Colonial British Favouritism Toward Tamils in Ceylon: Myth or Reality?

For many Sinhalese nationalists the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict begins with the British colonialists. They allege that the British used divide and rule tactic by showing favouritism to the Tamil minority in civil service employment and discriminating against the Sinhalese. They use this as a basis to argue that Tamils were a privileged group who had benefited unfairly at the expense of the Sinhalese and that the discriminatory policies aimed at Tamils in post-independent Sri Lanka were justified corrective measure to redress the supposed past injustices.

The Sinhalese nationalists are not the only ones to make these allegations about the colonial divide and rule tactic. Number of academics who write about the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict have also made similar allegations but they fail to provide primary sources in support of their claims.

But how does discriminating against a country's majority at the risk of causing resentments giving into revolts make for a good ruling strategy?  Unless direct evidence proving intentional discrimination is established, it's reasonable to doubt such allegations, as one author writes:

"there is no reason to think that the British colonial administrators (at least after they had established stable rule over the island) intended or desired such tensions. Internal conflict, after all, does not make for an easily governed country."

-  'Enemy Lines: Childhood, Warfare, and Play in Batticaloa', p. 43

Although Tamils (particularly the ones from Vellalar caste in Jaffna) were disproportionately represented in educational and professional fields, the vast majority of Tamils were "no better off educationally or economically than the majority of Sinhala people." Ibid., p.44

A segment of the Sinhala dominant caste, Govigama, too benefited from the British rule:

"Many of the low-country Govigama elite embraced Anglicanism and rose the ranks of the colonial bureaucracy. They were the favoured and trusted lieutenants of English rule. With independence and the emergence of political Buddhism, many returned to Buddhism. Jayewardene, Kotelawala, Bandaranaike and Wickremasinghe were examples. The Govigama elite had collaborated with the colonial masters benefiting in terms of employment, education and land ownership. The Maha Mudaliyar Christofel de Saram and his son Johannes Hendrick were examples of the deracinated and Anglicized Govigama elite in the early 1800s. The de Sarams were the forebearers of the Jayewardenes."

In fact, far from favouring Tamils the Colombo-centric British administration focused its development in the Sinhalese south and favoured the Sinhalese elites:

"The Sinhalese also had a special advantage – a singular advantage, over the Tamils. When smallholdings were introduced, quite a number of Sinhalese became owners. Thus, in terms of economy, and socio–economic mobility the Sinhalese were in a relatively superior position. There was no economic development in the North and East during the entire British period – not even infrastructures like Link-Roads and easing of travel and transport because the North and East did not come within the purview of the colonial economy of the British."

- Tamils were not the ‘favoured’ under British colonialism: Theva Rajan

 "If the British were favouring Tamils in education why a university was not given to Tamils during the entire British rule? Even the native institutions in Jaffna that were affiliated to Calcutta and Madras were made into ‘secondary schools’ by the British-Colombo administration, while a university college and later a university was started only in Colombo. Those who argue that the British favoured Tamils should read what the Report of the Donoughmore Commission that was sent to Ceylon in 1927 by the first Labour government of Britain has said on the communities in the island. The coastal Sinhalese were the most ‘progressive’ people in the island according to the Donoughmore Report, which implied that they were the favourite of the British in having a special relationship and in eventually transferring power. That’s what the British did under the Donoughmore constitution and between 1945 and 1948 under the Soulbury constitution– transferring power to the coastal Sinhala leadership, despite witnessing an All-Sinhala cabinet for 10 years under Donoughmore constitution."

 - Tehelka report misled on British treatment of Tamils: Jaffna academic

Hence, it is wrong to say only the Tamils benefited under the British rule.


Moreover, a group being disproportionately represented in a field doesn't by itself prove favouritism or discrimination. Other factors ought to be taken into account such as the disparity among different groups in what they value, how diligent they are, how qualified they are, the opportunities available to them, etc.

Perceptions of Tamils by the British show that they were seen as a hard-working and industrious people compared to the Sinhalese.

Herwald Ramsbotham (1st Viscount Soulbury), who was the British Governor-General of Ceylon from 1949 to 1954, wrote in 1964:

"I was much impressed by the important contribution that the Tamils had made and were making to the economy of Ceylon – and I was aware that the Ceylon Tamils were better educated and more industrious than the Sinhalese – in many ways they were playing the part of the Scots had played and still play in the economy of England."

Earlier accounts of outsiders corroborate this perception (these accounts are by no means biased toward the Tamils as full reading of these texts will show some of their social customs are denounced and certain negative traits are also ascribed to them while the Sinhalese are described positively in other aspects):

"The Tamulians, who it is supposed came over from the opposite coasts of India ; they are more active and industrious than the Cinghalese [...]"

