Ethnoreligious Nationalism and the Rejected Federalism of Sri Lanka

9 Ethnoreligious nationalism and the rejected federalism of Sri Lanka

Suren Rāghavan

Introduction

Post-colonial Sri Lanka produced an acrimonious ethnoreligious political conflict between the majority Sinhalas and the Tamil minority. The political and Buddhist leadership of the Sinhalas who make up 74 percent of the population refused to accommodate minority demands for greater political autonomy. Unfulfilled pacts and continued state-sponsored ethnic violence propelled the more radical sections of the Tamil polity to wage an armed struggle since 1983. Many attempts by the international community and the neighboring India failed to bring a sustain-able peace (Goodhand 2010; Höglund and Orjuela 2012). This protracted conflict gained much political and academic attention for the challenges and lessons itcontinues to offer.

In February 2002, during the height of the conflict, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leaderVeluppilai Pirapaharan signed a cease fire agreement with Norwegian facilitation.During the post–cease fire negotiations in Oslo, in December 2002, both the gov-ernment of Sri Lanka and the LTTE agreed to explore a solution within a multi-national federal framework, which respects the territorial sovereignty of Lanka while granting internal self-determination for the Tamils. With this development, the federal possibility regained ground with support as well as opposition within the national politics of Lanka. Some argued that the concept of federalism in Lanka was not organic or indigenous but instead an ideology promoted by the international community, which could not be a reality (Hennayake 2002) Others, however, pur-sued the prospect enthusiastically (Edrisinha and Welikala 2008; Edrisinha 2001, 1999; Hellmann-Rajanayagam1990; Manikkalingam and Ratnayake 1995; Stokke and Uyangoda 2011). In May 2009, the state troops had a dramatic victory over the rebels. Civilian accounts suspect up to 140,000 lives perished with massive socio-economic losses (Harrison 2012; Wise 2012).1 In July 2010, victorious president Mahinda Rajapakse declared that there is no more room for a federalist discourse in Lanka, which will firmly remain a centralized state.2

Why do the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists and their monks – the San.gha3 –

oppose federalism or any kind of serious power sharing with the non-Buddhists? Why, in the post-war context, there is an even violent militant San

.gha agita-

tion against all minorities, ideologizing a deep concentration of political and

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122 Suren Rāghavan

administrative power only with the Sinhala Buddhist elites? While attempting to answer this question, this chapter also aims to widen the debate on why liberal democracy and its chosen form of governance – especially federalism – failed in Lanka. Such contribution is made to deepen our analysis of how Buddhist eth-noreligious nationalism fought and defeated federalism in Lanka. We believe this has lessons for many other similar conditions where religion is a state project.

The question is often asked how a Buddhist society like Lanka may not seek harmony and non-violent peace. The answer can come from different dimen-sions. To begin with, such a question reveals the superficial understanding of Buddhism in general and Sinhala history in particular. Sinhala Buddhism, while largely based on Theravāda texts, nevertheless has incorporated a number of other elements in its practice. Worship of Hindu deities, the practice of astrol-ogy, belief in black magic, a rigid caste structure dividing San

.gha chapters, and

a deep ethno-national political project of Sinhala superiority as venerated in the Vam. sa literature4 makes Sinhala Buddhism an ethnoreligious nationalist project even while such is antithetical to the core Theravāda ideals.

In Sinhala society, a harmonious order between Buddhism, kingship, and the San

.gha symbolized reciprocal validation of social, political, and cosmic order

(Smith 1978). Key narratives such as the Dīpavam. sa and Mahāvam. sa have textu-alized such memories as part of ethnoreligious history and continued the same con-ceptual framework to the present day (Bechert 1978; Kemper 1991; Wijeyeratne 2013). Any alteration to this order or questioning of its intrinsic nature is con-sidered an ontological threat (Nissan 1989; Tambiah 1992; DeVotta 2007). This paradigm elevates the San

.gha as the true negotiators between the cosmic order of

the next world and the political order of this world. Without such San.gha endorse-

ment, any attempt to rule or even desire for such rule is to dismiss the cosmic role of the San

.gha (Rāghavan 2014: 201). In Sinhala memorized narrative, Lanka is

the Dhammadīpa that offers final salvation, the path to nirvāna to the Sinhalas and to the rest of the humankind who decide to take refuge in the Dhamma; and Sinhala San

.gha are the teachers, guides, and facilitators to such a spiritual journey

(Rāghavan 2014; Thiruchelvam 2000). The sixty-five years of the political trajectory of independent Lanka has been

much altered by monks who took upon themselves the responsibility of opposing rulers who they accused of undermining the cosmic status of Sinhala Buddhism and its San

.gha (Frydenlund 2005; Imitiyaz 2013; Rāghavan 20013). Within

Buddhism there remains space for a more modern understanding of human and minority rights (Keyes 2011).

