SRI LANKA AND MYANMAR:

UNDERSTANDING RISE OF BUDDHIST

RADICALISM ANALYSIS

Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy-JULY 26, 2014

By

Over the past three years, there has been an evident surge of
Buddhist radicalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, with the clergy being increasingly
involved in violence against minorities, especially Muslims. Both countries have sizeable
Muslim populations, and while the situation in Myanmar is the worse of the two, Sri
Lanka is not too far behind.
The general deduction is that the current state-of-affairs is a consequence of paranoia
over losing ones culture, Islamophobia, and a typical assertion of the majority over the
minority. However, there must also be a closer examination. How did the practitioners of
Buddhism widely perceived as the most peaceful religion in the world come to resort
to violence? Given how a majority of victims in both countries have been Muslims, how

much of a role has Islamophobia played? Is there a non-theological reason for the
proliferation of religious violence?

The Situation Today

In Myanmar, a large section of the society comprises monks, given the large-scale
enlisting to monasteries that took place during the Junta years. The clergy holds a moral
high ground in Myanmarese society, and has a strong social standing. Throughout the
decades of military dictatorship, Myanmars clergy fought another issue the high global
attrition rate among schools of Theravada Buddhism. Therefore, protecting the culture
became the mainstay, and, knowingly and/or unknowingly, aided the cultivation of nonviolent radicalisation among the monks. When this met Islamophobia, it resulted in a
violent campaign against 400,000 Rohingya Muslims. Naypyidaw could have easily
intervened but it has its own agenda: to wash its hands off the economic costs of
providing for thousands of people when its resource basket is already heavily strained.
There is a strong ethnic bias element too. Rohingyas do not find favour with the Rakhine
Buddhists for their ethnic origins, and given their Muslim faith, Islamophobia has been a
side-effect.This, combined with the high social position occupied by the clergy, has
resulted in a plausible tacit deal.
In Sri Lanka, action and literature against religious minorities began 40 years ago, soon
after the government decided to stop funding the Sangha. Although the victims were not
Muslims alone at the start, since the early 2000s, the focus of violent Buddhist radical
actions has been Sri Lankas Muslim population.
In Sri Lanka, three key ethnicities are identified: Sinhalas, Tamils and Muslims. This
makes it evident that despite being a religious and not an ethnic construct, Muslims (who
have ancestral links to Arab traders, Tamils, and Malays) are considered to be of another
ethnicity one that is identified by the their religious faith. However, the Sri Lankan
Buddhist radical clergy does not target Muslims alone. They began by targeting
minorities, and with increasing Islamophobia, they have concentrated their attacks
primarily on Muslims. In Sri Lanka, almost all political parties have monks in their
membership. The monks entry into the political arena they otherwise shunned began
just before World War II, and has today become a part of Sri Lankan politics.

Myanmar and Sri Lanka: Situational Differences

The basic difference in the nature of nexus between the Buddhist clergy and the political
class in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is that in Myanmar, the clergy has strong socio-political
standing and cannot be ignored, and is therefore co-opted; and in Sri Lanka, the clergy
fairly strong but one that is also influenced by modern Sinhala nationalist ideology is
used by the political class as pawns during election campaigns and/or employed to
legitimise various government decisions.
However, the split that the Sri Lankan Sangha went through, over three decades ago,
resulted in the fragmentation of the clergy. With no direct material support from the
government, each group tries to outdo the other to ensure funding that is provided only
by wealthy benefactors who fund only the most radical groups.
In Myanmar, the Buddhist clergy is united and has an upper hand to an extent or at
least an even hand and the government is in a quid pro quo arrangement with them to
secure their individual interests. In Sri Lanka, the Buddhist clergy is becoming
increasingly radicalised due to competition for sources of funds a problem that arose
primarily due to ideological differences in the Sangha itself and its implications on
political preferences and the governments use of the monks for political benefit.
Furthermore, in Myanmar, violence against Rohingya Muslims has a lot to do with their
ethnic and historical Bengali origins than their faith alone while that is not the case in Sri
Lanka.
There are indeed several other factors at play in Sri Lanka, such as the 2004 AntiConversion Bill, and the politics and politicisation of the Ministry of Buddha Sasana,
among others, and in Myanmar, its citizenship laws. Understanding the core differences
between what is unfolding in Myanmar and Sri Lanka is crucial therefore to develop
custom-made solutions for each. Evidently, the central factor sustaining these crises is
money and/or the lack of it. Financial factors being the bulwark for the sustenance of
violence only means it will be easier to resolve than if it were purely ideological.
Rajeshwari Krishnamurthy
Research Officer, IReS, IPCS
Email: rajeshwari@ipcs.org
Posted by Thavam