- https://books.google.com/books?id=zOtiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA165

 "In the evening we drove along the shore to Valvettitorre, a village about three miles to the west of Point Pedro, containing a much larger population, and one equally industrious and enterprising. There was a vessel of considerable tonnage on the stocks, the Tamil ship-builders of this little place being amongst the most successful in Ceylon. [...] Jaffna is almost the only place in Ceylon of which it might be said that no one is idle or unprofitably employed. The bazaars are full of activity, and stocked with a greater variety of fruits and vegetables than is to be seen in any other town in the island. Every one appears to be more or less busy; and at the season of the year when labour is not in demand at home, numbers of the natives go “off to trade in the interior; carrying adventures of curry stuffs, betel-leaves, and other produce, to be sold in the villages of the Wanny. Large bodies of them also resort annually to the south, where they find lucrative employment in repairing the village tanks,——a species of labour in which they are peculiarly expert, and which the Singhalese are too indolent or too litigious to perform for themselves. If the deserted fields and solitudes of the Wanny are ever again to be re-peopled and re-tilled, I am inclined to believe that the movement for that purpose will come from the Tamils of Jaffna; for, looking to their increasing intelligence and wealth, their habits of industry and adaptation to an agricultural life, I can have little doubt that, as population increases, and the arable lands of the peninsula become occupied, emigration will gradually be directed towards the south, where, with the natural capabilities of the soil and the facilities for irrigation, one half of the exertion and toil bestowed on the reluctant sands of Jaffna would speedily convert the wilderness into a garden. Already there is a satisfaction, experienced in no other portion of Ceylon, in visiting their villages and farms, and in witnessing the industrious habits and improved processes of the peasantry. The whole district is covered with a net-work of roads, and at certain situations there exist what are maintained in no other part of the island (except at Matura in the south), regular markets, to which the peasantry resort from a distance, and bring their fruit, vegetables, and other produce for sale. These markets are generally held in the early morning, before the sun pours down his fiercest rays; and in driving along the roads at such an hour, the active and busy picture which they present would have strongly reminded me of some rural scenes in England [...]"

- https://books.google.com/books?id=bx8-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA535 

 "The Cingalese are, for the most part, extremely poor, which arises from their very indolent habits, for they dislike exertion to such a degree, that frequently nothing short of positive starvation will rouse them to the exercise of their bodily energies, though these are considerable, and their mental powers occasionally of no mean order. [...] [The Tamils] are much stouter, more active and enterprising, than the Cingalese, who are so addicted to laziness, that a favourite maxim with them is, “It is better to stand than to walk ; it is better to sit than to stand ; it is better to lie down than to sit ; it is better to sleep than to be awake, and death is the best of all.”" 

-  https://books.google.com/books?id=kR_nAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA92

"The Cinghalese occupy themselves principally with agriculture, growing rice, planting palms, bananas and other trees needing culture, and shunning all hard or severe labour. This is undertaken by preference by the Malabars [Tamils], who find employment as road-makers, masons, porters, coachmen, etc., in the low country, and as labourers in the coffee plantations in the higher districts."

- https://books.google.com/books?id=ccgNAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA88

Sir Henry Word, Governor of Ceylon (1855-1860), wrote in a despatch to the Colonial Office in June 1855, that the Sinhalese were not at all interested in improving their livelihood by engaging in the economic endeavours of the British as they were already content in their fertile lands therefore Tamils from India had to be brought to work there instead:

“The attempt to induce the native population to take part in those improvements that have converted the jungle into thriving coffee plantations upon which an enormous amount of British capital and Enterprise has been expanded, has so failed so entirely that the whole of the work of plantations is carried on by immigrants coolie labour (from South India). No amount of wages, no hopes of prospective advantages, no desire to improve their conditions by imitating habits of their European neighbours, have acted as yet upon the Singhalese mind, or roused the people from their apathy. With wants easily satisfied, and a fertile soil subdivided into small holdings, they can always command the absolute necessaries of life and seem to look no further.” (Sri Lanka National Archives) 

All of this lend credence to the idea that Jaffna Tamils were simply more motivated and their accomplishments were not due to favouritism but their own merits, especially given their lands were not hospital to agriculture which drove them to seek alternative ways to make a living. As a Sinhalese writer and a former government diplomat observes:

“On the other hand the Jaffna peninsula has an impoverished soil and has a very low rainfall. There are no rivers anywhere near the Jaffna peninsula. The water table is high but is contaminated with sea water. Thus, even in modern times, tube well irrigation is not possible. Besides in the Jaffna peninsula there is no industrial base and no prospect for oil. Therefore since the nineteenth century parents have invested heavily in education and thereafter employment in the salubrious Sinhalese speaking areas. It is largely a matter of opinion whether the school network on the District of Jaffna or the District of Colombo was better organised. […] When the Colombo Medical College was set up in 1872 approximately half the students were from Jaffna. When the Technical College was established in 1902 and the Colombo University College in 1921, approximately half the students were from Jaffna. This produced some tantalising results. … These figures reveal to what extent the Tamil community was oriented towards the well established professions for at least two generations and not due to any favouritism as perceived by some Sinhalese.”