Ethnoreligious nationalism as a political reality

Ethnoreligious nationalism

Michael Keating argued that ethnoreligious nationalism has emerged as a formi-dable political force in many parts of the modern world (2001: 39). “It denotes both the loyalty to a nation deprived from its own state and the loyalty to an ethnic


Ethnoreligious nationalism and the rejected federalism of Sri Lanka 123

group embodied in a specific state” (Conversi 2002: 2). Walker Connor consid-ered ethnoreligious nationalism as a political fact independent of any economic variables. Margaret Moore claimed (ethno) “nations, unlike immigrants, typically have a territory that they regard as their homeland which serves as the basis for political self-determination” (2001: 1). Jonathan Fox confirmed that religion is increasingly influencing conflicts (2004: 75).

However, a globalized political order has generated “politics of multiple iden-tity” across the globe. The liberal democracy encourages citizens with full recog-nition of one’s self-identity whether it is religious, cultural, or linguistic. As Smith has argued, this transition from single collective identity to multiple identities will continue, creating ‘concentric circles of allegiance’ for the near future (1991: 24). Ethnoreligious nationalism is characteristically different from nationalism. Nationalism attempts to homogenize the various peoples of a given territory while ethnoreligious nationalism aims to carve out a specific ethnie.

We ought to agree that ethnoreligious conflicts are only one facet within the broader area of religious violence. Appleby (2000) for example divided religious violence into (1) traditional religious movements and (2) nationalist religious movements. Traditional religious groups try to influence and control the state through a tighter grip on the political elites while the nationalist religions use a mixed force of nationalism and religious beliefs to wage an ideological war on new changes. The Hindutva of India is a classic example. Since the impact of Western forms of socio-political structures are made popular as the most “accepted” and “democratic” ways of life under the globalization process, thereare at least two more types of religious ideologies that have produced absoluteviolence: (1) A global religious militancy such as al-Qaeda, and (2) national groups like the Bodu Bala Senā (BBS) in Lanka and the 969 Movement led byVenerable Ashin Wirathu in Burma. They learn from and inspire each other.Jonathan Fox has produced volumes in this area. Most of them use quantita-tive methods increasing our technical understanding. In Lanka, for instance, the ethnoreligious nationalists have shown signs of traditional, national, and trans-national characters, which therefore demand specific analyses. What we observe in Lanka is not about Buddhism, but ethnic Sinhalas using Buddhism to address their ontological insecurities.

Ethnoreligious nationalism and federalism

Can federalism be imported or imposed to satisfy the competing and conflicting ethno-national demands of different nations within a single state? What are the prerequisites for a successful multinational federation? Burgess, in his contribu-tion, puts the philosophy simply when he notes that “practitioners must be able to identify the limits and possibilities of negotiating often largely intractable cultural ideological conflicts that are highly charged precisely because they go to the very heart of what constitutes self-definition” (2006: 111). This is important because the traditional approach to nation building was hegemonic, not just in its admin-istrative and strategic functions, but in the enforced monolithic national identity


124 Suren Rāghavan

which is often that of the majority nation. Yael Tamir noted that in order to be full-fledged citizens, individuals in these states “had to identify not only with the state institutions but also with the culture of the ruling nation . . . this deeply affects the self-image of ethnic minority nations” (1993: 143).

It is at this point, that one must differentiate multiculturalism from multi-nationalism.

They are not the same subject. Both deal with issues that focus largely upon identity questions but the empirical problems associated with each of them are different. The main empirical focus of multinational federation is ipso facto sub-state nationalism, that is the collective needs and requirements of the nation or nations coexist within the larger, overarching political national-ity of the federation taken as whole.

(Burgess 2006: 108)

Not every multicultural state is multinational. India is home for so many cultures. However, for most Indians, they are first Indian and then an Assami, Bengali, Malayalee, Naga, Panjabi or Tamilian. On the other hand, multi-nationalism can exist without ushering in a full federal structure like in the United Kingdom, as long as the sub-nations and the dominant nation have political agreements for coexistence.

This modern “liberal nations rebuilding” debate has produced a common currency for multi-nationalism, from fields such as liberal democracy, federal-ism, conflict resolution, and constitution theory. Democratic federal arrange-ments promise justice for all nations within a single state. As Alan Gagnon has shown, this is not only compatible with normative post-conflict reconciliation andrebuilding approaches, but also with the new understanding of emerging interna-tional law concerning the rights of self-determination of minority nations (2001: 137,319). There seems to be little or no alternative, apart from some form of fed-eration, to manage many repugnant ethnic conflicts or face separation on an ethnic basis. How many states have been strangled to near political/economic death due to their often obsolete, recalcitrant political ideologies? The island of Lanka has become a living testimony to this disastrous evolution.

