Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism and Women in Sri Lanka

Introduction

Myth and reality are intertwined in accounts of how Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka. According to the Mahavamsa, a 6^th century CE epic, the Buddha himself visited Lanka on three occasions, but this myth has effectively been demolished by scholars.[1] There is more evidence for the story that in the third century BCE, when Ashoka ruled India, he sent his son Mahinda, a Buddhist monk, on a mission to the Sinhalese king Devanampiya Tissa, who ruled from his capital Anuradhapura. Mahinda converted Devanampiya Tissa and his cabinet of ministers, at least one of whom became a monk following the ten precepts required for ordination. Subsequently the king set up a series of shrines and monasteries presided over by various orders of monks (bhikkhus) throughout his kingdom, and a section of the population became male and female lay devotees (upasakas and upasikas). Mahinda’s sister Sanghamitta, a Buddhist nun, also came over, bringing with her a branch of the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment, which was planted in Anuradhapura. Subsequently, more saplings were planted throughout the country. She also set up an order of nuns (bhikkhunis). Mahinda and Sanghamitta are believed to have lived in Lanka until they died there.[2]

The reality was more complicated. Buddhism had already come to South India and Sri Lanka before Devanampiya Tissa was converted, albeit without setting up any bhikkhu sangha (order). There is even evidence that Mahinda himself spent time in modern-day Tamil Nadu, where he preached the Dhamma, and then came to Anuradhapura via Jaffna. Thus Buddhism was as much a Tamil religion as a Sinhalese one, with some of the major contributions made to Buddhist thought and learning, including five epics, being by Tamil monks. There were strong links between Buddhists in South India and Buddhists in Lanka, and several viharas (temples or monasteries) in Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna peninsula. While Theravada Buddhism was dominant, some Mahayana Buddhists also came over from Tamil Nadu and established themselves in Lanka. Around the beginning of the 7^th century CE, when Vaishnavism and Saivism regained prominence in Tamil Nadu and Buddhism and Jainism came under attack from Brahminism, it was mainly Theravada Buddhists who fled to Sri Lanka and settled there.[3]

Sri Lanka's Democratic Revolution: The Latest Episode in a Decades-Long Drama

On July 14, 2022, Sri Lanka’s parliamentary speaker announced that he had accepted the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, sent by email from Singapore where he had fled via The Maldives.[1] That this former military commander – known as ‘the terminator’ due to his propensity to get critics assassinated[2] – was forced to resign by an overwhelmingly non-violent mass movement marks this as a major episode in Sri Lanka’s protracted democratic revolution.[3]

Political Dimensions of the Crisis in Sri Lanka

Let me start with a childhood memory. My father was Tamil, my mother was Burgher – that’s what they call people with European ancestry in Sri Lanka – and we were living in a predominantly Sinhalese neighbourhood just outside Colombo. One day in May 1958 our Sinhalese neighbour Menike, who was like a member of our family, came over in great distress, insisting that we leave our home at once and go somewhere safe because a bloodthirsty mob was heading our way. At around the same time my mother’s former student Yasmine, who had become a family friend, also Sinhalese, came over in a car, offering to shelter us at her parents’ place. My mother had been for a walk so my parents knew that Tamils were being attacked, but at that point they refused to leave. They packed off my brother and me and our Tamil grandmother in a taxi with another Sinhalese neighbour to stay with our Burgher grandmother, and started making Molotov cocktails to defend themselves and their home. By this time Menike was frantic and threatened to commit suicide unless they left. They finally agreed, and yet another Sinhalese neighbour drove them in his car to Yasmine’s parents’ place.

Thirty years later, when I was doing research on Sri Lankan refugees and internally displaced people, I came across numerous similar stories in which Tamils had been saved by Sinhalese friends, neighbours, colleagues, or even total strangers. To me these stories encapsulate the divided soul of Sri Lanka: hatred and violence on one side, love and compassion on the other, racism on one side, anti-racism on the other, brutal authoritarianism on one side, a stubborn pursuit of democracy and human rights on the other.

Preface to Kindle e-book and Paperback of Playing Lions and Tigers (a novel)

The bloody finale of Sri Lanka’s civil war hit the headlines worldwide in 2009. News reports often displayed the Tiger emblem of Tamil nationalism and Lion emblem of Sinhala nationalism, but never mentioned that there has been extensive intermingling between members of different communities from time immemorial, including strong bonds of love and friendship. Newspaper articles and human rights organisations reported atrocities committed by those who wielded political and military power, but there was little or no mention of the innumerable acts of compassion and kindness with which ordinary civilians – all too often ignored by professional peace-makers – have resisted the prevailing barbarism and kept alive values of love and solidarity. Yet without the contribution of these people, peace would not be possible. This novel is about them.