- 'War Or Peace in Sri Lanka' by T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka, pp. 22-23

In addition to their disposition to industriousness Jaffna Tamils had an advantage in English education not because of the British rulers but due to the many schools opened in Jaffna by anti-colonial American missionaries and native revivalists. As the founding General Secretary of the Ceylon Communist Party Nagalingam Shanmugathasan explains in detail:

"One of the main reasons why the Tamils occupied a better place in the government service and the professions under British rule than the Sinhalese did was due to the head start they had in the sphere of learning English although this was by accident and not design.
The American Ceylon Mission was started in the Jaffna peninsula by the American Methodist Missionaries in 1816. In her very recent book, "Communal politics under the Donoughmore Constitution" Jane Russell gives a good account of the services rendered by these missionaries to education in Jaffna.
According to her, the reason why the Mission chose Jaffna as the focus of its activities was because "the colonial government was anxious to avoid a clash with the English Missions and partly because its strategic position was the key to India which was the Mission's main target".
By 1822, 42 schools staffed by Americans who were fluent in Tamil, had been established in the peninsula. In 1823, was set up the Batticotta (not to be confused with Batticaloa) Seminary at Vaddukoddai. This was the first English school in Asia. It was a free boarding school whose standard has been compared to that of a University, It taught English, Tamil prose, Mathematics, Greek, Latin History, Geography and. Philosophy.
In 1833, a professor of Medicine arrived and thereafter the Seminary turned out medical students and potential doctors. The methods of the American Ceylon Mission was reported to be infinitely more advanced and the missionaries more dedicated than those in the English Mission Schools in the rest of Ceylon.
Having learnt Tamil thoroughly, the Americans translated English text books into Tamil and compiled comprehensive English-Tamil dictionaries. As Colebrooke pointed out in 1830, the level of English education imparted in Jaffna was much higher than elsewhere in Ceylon as a result of the Americans asserting the importance of teaching English (unlike other missions).
Due to a financial crisis, the colonial government cut down expenditure on education by half during the end of 1847. This did not affect the American Ceylon Mission. The effect was that the governments schools in the South-West were outclassed completely. In 1929 there existed in the Jaffna peninsula 65 English schools, 10 of them being first/class Collegiate Schools, and 426 Vernacular schools. In that year, the Northern province had 6 out of 7 children attending some form schools.
As K. Balasingam said in a speech in 1913, we have cultivated the only thing that could have been cultivated with profit despite the aridity of our soil. We 'have attempted to cultivate men'.
The Americans were followed by Catholic and Protestant Missionaries who all proceeded to set up schools as part of their aim of proselytising. When Hindu revivalism started, there was formed the Hindu Board of Education which, in turn, opened up its schools. Thus, Jaffna became blessed with many schools. It was said that, at one stage, Jaffna had more schools per square mile than anywhere else in the world.
This gave a great impetus to the study of the English, a language which was the language of administration of the British Colonialists. Naturally, the Tamils obtained more posts in the governments service and the professions, like law and medicine, out of proportion to their numbers. But, they were obtained in open competition and not through the back door. According to Jane Russel, the Ceylon Tamils constituted over 40 percent of the franchise for the Educated Members seat in 1918.
A particular reason as to, why the Tamil felt the urgent need for better and higher education, particularly in English, was his consciousness that he lived in the most barren and uneconomic part of Sri Lanka which did not boast of a river, a mountain or forest. Education was the only passport to a better life. So he studied hard.
It was a slightly different picture with the Sinhalese in the South. They were blessed with a more fertile land where literally anything grew. Sustenance was easy. But, the educational facilities available to them were less than those available to the Tamils. Besides, till the economic crisis of 1929-1931, the Sinhala middle classes were not that keen to join government service or the professions as their lands could sustain them. It was in the years just before and just after the Second World War that the competition for jobs between the Sinhala and Tamil middle classes grew."

Genesis of the Sinhala - Tamil Conflict by N.Sanmugathasan

The Soulbury Commission too acknowledges Jaffna Tamils "benefited for over a century from first-rate secondary schools founded and endowed by missionary effort" and notes the superior literacy that Tamil possessed led disproportionate number of them gain admission by competitive examination to Public Services. Thus the Tamils came to dominate the civil service on merits alone as the British needed qualified and competent individuals, which is why for example they relied on the literate Brahmin class to manage their administration in the British Raj despite their apprehensions about them.
The Commission also reports the complaints that Tamils had made about discrimination against them by Sinhalese Ministers who exerted influence on Selection Board to prefer candidates of their own race by removing arithmetic from General Clerical Service examination as a compulsory subject since "the well-known aptitude of the Tamils for mathematics was thought to give them an advantage in it over their competitors of other races." The Commission, however, dismissed this as "small acts of discrimination". See the full text here (pages 48-50): Soulbury Commissions Report

Unfortunately, these "small acts of discrimination" paved the way for bigger acts of discrimination for decades to come which would replace meritocracy in Sri Lanka in favour of numerically proportionate ethnic representation because of ethnic majoritarianism politics. According to a Sinhalese government official:

"For generations the Tamils have yearned to join Government service and since 1956 all manner of obstacles have been placed in their path. Now, under President R. Premadasa the interests of all communities have been safeguarded in admission to the Government service. Recruitment is strictly on the basis of ethnic ratio. . . ."