Ethnonational conflict in Lanka and the federal debate

In 1919, the Tamil and Sinhala elites began pre-independence negotiations on the nature of an independent Ceylon, when Ponnambalam Ramanathan founded the Ceylon National Congress to demand the reform of British rule. Ramanathan, representing the Tamils, agreed with James Pieris and E. J. Samarawickrama on behalf of the Sinhalas, to share power in the legislature, with a seat for the Tamils of the Western Province. The next inter-ethnic arrangement was the Mahendra Pact, signed in June 1925 in Jaffna, which proposed future power shar-ing between the Tamils and the Sinhalas on proportion of 1:2. While there were some ethno-national bases in these pacts, these elite agreements were guided by



the nation-state concept. However, these power-sharing agreements, like the sub-sequent Banda-Chelva Pact of 1957 and the Dudley-Chelva Pact of 1965, failed to become realities, due to the partisan power struggles among the majority Sinhalas (Roberts 1978).

The federalism debate in Lanka began as early as 1926, two decades before the centuries-old colonial rule came to end. Ironically, at that point the Sinhala elites promoted federalism. S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who later became the prime min-ister, argued in a series of political commentaries that “federalism provides the best democratic solution for Ceylon’s internal and external challenges.”5 Echoing Thomas Hobbes, Bandaranaike argued for liberty, that is, for the transfer of politi-cal powers to individuals. He further believed a confederation with India would be the best security arrangement for post-independence Ceylon. Paradoxically, it was James Rutnam, a Tamil activist, who replied to Bandaranaike with a strong rebuttal against federalism (De Silva 1996).

The second noticeable discussion on federalism came from the Kandiyan Sinhalas, who appealed to the Donoughmore Commission of 1931 to design a federal model in order to preserve their cultural identity, distinct from the Sinhalas of the Lower Country.6

The Kandyan National Assembly in a memorandum declared:

Ours is not a communal claim or a claim for the aggrandizement of a few: it is a claim of a nation to live its own life and realize its own destiny. . . . A federal system . . . will enable the respective nationals of the several states to prevent further inroads into their territories and to build up their own nationality.

(Roberts 1998: 43)

Yet these deliberations were aborted because of pressure from the powerful, largely southern, Sinhala elites. Neither the Donoughmore Commission nor the later Soulbury Commission, under which Ceylon became independent, pursued the federal option. A question that remains unanswered is why the colonial British government (which actively promoted federalism in Australia and Canada, and proposed a quasi-federalism for India under the India Act of 1935) did not con-sider that option for Ceylon, particularly as both the Tamils and Up Country Sinhalas preferred that arrangement?

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP), the major two political parties of the Sinhalas, repeatedly used ethnic rhetoric and the politicized Sangha to condemn what Horowitz has called “selling out to federalists” (1991: 393), thus defeating all negotiations. If any of these pacts had been implemented, perhaps Lanka could have avoided the violent demo-cratic political crisis. Repeated refusal by the Sinhala polity to accommodate even mere decentralization of limited power and language rights resulted in the Tamil polity disengaging with the Colombo government and seeking alternative politics leading to a thirty-year civil war. Sinhala elites refuse to accommodate the demand of the Tamils because the San

.gha interpret such as a direct threat

to Buddhism.


126 Suren Rāghavan

Buddhism and the politics of Lanka

Historically, the San.gha have had unparalleled influence in the politics of Lanka.

The great chronicle, Mahāvam. sa written in the 6th century by the Buddhist monk Mahanama, uncle of King Dhātusena, was heavily reliant on the Dīpavam. sa (an epic older by a century), a record of the deeds of Buddhists kings and their coun-selor monks. The text of these chronicles, the folklore and mythology surround-ing them remains a major source for the claim of ethnic superiority. As Tambiah (1992) shows, in Lanka as in many southeastern ancient kingdoms, the idea of Dharmarāja – a righteous kingdom, were always based on the advice and guid-ance of the monks. The Mahāvam. sa’s depiction of the Tamils as invaders and challengers of the Buddhist land is strongly embodied in the popular culture, even though the Tamils of the Nāyakkar dynasty had ruled the Sinhala kingdom of Kandy for centuries (for a full discussion on Buddhist cosmology and the conflict in Lanka see Rāghavan 2014).

Daily Buddhist life is highly interwoven with the monks acting as advisors on social issues, teachers of spiritual matters, and even as doctors and counse-lors. Theravāda Buddhist philosophy also encourages an interdependency of laity and the San

.gha. While there are numerous divisions among the estimated

65,000-strong Sinhala San.gha community, on the issue of protecting the unitary

nature of Lanka’s political structure, there is absolute unity. The contribution of the San

.gha in independent Lanka is that of an extreme form of ethno-nationalism.