The Struggle for Democracy in Sri Lanka

 

Introduction

The terms ‘bourgeois democracy’ and ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ have often been confused by socialists, because they seem to imply that democracy is a gift of the bourgeoisie, is inseparable from capitalism, and has nothing to do with socialism. It is true that in many revolutions against feudalism, absolutism and imperialism, the mass of working people rise up and inscribe their agenda of freedom, equality and solidarity on the struggle. But once the bourgeosie is in power, it sooner or later seeks to roll back these gains, sometimes in extremely brutal ways, and capitalism can survive for long periods without democracy: there is no intrinsic link between the two. Solidarity in particular is a threat to an insecure bourgeoisie, which therefore encourages divisions, relationships of domination and subordination, and discrimination, exclusion and persecution targeting particular communities.  

In stark contrast with the view that democracy has nothing to do with socialism, Marx and Engels declared in The Communist Manifesto that ‘the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy’ (1); and Engels later confirmed, ‘The Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat’ (2). Since they believed that the emancipation of the working class would be carried out by the class as a whole, it made sense to affirm that freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, equality before the law and equal protection of the law, and the right to elect representatives of your choice in free and fair elections were needed to prepare the proletariat to take over government and production.

Given this hostility to democracy on the part of the bourgeoisie as well as sections of the petty bourgeoisie, it would be more useful to see the bourgeois and democratic revolutions as two separate revolutions, with the bourgeois revolution being accomplished fairly quickly while the democratic revolution may drag on for decades. Indeed, even when a democratic republic has been established, it can be demolished and replaced by a fascist state. This ongoing struggle between authoritarianism and democracy is evident in Sri Lanka, with the presidential election of 16 November 2019 being the latest episode.

Post-War Sri Lanka: Exploring the Path Not Taken

 Introduction

Almost immediately after Independence, the government of Sri Lanka enacted legislation depriving Hill-country Tamils of their citizenship and franchise; subsequent governments enacted laws and carried out policies discriminating against and persecuting all Tamil-speaking citizens, with the avowed intention of making Sri Lanka a ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’ nation-state. In response, Tamil militant groups set out to establish a Tamil state in the Northeast, resulting in a civil war that lasted twenty-six years. Even after the war ended in 2009, practices that had engendered it continued. 

This paper looks at the issues of ‘ethnicity’ or ‘nationality’ as well as ‘culture’ and ‘community’ as they have been studied in various disciplines, and attempts to explore alternative ways of accommodating different linguistic, religious and cultural communities within Sri Lanka, or indeed any nation-state, without either suppressing minorities or leading to conflict and separation.

The Way Forward in Sri Lanka

The way forward in Sri Lanka involves demilitarisation, restoration of the rule of law, and democratisation. These are interlinked so closely that it is impossible to separate them, and on their fulfilment depends not only the political future of Sri Lanka, but also its economic survival. 

Setting the Record Straight

I was surprised to see that a piece I wrote recently for Groundviews was mentioned prominently in two articles in The Island last Saturday and Sunday. Since the original article was not published in The Island, and since the rejoinders misrepresent my argument in various ways, I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.

For those who would like to read the original article in full, it can be found at www.groundviews.org/2009/06/22/why-are-the-vanni-civilians-still-being-held-hostage/ . My basic argument was that the denial of freedom of movement to the Vanni IDPs and incarceration of them in internment camps (1) was a violation of their democratic rights as citizens of Sri Lanka; (2) was an insult to the soldiers who risked (and in some cases lost) their lives in the belief that they were bringing freedom to these people; (3) contradicted President Rajapaksa’s statement in his victory speech that there were no longer any minorities in Sri Lanka by creating a minority that did not enjoy rights like freedom of movement which are enjoyed by the majority; and (4) increased the chances of a new insurgency by converting Tamils who are well-disposed towards the government into people with a grudge against the government. I ended by observing that when the internment of 280,000 civilians is seen in the context of assaults on and murder of journalists, and policy proposals for the expansion of the army by 100,000 and cancellation of the presidential elections, it looks as if we could be heading towards a dictatorship. 