- 'Postcolonial Insecurities India, Sri Lanka, and the Question of Nationhood', pp. 48-49


Decades after the British transferred power to the racist Sinhalese leaders who substantially reduced Tamil representation in civil service through discriminatory policies like Sinhala Only act which forced Tamil civil servants who couldn't speak Sinhala to resign, Tamils continued to outperform Sinhalese in other fields and higher education.

'War Or Peace in Sri Lanka' by T.D.S.A. Dissanayaka, p. 42

The Sinhalese alleged that Tamil examiners were being biased and giving higher marks to students of Tamil ethnicity. There was no truth to this harmful allegation but this led to another discriminatory policy in 1971 requiring Tamil students to score several points higher than their Sinhalese counterparts to be granted admission to universities. This was later scrapped and replaced with a less overt form of discrimination based on district quotas which still drastically reduced Tamil entrance into universities and drove disgruntled Tamil youth to militancy.

"During the first half of the 1970s the SLFP-led government enacted measures intended to drastically reduce the number of Tamil students gaining admission to coveted university programs in medicine and engineering. Since 1956 Tamil representation in most sectors of state employment had fallen substantially, except among doctors and engineers, since high-achieving Jaffna Tamils, in particular, excelled in university programs in these fields. New government policies introduced district-based admission quotas that drastically cut the numbers of Jaffna Tamil students admitted to such programs. The beneficiaries were less-qualified, less-competent Sinhalese students from rural and small-town backgrounds, the SLFP’s traditional following. The new policy caused deep disquiet and anger among the substantial educated stratum of Jaffna Tamils—the Tamil federalists’ core base—and inflamed their youth."

- 'Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka', p. 24

Why were Tamils continuing to outperform Sinhalese even decades after the supposedly Tamil-favouring British left the island and even after the Sinhalese government passed several discriminatory policies aimed at reducing Tamil representation in various fields?

Either Tamils are more intelligent or they were simply continuing their tradition of industriousness and prioritising education that I described above.

The founding father of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew, who had once looked upon Ceylon as a model country with a promising future later described it as an example of a failed state that his own country shouldn't emulate, said this about the Sri Lankan Tamils:

"One-man one-vote led to the domination of the Sinhalese majority over the minority Tamils who were the active and intelligent fellows who worked hard and got themselves penalised. And English was out. They were educated in English. Sinhalese was in. They got quotas in two universities and now they have become fanatical Tigers. And the country will never be put together again."

________      ___________        ___________        ___________        ___________

Another informative article on the issue:
Did the British Divide & Rule Ceylon?

LTTE's letter to the United States Government

LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM

November 6, 1997

United States Court of Appeal
District of Columbia Circuit
Washington D.C.

Re: Letter of Authorization for the Filing of a Legal Action and Representation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Judicial Review of the Terrorist Designation of the Organization Pursuant to Section 219 of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. (Public Law 104-132, April 24, 1996)

Dear Honorable Judges:
On October 8, 1997, the United States Secretary of State, Honorable Madeleine Albright, pursuant to Section 219 of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, designated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (the LTTE defined) as a terrorist organization along with 29 other organizations.

The LTTE is a national liberation movement, which is presently involved in armed conflict with the government of Sri Lanka in order to realize the right of the Tamils of Sri Lanka for self-determination on the island of Sri Lanka.

The Rationale for Armed Resistance by the Tamils
The formation of the Tamil armed resistance movement was in response to the repression and violence of the Sinhala-dominated Sri Lankan government. It should be analyzed within the context of the historical development of the Tamil struggle for self-determination. The Tamil struggle for self-determination has an evolutionary history of nearly half a century. It is a history characterized by state repression and the ensuing resistance by Tamils. The political struggles in the early periods were peaceful, democratic, non-violent campaigns which later assumed the form of armed resistance as the military repression by the state intensified to genocidal proportions.

Following the independence of the island in 1948, Sinhala State repression against the Tamils began to manifest itself in earnest. Through discriminatory legislation, and various other unconstitutional measures, successive Sinhala majority governments unleashed a systematic form of oppression that deprived the Tamils of their linguistic, educational and employment rights. In addition, the aggressive state aided colonization, by the Sinhalese, of Tamil areas not only deprived the Tamils of their rights to their historical lands, but also changed the national composition in the Tamil regions rendering them minority in their own traditional Tamil regions.

The Tamils took up arms when they were presented with no alternative; when peaceful forms of democratic political agitations were violently repressed; when constitutional paths and parliamentary doors were effectively closed.