Politicized monks helped S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike to grasp power and bring in the “Sinhala Only Act” in 1956. The same forces assassinated him in 1959, a turning point in the violent political culture of Lanka (Manor 2009). Even today all major Sinhala political parties seek the influence of the key monks of the tri-nikāyas (chapters). The politicization of the San

.gha community climaxed

when Jātika Hela Urumaya – HU, the “all monks” party – won nine parliamen-tary seats in the 2004 general election and became an aggressive opponent to any power sharing, justifying a military victory. Understanding the opposition of the San

.gha towards power sharing in general and federalism in particular remains

an extremely important yet formidable challenge in constructing trajectories for peace building in Lanka (Rāghavan 2014; Wijeyeratne 2013).

Other minorities in Lanka

Beside the Tamils of the northeast, Lanka is home to multiple minorities. Among them, 1 million (5.5 percent) of Indian Tamils and a further 1.3 million Tamil-speaking Muslims are prominent. A small community of Malays (40,000), Burghers (46,000), Bhoras, and Veddhas also live on the island. Muslims and Indian Tamils have played a significant role in the political culture of Lanka. While they have formed their own political parties, often these parties have been part of the Sinhala governments. Lankan Tamils consider this alliance as a com-promise and charge that the Muslims, particularly, work against their freedom struggle (McGilvray 2008).



Particularly in the eastern province, where Muslims have lost properties and faced hardship, a politicized Muslim identity with suspected armed wings has emerged (Bart 2011; Imtiaz 2012; Ahmed 2012). While Muslims have not aspired to self-rule or nationhood, they have clearly desired an autonomous Muslim administrative unit in the southeastern part of the country. The polarization between the Hindu Tamils and the Muslims has grown in recent decades. The rights of the Muslims and the Indian Tamils have brought further complications to the power-sharing debate. However, the present constitutional and institutional structures have marginalized almost all non-Sinhalas.

The federal debate

Unitary or federal?

The pre-colonial administrative structure in Ceylon consisted of three separate kingdoms; Kotte-Sīthawaka (the low country), Udarata (the upcountry), and Yālpānam (the northern territory). In 1815, the British declared Ceylon a single administrative unit making the island a unitary colony. The Soulbury Commission recommendation for a Westminster-model parliament became the constitution of the independent Ceylon in 1948. Prior to the transfer of power from British rule, both the Tamil and the Sinhala political elites believed that the clear-cut separa-tion of powers was not urgent and could be on the post-independence political agenda. This is one of the puzzles of Tamil politics. They looked to the Indianfreedom struggle for inspiration, and were contented with the Gandhian “onenation” ideology, failing to learn from the intrinsic complexities as articulated by the Indian Muslim minority leading to a separate Pakistan.

In 1949, the Ceylon Federal Party was formed under the leadership of S. J. V.Chelvanayagam who, unlike the mainstream politicians, strongly believed that the political aspirations of the Tamil nation were best achieved through a federal sys-tem. The early articulations of the party were very clearly based on a bi-national political arrangement for Lanka in order to permit both Sinhala and Tamil nations to live with self-determination in a united country. Even at the height of its popu-larity in 1950s and 1960s, the Federal Party refused to call for secession or armed struggle.

In total opposition to the federal demand, in the 1972 Janaraja (republic) consti-tution officially renamed Ceylon as “Sri Lanka”7 and enshrined the unitary status. Furthermore, it pronounced the new republic, a state where the Sinhala language and Buddhism will hold “the foremost” place. This position was further enhanced in the 1978 constitution through which Lanka combined executive presidency and parliamentary rule. On both these occasions, the Tamil elites did not agree with the nature or the text of these constitutions, making the new constitution a “pan-Singhala” exercise.

The impact of these popular political maneuvers to satisfy the Sinhala nation-alist constituencies had grave consequences for Tamil politics and to the whole country in the long term. Two such outcomes were that (1) the pivotal safeguards


128 Suren Rāghavan

for minorities, guaranteed in article 29.2 of the Soulbury Constitution, were absent in the 1972 constitution, and (2) the 1978 constitution, in further enhancing the unitary status, introduced a two-thirds majority rule in the parliament for any future constitutional changes. This amounted to a Machiavellian act to suppress Tamil aspirations for all time, even if the Tamils were to become part of any rul-ing government. This, in effect, has become a major political entrapment for the divided Sinhala politics of modern Lanka.

Eksath (united) and ekeeya (unitary) are two concepts precious to the fundamental-ist nationalist politics of the Sinhalas. So is jāthiya, which means the race, nationality, ethnicity, and/or caste. Often in public discourse these words are used interchange-ably. The debate and the dispute over whether Lanka should be unitary or federal is, largely, one of semantics. Thus, in popular analysis, any suggestion to move from the unitary position is considered an attempt to divide the island and to support the secessionist demand of the Tamils. As a result, as Edrisingha (2005) argues, this “unitary versus federal” hostility, when transferred to political discussion, invariably becomes a “Sinhalas versus Tamil” cleavage. The Muslims, Up Country Tamils, and even most Kandians have become spectators of this deep division.

