Kandy, said our secondary school teachers, is the ‘second-largest city in the island’. Not really. Maybe it was, once. I don’t know why we continue to believe that myth. Apart from Colombo, at least four municipal councils, namely Dehiwala-Mt Lavinia, Kotte, Moratuwa and even Negombo, beat it in terms of population. Kandy comes in fifth, with a population of a little more than 125,000.

Interestingly, the Kalmunai and Vavuniya municipalities are just behind, seriously challenging our traditional thinking. Things have changed. Calling Kandy the second-largest city makes little sense now. Colombo to Kandy is not Delhi to Mumbai or even Delhi to Madras. In terms of international standards, Kandy can hardly be called a ‘city’.

But outside the Western Province, Kandy is an active business location. Its geographic position has made it one of the major transportation hubs. No less than 15 Class A or B motorways from every direction of the island can reach it. The main railway line from Colombo runs through nearby Peradeniya before reaching its farthest point, Badulla. Kandy, thanks to the Temple of the Tooth Relic and the perahera during summer holidays, is one of the key tourist attractions. It houses perhaps the largest state university in the island and a historic botanical garden. It is also the capital of the Central Province, which contributes 11% to national GDP. Yes, Kandy is a big deal to us – whatever the rest of the world may think.

Kandy was in the news recently. Its infrastructure facilities have reached their limit. They can no longer support the growing needs of its population. Traffic in Kandy is far worse, they say, than in Colombo. It’s easy to blame the closure of A26 and B195, each for about 500 meters, in front of the maligawa. Yes, this closure does add to Kandy traffic. Still, reopening these segments will not be a magic bullet solution. The issues are more complicated.

Let’s start with the basics. Kandy wasn’t planned to be the capital of the island or even a major city. It was first chosen by Sena Sammatha Wickramabahu (1473–1511) of the Kotte Royal bloodline as the center of a semi-independent provincial kingdom. Others followed, but only after Konappu Bandara, who later became Vimaladharmasuriya I, was it raised to the level of the capital. Having embraced Buddhism, he consolidated his authority further by bringing the tooth relic to Kandy from Delgamuwa in 1592 CE. The coastal regions had then been under the Portuguese. Major parts of the present North Central province, with the Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa kingdoms long since fallen, were uninhabited and probably under thick forest. In other words, even if one desired a better place, there were none.

One factor made Kandy a perfect capital for local rulers: its inaccessibility. Check history. The Portuguese attempted multiple attacks. They were successfully repelled, most notably in the campaign of Danture. Then came the Dutch. In 1761, King Kirti Sri Rajasinha attacked and overran most coastal Dutch establishments, leaving only heavily fortified Negombo intact. Threatened by a Dutch retaliatory force in 1763, Rajasinha abandoned the coastline and withdrew into the interior. The Dutch did capture Kandy in 1765, but could not retain it in the face of Kandyan guerrilla attacks.

Under the British, history repeated itself. In February 1803, the British dispatched two separate forces into Kandyan territory – from Colombo and Trincomalee. The force from Trincomalee reached Kandy, overcoming fierce resistance on the way, to find the hill capital deserted. Despite their early successes, the British army soon suffered a number of setbacks. Kandyans followed the same guerilla tactics with the new enemy. Disease ravaged the British garrison left behind to secure the capital. Within a month, they lost Kandy.

Even with growing impatience to recapture it, the British had to wait for more than a decade. Still, they couldn’t overthrow the Kandyan kingdom by fighting. If not for the unpopularity of King Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe, which forced the second layer of aristocracy to support the British, the Kandyan kingdom wouldn’t have fallen so easily and quickly. It was such a secured placed nestled so nicely in the circumambient hills. Interestingly, the very features that made Kandy a fortified castle then stands against its expansion now. You cannot just develop a valley – limited flat space in the middle of a hilly area. Unplanned framework of streets that followed from ancient times cannot be transformed into ring roads now. There is no space for new structures. Colombo’s expansion can never be replicated in Kandy. The most that can be done is to develop the surrounding areas, with great difficulty and at a significantly higher cost. Certainly no easy solutions exist.

The confines of such a development exercise are not clear. When and where should one stop? Even with expansion outwards, congestion at the center cannot be avoided as long as it houses key government and private institutions. The traffic issues, thus, will continue. Then, there are geographical factors. There are serious limitations to what can be erected in and around Kandy. You just cannot have a 30-storey apartment building at Hantana. Landslides are not too uncommon. We have little idea how the environment would react to mammoth structural changes. Unpredictable repercussions may follow. Should we develop Kandy to be a major city? If it were a historical place that attracts both local and international tourists solely based on that factor, it’s better to not damage that image. A few shopping malls may not be a bad idea as they can serve visiting tourists, but they will not be the reason for anyone to visit this ancient city. Apartment buildings and factories are great, but not at the expense of scenic beauty. If such structural changes were to reduce Kandy’s historical significance, better to avoid them. There are many other places for them. Why ruin a unique historical place?

Construction of the Colombo-Kandy highway has already begun. My opinion will not make a difference. It will provide quick access – more than two hours will be reduced from the current travel time. At what cost? How many are looking forward to this speed? Certainly not tourists. You can never get the true feeling of Kadugannawa Pass at 100kmph. The southern expressway operates at a loss. Subsequent development has failed to earn the expected income. What will a highway to Kandy, given its development constraints, earn?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not against highways. But they should serve a purpose. Linking Galle and Matara to Colombo was good. Maybe even Kurunegala. An extension to Kandy will be a different story. The only thing it will serve is political, not economic, interest.

The best is to spare Kandy. If possible, we should encourage a section of its current population to move out by developing another city out of the hill country, even if that were Polonnaruwa or Hambantota. Not just Kandy, but the entire hill country should be left alone. It should be preserved, if not for historical reasons, for pure scenic beauty. It is more economical too, given growth in tourism. I am sure future generations will be thankful for that decision.