The event which climaxed the constitutional process to oppress the Tamil people was the new Republican Constitution of 1972 which was adopted, in a constitutional conference outside the Parliament without the support of elected Tamil representatives.

By this unilateral action, which eliminated the protection for Tamils included in the Soulbury Constitution, Sri Lanka broke the covenant which the Tamil people made with the Sinhala people and the British when Sri Lanka became independent in 1948. The secular position of the state was changed in favor of Buddhism, the religion of the Sinhalese. Since 1961, after Satyagraha, a non-violent civil disobedience campaign by the Tamils, the Tamil areas came under army occupation.

The response of the Tamil people to these oppressive measures was to assert the inalienable right to self-determination.

This right entails the freedom as a people to determine their own political status. In the 1997 election, the last free election held in the northeast, the Tamils gave an overwhelming mandate to establish the "independence of Tamil Eelam by peaceful means, direct action or by struggle."

The LTTE emerged as a response to these conditions; and with the emergence of the LTTE, the minds of the Tamil political struggle underwent a radical change. The armed struggle became effectively institutionalized as the political struggle of the Tamil people; and also as a measure of self-defense in the face of the brutalization of the Tamils by the Sri Lankan government.

The LTTE’s armed struggle is based on a clearly defined political program.

The LTTE is committed to the position that the Tamils constitute themselves as a People or a Nation that have a homeland. A well-defined contiguous territory embracing the Northern and Eastern provinces to be the historically constituted habitation of the Tamils. Since the Tamils have a homeland, a distinct language and culture, a unique economic life and lengthy history extending over three thousand years, they possess all the characteristics of a nation or a people.

The right to self-determination is a basic universal human right recognized by the international community. The international covenants of the UN charter enunciate the principle of self-determination in the following terms, "All people have the right to self-determination. By the virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development." Sri Lanka has consistently denied the right to self-determination of the Tamils and refused to recognize the Tamils as a people. By constitutional amendment Sri Lanka has prohibited even peaceful promotion of the Tamil demand for self-determination as unlawful.

Furthermore, it has unleashed a full-fledged war against the Tamils to suppress their struggle for political independence. The armed struggle of the Tamils is for the right to self-determination and is thus a legitimate political struggle for independence under international law.

Human Rights Violations and War Crimes by Sri Lanka
In the war to suppress the Tamils, successive Sri Lankan governments have used their security forces to commit massive human rights violations and war crimes against the Tamils. These violations have included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, rape, mass arrests, detention, assault, and harassment. In addition, there has been indiscriminate aerial bombing and heavy artillery shelling of civilians. The denial of food, fuel, electricity, medicine and other essential supplies through an economic embargo since 1990, as well as the intentional disruption and destruction of agricultural production, have been used as instruments of war. These actions have caused deaths, a great deal of suffering and undue hardships for the Tamil civilian population of the North and East. The army has even desecrated the final resting places of Tamil freedom fighters in areas it invaded in 1995 and 1996.

It is gratifying that these violations are now receiving some recognition from the international community despite desperate cover up efforts by the Government through censorship and denial of access to the Northeast.

Recent reports by the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Committee for Refugees (USCR), the British Refugee Council and Amnesty International have noted the sharp deterioration in the human rights performance of the Government.

The U.S. State Department’s Human Rights Report for 1996, even though it failed to use information compiled and regularly reported by the LTTE, noted the "deterioration in the human rights record of the security forces" and "the impunity for those responsible for human rights abuses." It documents the deterioration and the impunity in all categories of violations by security forces ranging from killings, disappearances, torture and rapes to mass arrests, and detention. It also notes that even the minimal safeguards built into the Emergency Regulations (ER) and Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) are "routinely ignored by security forces."

Tamils will continue to be a "people in distress" unless the international community intervenes. The Sri Lanka government continues to bomb and shell indiscriminately and where more than a hundred innocent Tamil civilian men, women and children have lost their lives and more than a hundred have been injured since the May 13 offensive alone, LTTE will continue to deter the Sri Lanka government from committing such atrocities and other human rights offensives against the Tamils.

The international community has a duty to prevent human rights violations by the security forces by discontinuing the supply of lethal weapons, and all other forms of military assistance, to the Government. Listing the LTTE as a terrorist organization does not help to end the war and bring peace and justice to the Tamil people in distress.

LTTE - A Proven Politico-Military Organization
As an organization committed to the principle of self-determination and engaged in a politico-military struggle over a length period, the LTTE has earned the status of a national liberation movement. Having emerged in the early seventies and having struggled for over two decades to win the political rights of the Tamil people, the LTTE enjoys widespread popular support in Tamil Eelam and among the international Tamil community.

History has noted that guerrilla movements committed to armed struggle could not have survived without the support and sustenance of the people. The LTTE has a standing army and a naval force, is national liberation force consists of several thousand freedom fighters, a capable and responsible command structure, military training facilities, modern weapon systems, vast territories under its administrative control and the potential and efficiency to engage the Sri Lanka armed forces in a conventional mode of warfare.