Even in the face of discrimination the Federal Party continued to argue for a federal bargain. It remained committed to a shared rule model and absolutely resolved not to use violence as political negotiations. There were ephemeral movements of hope for political justice, such as the numerous pacts. Despite the growing disenchantment among the Tamil intellectuals and youth about further political negotiations, the 1970 election manifesto of the Federal Party declared:

The Tamil-speaking people of Ceylon also believe that the Federal-type of Constitution that would enable them to look after their own affairs alone would safeguard them from total extinction. Only under such a Constitution could the Tamil-speaking people of this country live in dignity and with our birthright to independence as equals with our Sinhala brethren. …

Impressively, it tried to discourage the growing idea of a separate state.

It is our firm conviction that division of the country in any form would be beneficial neither to the country nor the Tamil-speaking people. Hence, we appeal to the Tamil-speaking people not to lend their support to any political movement that advocates the bifurcation of the country.

(Lakshman 2000:103)

However, Sinhala nationalism was steadfast and grew into political monomania. As Edrisinha argued, the natural result was the concentration of power in a single institution and the weakening of the traditional rival sources of political power. While casting notions like “brakes,” “restraints,” “checks and balances,” and separation of power in a negative light, and embracing the instrumental use of a constitution, a dangerous trend of executive convenience developed undermining good governance and the rule of law. The fact that leaders of all rebel groups of



separatist movements were activists who opposed these constitutions either indi-vidually or collectively shows this with clarity.

Democracy and the free institutions created within depend on the disposition and certain political characteristics of the citizens and their elites. For any form of democracy to live and grow in a diverse society, consociational arrangements are necessary. In contrast, the monolithic Sinhala nationalism promoted by political leadership prevented the advancement of a “participatory democracy.”

From federalism to secessionism

Between 1972 and 1978, Tamil politics took a radical turn. The Tamil United Front party became the Tamil United Liberation Front in 1975 under the leader-ship of Chelvanayagam. At the inaugural convention of the party in 1976, it rati-fied a resolution. The Vattkkōttai Resolution of the Tamil Nation,8 as it is known, demanded the creation of Tamil Eelam: an independent sovereign state for the Tamils. It is an important and far-reaching development of Tamil politics as they now clearly identified and articulated themselves as a distinct nation with right to self-determination. In summary, by 1978, three decades after independence, both the Sinhalas and the Tamils had taken polar positions in their ethno-national political formation, giving birth to one of the most violent and protracted eth-nic conflicts in South Asia. Political ideologies on both sides became diagonally opposite. The Sinhalas were committed to a unitary state and the Tamil were now seeking to create a separate state, if necessary, by means of violence.

The events that occurred in Lanka during the warring years 1983–2009 haveproduced a sizeable literature under topics such as ethnic conflict, peace negotia-tion, civil society, minority rights, and terrorism. War, non-wartimes, and nego-tiations have become part of the continuous process of a search for peace that isacceptable to both constituencies and to their political elites within their respec-tive national claims. The winding road to a negotiated settlement has seen more roadblocks and impasses than other recent armed struggles in the region.

Taylor (1999), Carens (2004), and Eisenberg (2006) have shown that without developing an alternative and accommodating political structure to foster the con-cept of “differentiated citizenship” in states like Lanka, ethno-national demands and the nation-state ideology can only produce further dissension, breeding violence. Continuous commitment to “deep diversity” is needed to recognize collective group rights of minority nations like the Tamils of Lanka. This recogni-tion should extend to the acknowledgement of their right to self-determination. Whether that self-determination provides the right to secession or not is another area of debate, largely dependent on the context in which these rights are articu-lated. The Canadian Supreme Court opinion concerning the Quebec referendum is an example limits of unilateral secession. By this arrangement, a multinational state could preserve its diversity and avoid politically motivated violence or separatism.

However, at this point some inseparable questions surface. What is the mini-mum and maximum demand that justifies such recognition of self-determination


130 Suren Rāghavan

and sovereignty? How is such recognition, extended to the “minorities within minorities” such as the English-speaking Quebekcers or the Sinhalas and Muslims living within the homeland of the Tamil Eelam? Without developing means of introducing a contextualized multinational federalism, that is, two or more nations within a framework of shared and self-rule, ethno-national claims will continue to destabilize the democracy of many modern states. For the same reason, ruling elites, as well as those who challenge their hegemony in multinational states, will need to engage in a new “nation-building” endeavor, moving away from pre-fixed political concepts. Yet how could this endeavor take root in the realpolitik arena? This is the question that needs a comprehensive and satisfying answer relevant not just to Lanka but also to many other states with a similar political history and com-plexity. Possibly the answers are located in the way “state” and “sovereignty” are defined and designed. Ethnoreligious nationalism may not change easily. Political elites in states in conflict need to develop a new mind-set based on these norma-tive understandings, to find creative solutions to their bleeding challenges.