Why are the Vanni Civilians Still Being Held Hostage?

Throughout the last stages of the civil war, the government of Sri Lanka claimed to be engaged in a hostage rescue mission on behalf of civilians in the Vanni who were being held against their will by the LTTE. How far are its words borne out by its actions?

It is certainly true that the LTTE was keeping hundreds of thousands of civilians hostage and using them as forced labour, a source of child and adult conscripts, and a human shield from behind which they could engage in offensive operations against Sri Lanka’s armed forces. It has also been confirmed that in general the soldiers showed compassion to the escaping civilians, and some of them even risked their own lives to enable civilians to escape to safety. Although it was clear that for the political and military leadership, the aim of finishing off the LTTE involved sacrificing the lives and limbs of civilians, there did not seem to be any deliberate targeting of civilians during the war. Even the claim by some government spokespersons that shelling was necessary in order to free the hostages has some plausibility, given that the LTTE used the cessation of hostilities over the Sinhala and Tamil New Year to tighten its hold over the trapped civilians, not to release them.

However post-war, the picture gets more murky. Around 280,000 of the civilians who have suffered so much already have been kept prisoners behind barbed wire in camps where conditions are in many cases abysmal. It is clear that the government is unable to provide for them adequately, yet those with relations outside who would willingly look after them are being denied the right to join their families. If others want to check up on their homes in the Vanni or start rebuilding them, no one has the right to stop them. This denial of the fundamental right to freedom of movement is especially cruel for families which have been split up, which are thereby denied the possibility of reuniting, or even finding out what has happened to their loved ones. It is lethal for those who are physically vulnerable; senior citizens were released after a court found that many had died of starvation and more were dying daily, but the sick and injured, pregnant women and mothers with babies are also vulnerable. With the monsoon, it is likely that gastrointestinal diseases will kill thousands. Why, then, are these unfortunate people being penalised like this?

Self-determination, Sovereignty and Democracy: The Reality Behind the Rhetoric in Sri Lanka

Introduction

Journalistic accounts of the crisis in Sri Lanka refer to it as an ‘ethnic conflict’ between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority, and there is an element of truth in this perception: the war that broke out in 1983 and has continued ever since, despite periods of ceasefire, is primarily between the armed forces of a state dominated by a Sinhala nationalist agenda and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) fighting for a separate Tamil state. Yet this description is inadequate to capture the complexity of the situation in Sri Lanka. It simply cannot account for episodes like the following:

Norms of civilisation and humanity today seem assailed from all quarters, leaving one sickened, bewildered and despairing as never before. The actors in this grim scenario include the forces of the state, violent forces opposed to the state, shadowy vigilante groups…The gruesome tally of deaths mounts daily.

 

Those killed during the past three months include Kandy District MP Anura Daniel, shot in his office by men in military type unforms; General Secretary of the LSSP Trade Union Federation, P.D. Wimalasena, shot by gunmen who stormed his headquarters and set fire to its press; lawyer Charita Lankapura shot in his residence;..Chairman and Director-General of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation and Competent Authority of the Independent Television Network, Thevis Guruge, shot on his morning walk; television and radio announcer Premkeerthi de Alwis, abducted from his home and killed; the Ven. Kotikawatte Saddhaissa Nayake Thera killed in his temple at Kolonnawa; Chief News Editor of Rupavahini, Kulasiri Ameratunga, shot in his home by unidentified gunmen; the Ven. Soragune Pannatissa Thera, taken out of his temple in Haputale and shot; young lawyer Kanchana Abhayapala shot at his home by an unidentified gunman; seventy-five-year-old Wellatota Pannadassi Nayake Thera shot when returning to his home in Kamburupitiya, and burnt; SLFP organiser in Kurunegala, H.P.Wijesekera, shot in Dompe; Rubber Research Board Chairman and former Deputy Minister Merril Kariyawasam shot in his office at Ratmalana; seventy-five-year-old Kahawe Wimalasiri Thera shot by an unidentified gang in his temple at Kala Oya, Anuradhapura; Moratuwa University Vice-Chancellor  Prof. C. Patuwathavithana and Chief Security Officer P.A.K.Ranaweera, slain on the campus premises at Katubedde; State Pharmaceuticals Corporation Chairman Dr. Gladys Jayawardene, shot in her car at Slave Island on her way home from office.