The LTTE on 24 February 1988 transmitted its notice of acceptance of the Geneva Conventions I-IV of 1948 and the Protocols Additional I and II to the Geneva conventions to United Nations Headquarters and to the ICRC.

LTTE has entered into agreements with international humanitarian organizations.

LTTE believes that as a national liberation movement it should be treated as privileged combatant not as a criminal organization.

The LTTE never targets civilians who "take no active part in the conflict."

The Sri Lankan government in its zeal to demonize the LTTE and to deceive foreign governments has engaged in a concerted disinformation campaign to present a picture that belies our reality.

The LTTE has a political section with social, economic, educational and cultural organizations, and civil administrative units which implement a system of law and order. The structure of the LTTE is multifaceted and serves the needs of the Tamil people. It is oriented towards conducting an effective armed resistance and political struggle while at the same time maintaining a well-organized administrative system. It has, since 1990, operated a de-facto government in all liberated areas and continues to do so in the areas still under its responsibility.

Thus, during 1990 and 1995, even under the very difficult conditions imposed by the economic embargo and the war, the LTTE conducted an effective civil administration in the North, totally free of the corruption and nepotism which have plagued Sri Lanka. It was based on a system of participatory democracy with all segments of society from the grassroots level to professionals, having the opportunity to participate in non-military decisions. A key example was the formulation of the economic plan for rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. Another achievement of the LTTE has been the empowerment of the victims of tradition and culture-based discrimination - women, "low caste."

The LTTE remains committed to progressively broadening the system of participatory democracy and to establishing complete political pluralism once peace with security and justice is achieved.

We take inspiration from the armed struggle waged by the Representatives of the United States of America for the national self-determination movement that led to the creation of the United States of America.

We share in the belief of the oppressed contained in the Declaration of Independence, that: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Depotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

The Tamil people have suffered years of political and violent physical abuses at the hands of successive Sinhala governments of Sri Lanka, while the international community watched silently, before we took up armed struggle to claim the rights of the Tamil people.

We take this opportunity to reiterate our desire and willingness to enter into a negotiated settlement under third party facilitation, which will ensure the realization of the right to self-determination of both the Sinhala and Tamil-speaking people of the island of Sri Lanka.

Our struggle for self-determination is not a threat to the national security of any member of the family of nations, nor is our struggle a threat to the Sinhala people.

As I mentioned earlier in a 1991 open letter addressed to the Sinhala people. "(We) have no hatred towards the Sinhalese people. It is one of the fundamental principles of our struggle that we respect and safeguard the right of every individual irrespective of creed, religion, sex or ethnic origin."

It is indeed regrettable that the American Nation, which received its own independence after a violent struggle for self-determination, and has ever since championed the cause of human freedom, has chosen to characterize and discredit the legitimate struggle of the Tamil people seeking to determine their political status, as a phenomenon of terrorism. We consider this indictment by the U.S. Department of State unfair and unfounded.

We understand that Section 219(b) of the Anti-Terrorism Act provides an opportunity to challenge the designation in your Court. We feel we have a moral obligation to challenge it.

We are also mindful that the courts in the United States play an important role in defending the rights of the persecuted and downtrodden. We believe we can get justice in your Court.

In this connection, I authorize Mr. Ramsey Clark, Attorney-at-Law and Mr. Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, Attorney-at-Law, and other attorneys appointed by them to mount this challenge and appear as legal counsels of the LTTE in challenging its designation as a terrorist organization before this Court.

Sincerely yours,

Velummylum Manoharan
Representative
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,
International Secretariat
211 Katherine Road,
London, U.K.

C/o CCT France, 341 Rue des Pyrenees, 75020 Paris, France

Eelam Tamil separatism before independence?

Sinhalese nationalists who wish to blame Tamils for the Sri Lankan civil war claim that Tamils or their political leaders advocated separatism even before the country's independence; therefore they reason that Tamils didn't struggle for Eelam because of any real grievances due to discrimination in post-independent Sri Lanka but because separatism is what they had always wanted!

This is a very convenient propaganda along with the one that depicts the conflict as merely a war on 'terrorism' because it exonerates Sinhalese leaders of their own wrongdoings and puts the entire blame on Tamils for their own suffering.

It's a propaganda because it doesn't reveal the full truth and makes several logical leaps.