Buddhism and federalism in Lanka

Buddhism is generally perceived as a religion of peace and non-violence. Yet empiri-cally this hardly describes Buddhism in many countries where it is the state reli-gion or the religion of the majority. Burma, Cambodia, Lanka, and Thailand have produced and/or continue to produce protracted and bloody violence between the Buddhist majority and the ethnic/religious minorities. The San

.gha-led violence both

in Burma and in Lanka is diminishing the hope of democratic recovery. This phe-nomenon has created a paradoxical paradigm in academic analyses of Buddhism, and is problematic for all who treat Buddhism as a philosophy of ahim. sā, the moral principle of non-violence that is theoretically fundamental to all Buddhist traditions.

In this respect, Buddhism is not unique, for all major religions preach in favor of peace and generally deprecate violence, but have histories of violence. The impact of 9/11, even after a decade, has generated an industry-level production of academic material on the theme of religious violence and its socio-political rami-fications. The major part of this work produced by Western scholars (and schol-ars located in the West) has gravitated around Islam and Judaism (Al-Rasheed 2009; Eagleton 2005; Habeck 2006; Juergensmeyer 2011, 2000; Kirsch 2009). This is not surprising, given the level of internal and cross-border conflict seen in countries where Islam is either the state religion or the religion of the major-ity. The domino effect of the so-called Arab Spring; the continuing conflict in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria; and the possible nuclear program in Iran are all grist to this mill. So are the Israeli military (over-re-) actions.

Violence that is promoted by interpretations of a given religion is by no means limited to Islam or Judaism. Hindu-Muslim tension divided India at her independ-ence, and the animosity between these groups still sometimes erupts in serious violence, as happened in Gujarat (Ghassem-Fachandi 2012) and in Delhi over the Babri Mosque (Misra 2012). Sikh political separatism and internal sectarianism have also been very violent (Chima 2010).



At present there appear to be at least three schools of thought concerning the relationship of Buddhism to violence:

1 The present, often violent, revival of Buddhism, especially in the Theravāda states, is part of the “return of religions” response to the ill effects of glo-balization and the cultural hegemony that is being imposed (Berkwitz 2008; Juergensmeyer 2010; Jerryson 2009; Kippenberg 2011).

2 Some have pointed out that modern Buddhism with all its fluidity and varieties is not a trans-global philosophy but a practice that is fertilized by indigenous cultures, so that it produces local expressions such as Burmese Buddhism, Sinhala Buddhism, Thai Buddhism, or Korean Buddhism. Such Buddhism has its own cultural DNA, either legitimizing or opposing violence (Blackburn 2010; Brekke 2013).

3 The third school argues that Buddhism, like other institutionalized religions, has used violence to advance and establish itself. Various arguments based on interpretations of texts such as the Pāli Canon and the Mahāvam. sa have been used to justify such violence. These arguments have given rise to apparent oxymoron such as “Buddhist Warfare” (Jenkins 2010; Maher 2010; Jerryson 2010).

There is also a particular debate about Sinhala Buddhism. This focuses on how violence has been practiced and propagated by the Sinhala San

.gha. Some have

argued that Sinhala Buddhism is always a tool of cross-power legitimization between the Sangha and their state (Bradwell 1978). Thus it has “betrayed” Buddhist essentials (Tambiah 1987). This is so because in Lanka, now as well as in the past, the San

.gha are more than king-makers (Seneviratne 1997). This tra-

jectory has developed a just war ideology in Sinhala Buddhism (Bartholomeusz 2002), as in Lanka the past is always present (Kemper 1991). While these authors have thrown some new light on the topic, they have not yet been able to reach any overarching or encompassing conclusions which command general acceptance.

Post-war Buddhist politics

Five years after the end of the civil war, divisions in Lanka remain very deep. The wounds of war are still bleeding. There is no attempt to meet the Tamils’ democratic demands. Tamils who have returned to their homes in the former war zone have to live in conditions of inhuman poverty. The international community at the UNHRC and in other forums is repeatedly calling for accountability for war crimes. The Sinhala population, once jubilant over their victory, is frustrated, if not furious, at the abysmal corruption and nepotism. In such an inflammable socio-political situation, what is the need for a well-organized militant Sangha movement such as the BBS? Why is the BBS on an anti-Muslim campaign? Is it only a stand-alone organization, or a symptom of a wider political undercur-rent which has been developing in Lanka since the war? Why do the Sinhala


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San.gha need to identify an “enemy” they have to defeat? Are they set to continue

the course of ethno-religious violent nationalism which they have been pursuing? Or are they turning further inward in an attempt at self-defense against the ever-changing world around them?

