnel who helped Sri Lanka’s military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government engaged the military in development work, inducting them into civilian institutions.

Objectives were two-pronged, i.e., reemployment of personnel and, second, employing those to civilian duties. This enabled the state to keep an eye on Tamil civilians. The majority of the force were deployed in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, where Tamils lived.

Post-war, the Army used the Civil Security Department (CSD), which was formed by dismantling the previous National Home Guard Service, in developmental work ranging from agriculture to construction work in Sri Lanka. A report published in 2017 said it created economic dependency on the military, as the CSD generated much-needed employment opportunities, especially for the former LTTE cadres. It mandated one month of military training for those working in the military-run agriculture and animal husbandry farms, and an officer from the Criminal Investigation Department (‘CID’) visited the firm once a week, which only reflected how the state kept an eye on Tamils employed by the Army. Simultaneously, since 2010, state-initiated, military-led undergraduate orientation programmes have been initiated in the universities.

Army-trained preschool teachers were also employed in schools. Gifting constituted major activities of the Army, which gave school bags, stationery, etc., to school children in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka. From the Army’s perspective, it might have been an outreach presenting a softer side of the military; for the Tamils, it was a mode of surveillance over them and intrusion into the civilian sphere of activities as the military continued to have an overwhelming presence in the region. Reportedly, in 2017, eight years after the war ended, its presence stood at one soldier to two civilians in the Mallativu district.

Militarisation under Gotabaya presidency

After Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected as the president, he constituted a Presidential Task Force on Archaeological Heritage Management for the Eastern Province and entrusted the defence secretary, Major General (Rtd) Kamal Gunaratne, as chairman of this 11-member all-Sinhala task force.

Following the protests by Tamils against the task force that had only members from the Buddhist community, in 2021, two members—a Tamil and a Muslim—were included. The mandate of the task force was to “identify the extent of land that should be allocated for archaeological sites… to promote the uniqueness of Sri Lanka, both locally and internationally, and make recommendations for the promotion of such heritage”. The Centre for Policy Alternatives, a well-known Colombo-based think tank, in its report alluded to the fact that the use of ‘national heritage’ is a majoritarian construct, and increasingly, the Buddhist clergy are involved in land conflict to claim heritage sites, generating a new conflict between the Sinhalese and Tamils, both claiming them as their heritage sites. The Tamils argue that most of this archaeological excavation is politically motivated to establish a Buddhist hegemonic state by placing Buddhist religious symbols to change the historical presence of Tamils in northern and eastern districts.

Gotabaya also engaged the military officers to control Covid-19 spread. In January 2021, the president appointed 25 major generals, out of which 16 were involved in combat duties in the last phase of the war in the effort to fight the coronavirus. Senior military officers also headed presidential task forces who reported directly to the president, directly undermining the civilian bureaucracy. In 2020, the deputy chief of staff secretary was appointed to the Ministry of Agriculture, Mahaweli, Rural Development and Irrigation as the Army continued to hold land owned by the Tamils.

Promises of transformational policy

While the Tamils are awaiting transformational politics, promised by Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD), as they voted overwhelmingly for him in the presidential election, the most immediate issue for them is to reduce militarisation and occupation of civilian land in the north and the east. The seizure of land as protected forests and heritage sites continues, as the administration is not even willing to comply with court orders that direct the restoration of the land to the original owners.

To move away from the past, in May this year, the National People’s Power (NPP) government allowed the Tamils to remember their near and dear ones who lost their lives during the war. This was not allowed earlier, as these commemorations were interpreted as celebrating LTTE terrorists, as the state labelled most of the Tamil civilians killed during the Army’s onslaught in the last phase of the war. However, after the commemoration, police questioned the organisers, reflecting how the state continues to feel ‘insecure’ about such commemorations.

As mass graves continue to be discovered, the lack of accountability to bring those involved in the mass murder to justice is forcing the Tamils to resign to their fate. Constitutional reforms are pending, and there is no move to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to help initiate a genuine reconciliation through political measures and accountability. President AKD’s assurance of a ‘new political framework’ appears to be yet another political jargon whose meaning citizens grapple to decipher. Like many other countries that have witnessed long periods of conflict, the entrenchment of the military is a given. The military that enjoys power through coercion does not want to give up control. It also doesn’t allow civilian institutions to grow and take control of law and order and normalise the post-conflict political transition.