1) Even if Tamil leaders did advocate separatism in pre-independent Sri Lanka, it does NOT mean Tamils did not face discrimination after independence. Tamil leaders wanting a separate state prior to independence is not mutually exclusive to Tamils wanting the same thing but for reasons related to grievances after independence.
2) Even if Tamil grievances were imaginary or exaggerated, in no civilized word would that warrant violent backlash. But that is exactly what happened to Tamils in several anti-Tamil riots in response to their political demands and peaceful protests. To pretend that this would have no effect on people mobilizing toward separatism would be dishonesty and/or naivety.
3) Most importantly Tamil leadership was not a monolith. Before independence, Tamil leaders did not only advocate a unitary state but even opposed federalism which was ironically proposed by the Sinhalese leaders (also see this article):

"It could be seen therefore that federalism was first proposed by Sinhala political leaders. SWRD Bandaranaike the greatest intellectual among Sinhala political leaders of that era espoused some form of federalism as the only solution as far back as 1926. Kandyan Sinhala leaders recommended a federal arrangement of two units for Sinhalese and one unit comprising the north – east for Tamils in 1927. If Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders had availed themselves of the opportunity and demanded that the British grant federalism for the Tamils of the North and East there was every chance that the request might have been acceded to. The Kandyan Sinhala and Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders could have pressurised the low country Sinhala leaders in a political pincer. Yet this did not happen. The Sri Lankan Tamil political leaders did not demand federalism or even a separate state while the British were ruling. Instead these demands were raised only after the British left our shores."

Moreover, if there were calls for Eelam prior to independence as Sinhalese nationalists allege, it was by no means unanimous considering the Jaffna Youth Congress (JYC) was one of the earliest pre-independence organisation to agitate for full independence from Britain and advocate a broader Ceylonese nationalism under a unitary state.

“Long before independence, the JYC led the campaign for the use of national languages in education and in governance. The JYC succeeded in getting virtually all the leading schools in Jaffna to teach Tamil and Sinhala as compulsory subjects at the secondary level. As J.E. Jayasuriya has noted, 'At a time when the Sinhalese were prepared to do without Sinhala, the battle for Sinhala and Tamil was fought by Tamil leaders'” (PATHWAYS OF DISSENT Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka, p. xviii)

“The Sri Lankan Tamil sectarianism/communalism that surfaced with the Tamil Congress the late 1930s was stridently narrow and ideologically primitive—vide agendas such as the 50-50 proposal-but not separatist. The FP [Federal Party] too was Tamil nationalist but not separatist. Despite the progressive defection of the non-Marxist parties, followed by the Marxist parties into Sinhala Only, Tamil separatism received no electoral backing until 1977. As late as 1970, when an ex-FP MP, Navaratnam, voiced his advocacy of separatism (that is, secession), the FP challenged him by nominating K.P. Ratnam to contest him. Navaratnam campaigned vigorously on a secessionist platform, and Ratnam on a federalist platform; Ratnam won handsomely. The earliest advocacy of separatism by any Tamil group of any significance was around the mid-1970s.” (PATHWAYS OF DISSENT Tamil Nationalism in Sri Lanka, p. xxi)

Why did Tamils join the LTTE? What was their motive?

As much as the Sri Lankan state and its supporters wish to portray the Tamil Tigers as one-dimensional ruthless terrorists hellbent on causing mayhem, it's important to explore their motives and the process of radicalization which drove them to violence.

Without any context, the Tigers are only political boogeymen far-removed from any humanness. However, a more balanced perspective requires understanding the social and political conditions that drove an otherwise peaceful people to violence. It's necessary to humanize them because the Sri Lankan state propaganda has stripped them of all their humanity and rational agency which makes it possible for this tyrannical regime to whitewash any real grievances on the part of the Tamils who became the Tigers. Thus providing the appropriate context will show that the Tamils who joined the Tigers were not irrational actors prone to mindless violence but people with real grievances who turned to violent separatism after decades of political marginalization and state sponsored pogroms.

While grievances at discriminatory laws and the government's continuous broken promises made Tamils lose faith in parliamentary democracy, perhaps nothing proved to be a more powerful force of mobilization toward armed struggle than the many recurring anti-Tamil riots in which thousands of Tamil civilians were brutally murdered and displaced often with government complicity.

What is to be expected when decades of peaceful protests are met with state sponsored violence?
When some assert that the Tamils should have tried to settle their grievances through peaceful means what they are suggesting is racial suicide, because Tamils had already tried the political solution only to be met with violence and state repression. Tamils felt they had suffered enough and any more restraint on their part would only result in the complete annihilation of their race.

Velupillai Prabhakaran, who founded the LTTE, explained this motive for his recourse to armed struggle in an interview:

"The non-violent democratic struggles of our people were met with military repression. Our just demands were totally ignored, and the oppression continued on such a scale as to threaten the very survival of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. It was these circumstances which led me to form our liberation movement. I felt that an armed struggle was the only alternative left to our people, not only to ensure our survival but ultimately to free our selves from the Sinhala oppression. ... The shocking events of the 1958 racial riots had a profound impact on me when I was a schoolboy. I heard of horrifying incidents of how our people had been mercilessly and brutally put to death by Sinhala racists. Once I met a widowed mother, a friend of my family, who related to me her agonising personal experience of this racial holocaust. During the riots a Sinhala mob attacked her house in Colombo. The rioters set fire to the house and murdered her husband. She and her children escaped with severe burn injuries. I was deeply shocked when I saw the scars on her body. I also heard stories of how young babies were roasted alive in boiling tar. When I heard such stories of cruelty I felt a deep sense of sympathy and love for my people. A great passion overwhelmed me to redeem my people from this racist system. I strongly felt that armed struggle was the only way to confront a system which employs armed might against unarmed, innocent people."