In 2009, by defeating the demand for greater autonomy the modern state of Lanka recentralized its strong Sinhala Buddhist structure. The total defeat of the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) – until then considered one of world’s most effective politi-cal terror organizations – reconcretized the ethno-nationalist political will of the Sinhala elites and their voters. For them, Lanka must forever remain a tightly cen-tralized Sinhala Buddhist state, under a Sinhala Buddhist leader, no matter the democratic/human cost. No account is to be taken of the fact that Lanka is a mul-ticultural island that survives on a dependent economy.9 There is no doubt that the present Rajapakse government, unlike its predecessors, steadfastly preserved the Sinhala determination to defeat the LTTE irrespective of internal and occasional (often marginal) international pressures. With this we can see that Sangha facili-tate, build, and legitimize a “just war” ideology to safeguard the territorial integrity of the Dhammadīpa (“the Island of Buddhism”) and the majority hegemony of the Sinhalas. This uncompromising stand and the rhetoric of a minority, the highly mobilized radicalized Sinhala (largely southern) San

.gha, plus the passive support

of the majority of the San.gha of all major nikāyas across the island, helped to create

the military mind-set which won the war in 2009. Lanka since then has repeatedly rejected the UNHRC allegation of mass civilian killing and other punishable war crimes. Moreover, Lanka has yet to give due credit for its unforgiving victory to the two most responsible forces. The first of these is China, Lanka’s regional super-power guardian which underwrote the victory against the LTTE with weapons and intelligence, and by blocking international pressure (Höglund and Orjuela 2012;Marshall 2010). Recent reports show that China has already invested or loaned upto US$40 billion to Lanka.10 While there has never been public accountability for such massive funds in Lanka, China may be enjoying its growing influence. The second force is politically active monks like Aturaliyē Ratana, Bengamuve Nālaka, and Elle Gun.avam. sa, who vigorously “Buddhicized” the war, and the thousands of monks who paraded to demand a military solution. However, it appears that the rulers who defeated the LTTE have only fulfilled one of the expectations of the militant San

.gha. Their wider aim to (re-)establish an ethno-religious Sinhala

Buddhist state is advancing more slowly than they had hoped. This is the backdrop against which violence led by the BBS11 is coming to the fore.

Building Buddhatvā – Buddhism as a political entity and ideology

Scholars agree that nation state formation in South Asia has taken a direction opposite to that which it took in Europe (Daiya 2011; Tonnesson and Hans 2006). In South Asia, the struggles for independence from colonization by the West did not aim to build an overarching state led by a civic society. The multi-national, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-cultural nature of South Asian societies prevented such uniformity and civic consciousness. The post-colonial struggles for



democracy in these states bear witness to the fact that independence was perceived as an opportunity for a particular ethnic group rather than for the entire population. In Lanka, the Sinhalas considered independence to be their chance for majority rule. This is proved by many illiberal acts, such as the disenfranchising of the Indian Tamils, making Sinhala the only official language, giving religious supremacy to Buddhism, and discrimination in university admissions. On the other hand, after liberating from colonial rule, the Tamils seem to have dreamed of a largely autono-mous, confederated, or even independent homeland. Such unfulfilled, diametrically opposed, political ambitions eventually led to the thirty years of civil war.

The Sinhala San.gha in spiritual terms have renounced this world and are help-

ing others to find nirvāna. However, they have had a historical socio-political mandate too: to build and maintain a state in which the ethnoreligious ideology of Sinhala Buddhism dominates politics and society. Their aim recorded in the Vamsa literature is political rather than religious, or at least very different from the teach-ings of the Pāli canonical texts. This political Buddhism is often projected against an identified “other.” For the Sinhala San

.gha, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Hinduism,

Catholicism, Christian missionaries, Islam, and the peoples of those faiths have often provided such otherness. It appears that the Sinhala San

.gha, through their

agitation against the other and their political project of building a Buddhist state, have taken the same path as the Hindu nationalist mobilization for Hindutva in India. While there is a large body of literature on Hindutva, in Lanka, the San

.gha’s resistance politics is still too little studied. Lankan scholars (Gananath

Obeyesekere, H. L. Seneviratne, S. J. Tambiah) and many Western academics have investigated Sinhala San

.gha politics from an anthropological perspective,

but not through the lens of political science. On the other hand, modern political science has not been good at explaining some of the transformations happening in ethnoreligious politics in societies like Lanka. The contemporary Western schol-arship that claims to find a “return of religion” (Appleby 2000; Juergensmeyer 2003) is unconvincing, as religion never left the Sinhalas or the polity they pro-duce. Therefore, this is not a return but a reassertion of how deeply Buddhicized Sinhala politic is. Western tools such as (post)modernism (Abeysekara 2008, 2002) are even less useful for understanding the religious politics of Lanka.

