March 9, 2026 – March 22, 2026 | Vol.16, #11 & 12 | ISSN 3084-9330
Photo credits: News.lk
[paywall layout_id=”1906″ service_tags=”TMA,FP” preview=”true”]
Over the past few weeks, Sinhala media focused on the delay in the government’s publication of the Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa (the table of auspicious times for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year).
Coverage spanned print, television and social media commentary. Social media conversations and narratives were tracked and analysed using specialised social media monitoring tools.[1]
This week’s analysis is set out under three headings.
I. What were the key events that captured public attention?
March 10: A group of astrologers representing the National Astrologers’ Association publicly questioned the government’s failure to issue the official Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year. The dispute stemmed from the fact that the state New Year auspicious-time committee had been dissolved in 2024 and had not been reappointed. Although the Expert Committee of the National Astrologers’ Association had submitted a proposed timetable to the Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs in July 2025, it was neither approved nor followed by further discussion. In this context, the astrologers asked why the government had sought auspicious-time data from them if it had no intention of publishing the official New Year timetable.
March 14: Following a prior pledge to intervene if the government did not take immediate steps to establish the New Year Auspicious Time Committee, Sarvajana Balaya moved to prepare its own Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa.
March 15: Deputy Minister of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs Gamagedara Dissanayake stated that an official Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa could be announced after
March 16 consultations between the two astrological factions that had produced separate timetables. The ministry presented the consultations as a process involving all stakeholders.
March 16: The Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs, declared that a consensus had been reached among the astrologers and that they had agreed to issue a joint Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa.
March 17: The government formally released an official Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa.
In this week’s MPA, we explore how the above administrative delay evolved into a test of the government’s cultural legitimacy. The analysis is structured into two sections:
II. What is the cultural significance of the Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa?
The Sinhala and Tamil New Year (Aluth Avurudu in Sinhala; Puththandu in Tamil) is a major national observance that combines seasonal renewal, astrological belief, and shared social ritual.
What makes the occasion distinctive is that key New Year rituals are performed across the country at astrologically designated times. Within this belief system, the nation’s collective prosperity is understood to depend on aligning human action with celestial timing. The Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa gives practical form to that belief by fixing the times for rituals such as lighting the hearth, eating the first meal, commencing work, and anointing oil.
Within this deeply valued cultural context, the government is expected to take on the role of the “Chief Householder” of the nation. In other words, the government is expected to act as the coordinator of a significant cultural moment. Scholarship on political history also shows that astrologically designated times have long structured public rituals and that historical rulers have derived legitimacy in part from overseeing such rituals. The publication of a unified Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa is therefore understood not simply as a procedural task, but as a visible expression of the state’s role in coordinating a nationally shared cultural event. Uncertainty over its issuance is a political issue precisely for that reason.
III. How was the government impacted?
The government was negatively impacted by the appearance of it being culturally detached from a sacred administrative duty that it was expected to fulfil, though the eventual issuance of the Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa reduced the impact.
In the context of the upcoming Sinhala and Tamil new year in April, the delay and uncertainty surrounding the issuance of the Avurudu Nekath Seettuwa were interpreted as signs that the government was approaching this culturally sensitive period with “secular” or modernist detachment.
As noted in MPA Vol.16 Issue No.3, secularism is often read through the term niragamika (“empty of spirituality”), which carries a negative moral connotation rather than the idea of state neutrality. Government actions cast as secularist are therefore more easily framed as attempts to restrict or suppress Sinhala-Buddhist cultural security. Against this backdrop, the government’s perceived detachment in the present case was readily interpreted as a lack of cultural “rootedness.” Once the issue was framed in those terms, criticism moved beyond administrative lapse and toward a deeper claim: that the government was culturally disconnected from the society it governed.
This framing gave force to labels such as Kall-a-thoni (කල්ලතෝනි)—a derogatory term for “outsiders”—used to criticise the government. In the public eye, a Kall-a-thoni government cannot be trusted to safeguard the country’s prosperity. Ultimately, this distrust arises not merely from a failure to observe celestial timing but from the broader, more deeply rooted perception within certain sections of society that the administration is culturally detached and distant from the society it governs.
In this context, the eventual issuance of a unified timetable, after reconciling competing astrological positions, served as a cultural-political repair by reasserting the government’s role in coordinating a nationally shared ritual moment.
[1] The MPA team monitored Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube using Junkipedia for the keywords auspicious times and new year in Sinhala from March 9 to March 22, 2026.
To view this week’s news summaries, please click here.
To view this week’s social media data, please click here.
[/paywall]