Sri Lanka is not explicitly a secular country

What the Constitution says

The current constitutional text does not expressly call Sri Lanka a secular state. Instead, Article 9 gives Buddhism the foremost place and makes it the State’s duty to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while still assuring all religions the rights in Articles 10 and 14(1)(e). That is why the plain-text answer is “not explicitly secular.” ¹²³

At the same time, the Constitution contains real protections for religious freedom and equal treatment. Article 10 protects freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; Article 12 bars discrimination on grounds including religion; and Article 14(1)(e) protects the freedom to manifest religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching. ¹

Why people disagree about the label

The disagreement comes from two different ways of using the word “secular.” If “secular” means the Constitution gives no religion a privileged place, Sri Lanka does not fit that definition because Article 9 expressly favors Buddhism. If “secular” means the State must still respect all religions and protect equal civil rights, some judges have treated Sri Lanka as secular in that broader sense. ¹⁴⁵

The Supreme Court has discussed both ideas. In the 2014 Jehovah’s Witnesses case, the Court contrasted Sri Lanka with “avowedly secular India” and noted that Article 9 gives Buddhism the foremost place. ⁵ In the 2023 Ayurveda determination, the Court said, “there cannot be any debate” on whether Sri Lanka is a secular State, but it also warned that Article 9 cannot be read in isolation from the Constitution’s equality and religious-freedom guarantees. ⁴

So the safest reading is that Sri Lanka is constitutionally Buddhist-privileging, not textually secular. It is not a theocracy, either, because the same Constitution strongly protects other religions and equal citizenship. ¹⁴⁵