Are the waves of San.gha political resistance in Lanka showing signs of a

“Buddhist Zionism”? By this I mean to suggest that to the eschatological belief that the Sinhalas are a chosen race destined to carry out the redemptive role of Buddhism, with Lanka as their promised land, is attaching a new militancy and sense of urgency in fulfilling the mission to protect and defend Buddhist terri-tory, by force if necessary. Historical evidence from the Tamil/Hindu/Indian inva-sions to the modern LTTE terror campaign is neatly fitting into idiosyncratically selected portions of the Vam. sa literature. Such a mind-set will naturally search for every possible sign that the Mahāvam. sa pattern continues, and identify the“enemies” of the dhamma and its Sinhala custodians. The Sinhala San

.gha and

their ultra-nationalist lay allies are quick to provide long lists of such enemies, from the European colonial powers to UN-funded INGOs and recently even to the Chief Justice of the supreme court.12


134 Suren Rāghavan

Jonathan Fox, a world authority on ethno-religious violence, has doubted that democracy can take root where religious beliefs justify violence at soci-etal level. I suspect that 1948 produced two “Zionist” states: Israel, built on the Judeo-Christian faith, and Lanka, very surprisingly based on an interpre-tation of Buddhism. Defending the purity of their land in both these states is equated to defending their faiths: Israel expands its biblical boundaries to recre-ate the Promised Land, while Lanka is seen as the territory of the Dhammadīpa, cleansed and given by the Buddha, to be ruled without sharing it, even tempo-rarily, with citizens who are defined as other. It seems the Sinhala San

.gha have

constructed their socio-politics on a cosmic basis: they perceive their country as a physical metaphor for the eternal resting place and their contemporary political structure as representing the cosmic order. They perceive their political lead-ers as divinely appointed (or relatives of the Buddha) and their army as sons of eternity engaged in a divine war of Armageddon. The ethno-national heroism embodied in the pages of Mahāvam. sa by a learned San

.gha and historicized by

his fellow “Theravādin” bhikkus for the last fifteen centuries vividly embody this lurid eschatology.

Notes

1 No actual cost has been calculated accurately. However, UN numbers indicate at least 140,000 lives were lost. Total accumulated cost up to 1996 was US$20.6 billion – 168.5% GDP of 1996. See Arumatilake et al. 2001.

2 President Rajapakse’s interview with the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, as reported on the front page of The Island of July 7, 2009, http://pdfs.island.lk/2009/07/07/p1.pdf, accessed on January 10, 2014.

3 The term – සංඝ- San.gha is deployed in referring to the collective body of Buddhist

clergy in all different chapters. They are also called bhikkus. 4 Vam. sa literature is a very special collection of writing on the Buddhist history of Lanka.

It is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide an extensive discussion. Dīpavam. sa, Mahāvam. sa, Cūlavam. sa, and śtupavam. sa are key books. For an overview of Vam. sa literature (especially as it relates to the Mahāvam. sa) can be found in Berkwitz 2004.

5 S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in an essay to The Morning Leader on July 17, 1926, as cited by Manikkalingam and Ratnayake 1995.

6 In the Sinhala caste system, up country Goyigama is considered as the highest in the rank. See Roberts 1982.

7 In 1958, violence largely against Tamils broke out across the county because the northern Tamil activists refused to follow the new government rule to use the Sinhala “Sri” character on all vehicle number plates. Tamils considered this as an act of Sinhalanization by force.

8 “. . . this Convention resolves that restoration and reconstitution of the Free, Sovereign, Secular, Socialist State of Tamil Eelam…” See http://www.tamilunitedfront.org/ articles/Vattukottai.html for the full text (accessed on 15 February 15, 2014).

9 The US$59 billion economy’s total foreign currency debt stood at 2.6 trillion Sri Lanka rupees (US$20.67 billion) by the end of 2012 when total outstanding debt was US$47.43 billion. See full report: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/05/31/ srilanka-debt-idINL3N0EC32320130531 (accessed on February 15, 2014).



10 See http://www.srilankaguardian.org/2014/01/the-chinese-desire-in-sri-lanka.html (accessed on February 15, 2014).

11 Bodu Bala Sēnā, Sīhala Rāvaya, Rāvana Balakāya, and Hela Bodu Pavura are a few of the organizations that have taken to violent street demonstrations on many topics from the UN resolution against Sri Lanka to anti-Halal campaigning. JHU – the Jātika Hela Urumaya – in Sri Lanka is the world’s first all-monks political party having three members in the current parliament. See Rāghavan 2013.

12 In January 2013, the executive president sacked the chief justice over her refusal to approve an amendment bill. The state mobilized the willing San

.gha to brand the chief

justice as an agent of foreign powers. See Goodhand 2013.

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