"Hatred arose from all sides; whence came divisions; from divisions factions, and from factions ruin".
Niccol`F2 Machiavelli (The Discourses)
Some falls are tragic; in some there is a touch of poetry, an element of heroism. In this fall there is nothing but ignominy. If the JHU was an experiment it was an experiment which failed abysmally. It has nothing positive to show for its short existence and its legacy is one of hate and inanity, of acrimony and ignobility, of intolerance and opportunism. The unseemly fate of the JHU is a warning to those who may be tempted to dabble again with the explosive mixture of religion and politics.
History teaches us that enhanced identification between religion and politics often rebounds on the religion, discrediting and dishonouring it. In such situations backlashes against religion become the form in which public antipathy towards politicians and their mistakes are manifested - the best examples being the anti-clericalism of the French Revolution and the Italian Risorgimento (or the sacking of Rome in 1527 by the troops of the Catholic Emperor Charles which forced Pope Clement VII to flee the Vatican). The arrogation of more and more political power to themselves by Buddhist monks during the Koryo dynasty led to the decline of Buddhism in Korea. If the disastrous example of the JHU discourages greater identification between religion and politics Sri Lanka, it would be a boon both to the national cause and to Buddhism.
In his Historical and Critical Dictionary the 17th Century French philosopher Pierre Bayle argued that given the bloody history of religious conflict and persecution it is impossible to conclude that there is a correlation between religious faith and moral conduct. The religious ‘revival’ in Sri Lanka today is preoccupied with quantity as opposed to quality, the numbers game rather than the moral dimension. It is the kind of ‘revival’ which encourages and even justifies violence against the ‘religious other’ (a familiar phenomenon in the history of mono-theistic religions but alien to Buddhism). The psychology and language of this religious revival are characterised by illogic, misinformation and ignorance, hatred and ridicule. The religious debates of today are violently subjective and destructively divisive. One witnesses today the same abuse of statistics to ferment and justify intolerance as was present in the debates over ethnicity in the 1970’s and 80’s and language in the 1950’s. The madness has reached such a point that there are Sinhala Buddhists and Sinhala Christians who actually think that the LTTE is a lesser enemy than each other! It is a revival that is irrational, inane and intolerant. Hate is its name and all encompassing destruction its logical, inescapable destination.
The Bane of Intolerance
The US State Department’s Report on Religious Freedom is a timely warning of the alarming degree to which the germ of intolerance has permeated our society. By far the greatest culprits are my own coreligionists, the Buddhists, and their victims have been fellow Sinhala Christians. The Report mentions as many as 100 such attacks - conduct which degrades a religion based on maithri towards all living beings (including men and women of other faiths) and is counterproductive at a time when the broadest possible anti-Tiger unity is a pre-condition for national survival. The Report also lists two attacks by Christians against members of Jehovah’s Witness in Negombo and an attack by Tamil Hindus against Tamil members of a new Christian sect in the East.
Just as the majority on minority violence revives horrendous memories of 1956 and 1983, the minority on minority violence revives equally horrendous memories of the forced Muslim exodus from Jaffna and the Katthankudy massacre. Sinhala intolerance and extremism gave birth to Tamil intolerance and extremism personified by the Tigers who are subjecting the Tamils to a worst tyranny than ever they were by the Sinhalese (the former parliamentarian Kingsley Rasanayagam is the latest in a long line of Tamil ’ to be sacrificed at the alter of the Sun God). That is how vicious cycles are born and perpetuated. The original sin was ours but eventually sin became generalised and everyone succumbed. There is a real danger of this vicious cycle being reproduced in the realm of religion, thereby creating the necessary conditions for a ‘war of all against all’ and the final unmaking of Sri Lanka.
The JHU came into being in an unseemly hurry to reap the benefits of the outpourings of public grief (part spontaneous and part orchestrated by the state and the private media) over the untimely demise of Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero. Given the extremist, intolerant creed espoused by the late Thero in the final years of his life it was natural that his legacy should be claimed by a group of people steeped in extremism and ambition. Sihala Urumaya (SU) which was in the doldrums due to electoral failures and acrimonious squabbles obviously saw in the public sympathy for the dead Thero the best and the fastest way out of the political wilderness. The SU became reincarnated as the JHU and contested the 2004 parliamentary elections winning 9 seats.
Having set themselves the impossible task of creating a Dharma Rajya (and in six months too - something even the Enlightened One did not attempt) the vainglorious monks found themselves completely out of their depth, without a clear sense of direction or purpose. The rejection of the draconian Anti-Conversion Bill by the Supreme Court discredited the JHU’s main policy plank while the CWC’s decision to join the regime negated the JHU’s political clout. Suddenly the JHU’s importance and even the raison d’`EAtre for its existence vanished. This double blow acted as the catalyst for the problems that were festering within the party to burst into the open.