 

These are some of the names that made the newspaper headlines in recent times. The fact and manner of these deaths is at least known. In addition there are the eyewitness accounts of unidentified corpses, of headless bodies floating down waterways, of numerous bodies – sometimes singly, sometimes in heaps, often hideously mutilated – burning on the roadsides. (Civil Rights Movement 1989)

This is an account of what was happening in the rest of Sri Lanka when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) occupied the North and East after the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987. While the total death toll has never been established, it amounted to tens of thousands – some estimates say 60,000, including disappearances – so the carnage was on a scale comparable to the loss of life in the war between the government and the LTTE. But this was not an ethnic conflict; it was a conflict between the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front) and the government, with both sides killing others who did not belong to either side, like the 32 schoolchildren of Embilipitiya killed by the state. It was a case of Sinhalese, including Buddhist monks, being killed by Sinhalese. Both sides used shadowy death squads: several squads in the case of the state, with names like the ‘Black Cats,’ ‘Yellow Cats,’ ‘Eagles of the Central Hills’ and ‘Scorpions,’ while the JVP used the Deshapremi Janatha Viyaparaya (DJV or Patriotic People’s Movement).[i]

In the case of Tamils, the killing spree started earlier, continued into 2008, and included the internationally recognised war crime of conscripting children and sending them to the battle front:

The LTTE took on the TELO at the end of that month [April 1986]…The manner in which the TELO members were killed shocked Tamil people everywhere. Many died without knowing what hit them. Twelve were killed near Manipay while they were asleep. Several were caught unawares, shot and burnt at junctions at Thirunelvely, Mallakam and Tellipallai. Eight persons were killed at the camp behind St John’s principal’s bungalow…The people were so terrified that few had the courage to give shelter to the fugitives…Some went home saying things such as: “We have produced our own Hitlers”. (Hoole et al. 1990, pp.81-82)

 

In the early 1990s, very young children from poor families taken by the LTTE in Jaffna were corralled in camps…In July 1991, most of the thousand or so killed in the LTTE’s desperate bid to overrun Elephant Pass were women and children…A woman in the Vanni regularly met young members of the LTTE fighting cadre who told her about their gruelling life…They told her, “Once you come into this organisation, there is no alternative. You must make up your mind to die. When volunteers are called for a dangerous job, we all raise our hands”. (Hoole 2001: 404, 415, 416)

These aspects of the LTTE’s politics have aptly been described as ‘the political culture of auto-genocide,’ (Hoole 2001: 403), and this epithet could apply equally to the politics of the state and JVP in the late 1980s. A characterisation of the crisis in Sri Lanka must account for these phenomena as well as the fighting between the state and the LTTE.

Democracy as the Solution to Sri Lanka's Ethnic Crisis

The political Right and Left seem to concur in linking democracy to bourgeois rule; the two concepts have even been hyphenated in the adjective ‘bourgeois-democratic’. Yet history gives us no reason to believe that there is a necessary connection between the two. It is true that when the bourgeoisie is fighting against feudal power to establish its rule, it seeks the support of the plebeian masses, and in the process allows them to fight for their own demands: hence the famous slogan of the French Revolution, ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’. Yet once their rule is established, they are quite capable of turning on their erstwhile allies, repressing or even slaughtering them. This is not to say that capitalism is incompatible with democratic rights and freedoms either, but to emphasise that the latter will prevail only if working people fight to establish and defend them. Even in advanced capitalist countries, long-established rights can quickly be demolished. Social-Democracy in Germany was followed by fascism, and even today, democratic rights are under attack in the heartlands of capitalism.

In the former colonies, there was likewise a popular movement for liberation from imperialism, often followed by a sense of disappointment when independence was won but the working masses remained in much the same condition as before. Again, the illusion that democracy is the free gift of the bourgeoise, or a necessary condition of their rule, is responsible for this disappointment. Alternatively, there has been a tendency, shared by both Maoists and Trotskyists, to deny that a bourgeois revolution has taken place or that capitalism is developing. A more realistic view would be to recognise that for the working class, independence from colonialism is only the first of many battles for democracy.

Imagine There's No Countries, Nothing to Kill or Die For (from 'Imagine,' by John Lennon)

 

I would like to look at the issue of community and nationalism and its continued relevance at the present, and in particular to analyse its association with authoritarianism, militarisation, nuclearisation, terrorism, and questions of war and peace in South Asia.     Within this region, there is a very close parallel between the current situation in Sri Lanka and developments which have taken place much earlier in India, Pakistan, and later Bangladesh. In both cases, we see the development of strong authoritarian tendencies, linked up to either religion or ethnicity.

Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Chapters 6 and 7 and Bibliography)

 

Chapter 6: Tamil Eelam: the only solution, or part of the problem?

There were some Tamil refugees – not many, but a few – who felt that the only solution to the problem of decades of discrimination against and persecution of Tamils was the creation of a separate Tamil state: 

Are there any prospects for a positive change in the future?

 

• If there is a separate homeland. Before the British came, we were separate, and we were united only because of their regime. So it’s better for us to live separately… Most Sinhalese don’t like the idea of a separate state, but at the same time they won’t give any equal opportunities or rights to the Tamils either. 

You think most Sinhalese people are like that?

 

Yes. The government last year promised to give some devolution of power, but it is in writing only – in practice they don’t give it… they won’t ever give equal opportunities. 

So you think the only solution is to have a separate Tamil state?

 

Yes. Then we can be good neighbours. Otherwise Sinhalese and Tamils will always be fighting. But we can be friendly neighbours if we have a separate state.

Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Chapters 4 and 5)

Chapter 4: ‘How can we live like this?’

    The condition of Tamil refugees in Britain leaves much to be desired; but the state of those remaining in Sri Lanka is incomparably worse. I did not visit Tamil refugee camps in the North and East, and therefore did not see the worst; but what I saw was quite bad enough. Refugees were herded into large halls, their mats spread side by side along the walls and down the middle, all their belongings crammed into that small strip of space which, for the time being, they could call their own. Or crowded into small cadjan [coconut palm leaf] huts, several families in one room.

    Facilities were minimal: about four water taps and the same number of toilets shared between about 1,500 people; in some camps, people stayed up all night, waiting to use the toilets. Rations – mainly rice and bread – were provided by the government. Conditions had deteriorated between my visits in October 1990 and September 1991, with more and more refugees coming in. Unregistered inmates outnumbered registered ones by about three to one, and since the government provided rations only for those who were registered, the shortfall was made good partly by donations from voluntary organisations, partly by watering down and stretching out whatever food was available, making the monotonous diet even less nutritious and more unappetising. Lacking employment and therefore money, most of the refugees spent their time in forced inactivity, although efforts made by voluntary groups had secured school places for children of school-going age, and later on, classes for pre-school children as well.

Journey Without a Destination:Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Chapter 2)

 

Chapter 2: Flight 

    When the refugee problem first began to take on serious proportions after the 1983 riots, there was a more or less uniform cause of flight: government-sponsored violence in the form of pogroms, reprisals against civilians, and torture and extra-judicial executions facilitated by the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) 1979. This Act provided for a person to be detained incommunicado for up to 18 months without being charged or brought before a magistrate, and had no provision for legal remedies for detention or torture.

    By mid-1989, the situation had become far more complicated; the refugees might be fleeing the Sri Lankan security forces, the Indian army, the EPRLF, the Tigers, some combination of these forces, or the crossfire between them, in a ‘dirty’ war in which all sides engaged in atrocities against civilians, including little children.

    We turn now to the experiences which led to their decision to leave – or, in some cases, to their relatives’ decision to make them leave. The accounts which follow are all compatible with reports published by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, as well as published accounts by Sri Lankan writers and analysts; there seems to be no reason for doubting their authenticity. Yet only those marked with an ‘R’ at the end of their statements had been given refugee status; none had received political asylum.

Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Foreword, Preface, Chronology of Major Events and Chapter 1)

 

Foreword

 

Rohini Hensman’s Journey without a Destination is the story of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, told in the words of those displaced or dispossessed by the fighting.

    Over half a million Sri Lankan Tamil refugees have fled to other countries while over a million Sri Lankans are displaced internally by the continuing conflict.

    Her in-depth interviews bear witness to the complexities and the contradictions of a society at war with itself – the conflicting emotions of those who have fled the country, the hopes and fears of those who are internal refugees.

    She charts in the process an incisive oral history of Tamil and Sinhalese nationalism – two cultures on a collision course – and a human cost that can never be adequately measured.

    She has found that those who suffer sometimes have insights that could hasten a solution – insights inevitably based on tolerance and understanding.

    These are qualities that we also urgently need in European countries if we are to face up to our own responsibilities – to help and support those who seek refuge from such savage conflicts.

 

Alf Dubs, Director

British Refugee Council

[1993]