Although the Department of Archaeology is not an institution that is very close to the majority of the public, the resignation of the Department’s Director General Prof. Anura Manatunga has attracted wide public attention due to a video that went viral following his resignation. The video was of a meeting between President and National Policies Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Prof. Manatunga and several North and East based Tamil politicians, where the three parties engaged in a debate over land related issues in the North and the East and certain activities conducted by the Department under Prof. Manatunga’s leadership were criticised, which is now being cited as the reason for Prof. Manatunga’s resignation.

While it is too early to attribute Prof. Manatunga’s resignation to what transpired at the said meeting, certain matters that were discussed during the meeting are indicative of the chaotic state of the land related issues in the North and the East. The abovementioned politicians, who appear for the people of the North and the East, claimed that many of those people have lost a considerable amount of land related resources to Department led land related projects, especially those concerning lands of archaeological value in the area, and that some of these land related disputes are in fact influenced by Buddhist monks, among others. While Prof. Manatunga was struggling to explain or justify how certain land related activities carried out by the Department, including land acquisitions, are in a confused or a stalled state, the Department came under fire from the President over how the Department is handling those issues.

Among the lands in question are those that allegedly have a certain archeological significance as well as those in which the people have allegedly lived and farmed before they were taken over by the authorities, and therefore, there are huge sentimental arguments surrounding these discussions. On the one hand, war affected people of the North and the East should no longer have to live as internally displaced persons in their motherland or be forced to leave their lands if they are owned rightfully. On the other hand, identifying, managing and preserving lands of archeological value and artefacts located in them have a national importance in terms of history, culture, religion and even tourism. In this context, it is important to acknowledge that the land related issue is not just a matter of their size or the ownership of lands, but is also a matter that concerns managing lands in a scientific, practical, equitable and flexible manner.

At the centre of the said discussion was some 275-acre land, which has allegedly been taken over by the authorities, especially the Department, and has been allocated for an archaeological site, which the North and East based politicians claimed should be returned. The President’s question was how such a massive land was identified as belonging to the land of one temple, and the videos of the interview did not show a proper response being given to the President’s concerns. Regardless of the response, one thing is clear; that is even if such a massive land was allocated for a single temple in the past at a time when the population was low and development activities were not advanced and prevalent, trying to keep it the same way now is not practically justifiable and viable. In fact, it is even difficult to believe that there could be important and substantial artefacts all over such a massive area. At the end of the day, all lands are historical lands and the lion share of the country’s lands are directly or indirectly associated with some historical event. Sri Lanka is a small country with limited land resources, where allocating acres of lands as archaeological sites without any significant evidence and without utilising them for any practically beneficial purpose is not equitable.

In that context, it is crucial to identify what sort of archaeological significance actually warrants the acquisition, use and allocation of lands for various purposes, especially for religious or archaeological ones, and therefore acquire only the most necessary parts of those lands. The Government and all other relevant parties should understand that the said land related disputes are not only about land ownership, which in most cases can be easily proven through the relevant documents or records, but that this is more of a matter of how we, as a country with limited land resources, use the existing, usable lands for our future development. Land ownership and the necessity of granting, keeping or revoking of ownership should be considerably based on the practical uses of a land. The Government should take steps to identify not only the archaeological value of lands, but also their socio-economic value in today’s and in future contexts. Most importantly, it must bring some level of public awareness with regard to these land related issues, with a focus on being not only scientific but also practical.