When the leaders of SU donated their party to the ‘Sangha’ they doubtless believed that the monks will resign from the parliament in six months as promised, enabling them to enter the parliament in droves. Ere long the parliamentarian monks went back on their promise and this volte-face would have caused much heartburn in those lay JHU leaders who believed that finally parliament was within their reach. The fact that the staunchly anti-LTTE and anti-ISGA Tilak Karunaratne has accepted the leadership of the staunchly pro-LTTE and pro-ISGA Ranil Wickremesinghe in return for the organiser post of Bandaragama is the best indication of the real aims of those lay JHU leaders who thought to achieve their ambitions through the monks – and failed.
Religious Wars
One of the most significant characteristics of the post-socialist world is the prevalence of killing in the name of religion and ethnicity/nationalism. Primordial identities have assumed growing importance globally and the economic opening up of the world is accompanied by a psychological closing up. We are even less willing than before to live and let live; to tolerate, to accept diversity. Just as in the economic realm we are being coerced by the IFIs to accept the ‘only truth’ of economic neo-liberalism within our own societies we are trying to compel everyone to confirm to our favourite ethnic, religious and cultural truths. The price of non-conformism is becoming greater than ever, as the 21st Century wends its way.
The charge of forcible religious conversions has always been an integral component of the thinking and the discourse which generates religious intolerance. It is instructive to see how Mahatma Gandhi handled this issue when it cropped up during the Indian Freedom Struggle. The British in consonance with their ‘divide and rule’ principle encouraged the conversion of oppressed caste Hindus (the ‘Untouchables’) to Buddhism. The plan was to create a new division in India by setting up another communal (this time Buddhist) party and encouraging the idea of a ‘Buddhistan’. This British ploy failed because Gandhi prevented the Congress from falling into the Hinduism vs. Buddhism snare. Instead of yelling about conspiracies (even though in this instance there was a conspiracy) Gandhi turned the lamp inwards and tried to deal with the socio-economic conditions which encouraged ‘Untouchable’ Hindus to change their religion. "Gandhi concentrated on the conversion of Harijans to Buddhism by opening temple after restricted temple to them and living with them" (Nehru – MJ Akbar). He renamed them ‘God’s children’ (Harijans), lived with them in their colonies, travelled in third class carriages with them and shared their lives as much as possible, helping to alleviate some of the socio-psychological factors which could have led to the mass conversion of these depressed cast Hindus to Buddhism.
If conversion is a problem in Sri Lanka today it should be addressed in a manner that does not harm national interests or help the LTTE and its Tiger Eelam project. In this country today no one can ‘force’ a Buddhist to convert to any other religion. Forcible conversions would have happened in the colonial period but to say that they happen now and on a large scale is laughable and an insult to our intelligence. If conversions happen through enticement, that has to be dealt with by understanding and dealing with the root causes and not the symptoms. For example if poverty is a root cause then Buddhist philanthropy rather than anti-democratic legislation is the answer. That is the intelligent way and the Buddhist way of handling the problem. Force, compulsion and the herd mentality have no place in Buddhism, whatever their role may be in entities like the JHU which is perverting Buddhism to attain their political goals.
An important lesson of the Sri Lankan tragedy is that one must not be like the worst of those one resists. The Tigers paralleled and then surpassed the Sinhala extremists in violence, brutality and intolerance; the recent statement by Gajendran Ponnambalam justifying the LTTE’s murder of Mr. Amirthalingam is symbolic of the horrors a resistance without the moral dimension can give rise to. The fate of the Sinhalese should be a warning to the Buddhists while the fate of the Tamils should be a warning to the members of other religions. The descent into irrationality and extremism by Buddhists will create a corresponding and (and perhaps more fanatical) descent into irrationality and extremism by members of other religions. This is a game none of us can win because it cannot be controlled or finessed. It will be taken over by fanatics of all faiths - the religious equivalents of the Tigers. The moderates of every religious persuasion will find themselves in the same situation moderate Sinhalese and Tamils find themselves today – marginalised and often hounded to death because religious frenzy once given full rein knows no bounds.
The JHU in its death throes is likely to wallow in extremism and opportunism in order to rescue its flagging fortunes. One may see renewed attempts to whip up religious hysteria, perhaps even a few more attacks on churches - the ploy of creating a crisis which it can then promise to solve in its own way. A religious July 83 would certainly be welcomed by the JHU leaders (both lay and ordained) and that is something the country will have to guard against. Saffron politics has discredited itself; but the destructive and self-destructive ideology that the JHU espoused is not dead. Like the ‘plague bacillus’ it may raise its head again when Sri Lanka can least afford it.
