Milinda Problem: The Missing Buddhist Mandate

Most of what we see in modern rulers resembles a Turkish proverb: when a clown enters a palace, he assumes he will become a king, but instead the palace becomes a circus.

- BY NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

Milinda and Nagasena

Democracy is visibly crumbling, yet no convincing alternative has appeared. The most pragmatic models of governance once proposed by anarchist thinkers have been so badly misrepresented that many people now equate anarchism solely with chaos. Yet early anarchist texts and contemporary writers such as Noam Chomsky are clear: properly understood, anarchism offers tools to dismantle entrenched inequality and bureaucratic apathy, enabling decentralised decision-making and genuinely participatory politics. But the birth of a new system of governance is slow, far slower than our political impatience allows. If anything truly new is to emerge, it may not mature until the coming decades.

Meanwhile, what has unfolded in countries that claim Buddhist heritage is especially disheartening. Many Buddhist-majority nations today are mired in corruption, with political structures that have hardened into unresponsive, self-protective systems. Leaders no longer trust monastic institutions; temples increasingly resemble financial enterprises sustaining the comforts of senior monks. The ethical foundations the Buddha emphasised—compassion, equanimity, self-restraint—have largely faded from public life. As Aravind Adiga quips in The White Tiger, if the Buddha returned to witness the behaviour of many who claim to follow him, he would run immediately without looking back. Cultures once committed to moral clarity and dharmic governance have become parodies of their guiding philosophies.