Riots May 1958 - A Tamil passenger was taken out of the vehicle and beaten up. Photo courtesy of Victor Ivan

Sumantra Bose, a professor of international politics, interviewed two other top LTTE leaders and found similar motives:

"Kittu, a peninsula Tamil of Hindu background, joined the Tigers in 1978 at the age of eighteen. When I asked him why he had done so, he cited the anguish and anger he felt when he worked as a volunteer in refugee camps established in Jaffna for Tamils who fled the south after the 1977 riots. The trauma and destitution of these innocent victims of mob violence affected him deeply, he said. In 2004 I interviewed another member of the Tiger vanguard, Sornam, a top commander who joined the movement in 1982, in his base near the strategic and multiethnic town of Trincomalee on the east coast. Sornam, an east-coast Tamil from a Roman Catholic family of fisherfolk, went, like Kittu, from high school to insurgency. When I posed the same question about the motivation driving his decision, he replied without a moment’s hesitation: "Riots."" Bose, Sumantra (2009). Contested Lands: ISRAEL–PALESTINE, KASHMIR, BOSNIA, CYPRUS, AND SRI LANKA. Harvard University Press. pp. 27–28. ISBN 9780674028562.

Anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983, also known as the Black July, the largest and the most destructive act of brutality inflicted on defenseless Tamil civilians who were burned alive, raped, mutilated, tortured and massacred, finally mobilized thousands of Tamils to the armed struggle:

"Before 1983, the appeal of the Tamil Tigers was limited to a small segment of disaffected young men. The rural poor were ambivalent; few supported the LTTE even though they might have been sympathetic to its goals. After the 1983 attacks, however, support for the LTTE increased dramatically. One observer estimated the pre-1983 membership at a maximum of 600. By March [sic] 1983, after the pogrom, the LTTE support exceeded 10,000. The Tigers drew support from marginalized Tamils who resented their second-class-citizen status and from the growing number of internally displaced people." Bloom, Mia (2011). Bombshell: Women and Terrorism. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780812243901.

KICKS before the KILL-- Borella, Colombo 1983. Iconic image from the Black July anti-Tamil riots. A stripped naked Tamil youth sits on a concrete step at the Borella bus stand as a laughing Sinhalese mob dance around him. Later petrol is poured on the youth and he is burnt alive.

The acts of Sinhala racist barbarism were so inhumane that they would rouse even the most peaceful person to violence. Here are some accounts of the racial pogrom:

London’s Daily Telegraph (July 26) wrote:

Motorists were dragged from their cars to be stoned and beaten with sticks. Others were cut down with knives and axes. Mobs of Sinhala youth rampaged through the streets, ransacking homes, shops and offices, looting them and setting them ablaze, as they sought out members of the Tamil ethnic minority. A mob attacked a Tamil cyclist riding near Colombo’s eye hospital. The cyclist was hauled from his bike, drenched with petrol and set alight. As he ran screaming down the street, the mob set on him again and hacked him down with jungle knives.

 In his book, The Tragedy of Sri Lanka, William McGowan wrote:

While travelling on a bus when a mob laid siege to it, passengers watched as a small boy was hacked 'to limb-less death.' The bus driver was ordered to give up a Tamil. He pointed out a woman who was desperately trying to erase the mark on her forehead – called a kumkum – as the thugs bore down on her. The woman’s belly was ripped open with a broken bottle and she was immolated as people clapped and danced. In another incident, two sisters, one eighteen and one eleven, were decapitated and raped, the latter 'until there was nothing left to violate and no volunteers could come forward,' after which she was burned. While all this was going on, a line of Buddhist monks appeared, arms flailing, their voices raised in a delirium of exhortation, summoning the Sinhalese to put all Tamils to death.

 The London Daily Express (29 July) wrote:

Mrs Eli Skarstein, back home in Stavanger, Norway, told how she and her 15 year old daughter, Kristen witnessed one massacre. 'A mini bus full of Tamils were forced to stop in front of us in Colombo', she said. A Sinhalese mob poured petrol over the bus and set it on fire. They blocked the car door and prevented the Tamils from leaving the vehicle. 'Hundreds of spectators watched as about 20 Tamils were burnt to death.' Mrs. Skarstein added: 'We can’t believe the official casualty figures. Hundreds, maybe thousands, must have been killed already. The police force (which is 95% Sinhalese) did nothing to stop the mobs. There was no mercy. Women, children and old people were slaughtered. Police did nothing to stop the genocide.'

The government not only refused to condemn the violence but blamed the Tamils for bringing it upon themselves and some elements of the government were implicated. All of this only strengthened the Tamil conviction that the state would not protect them and the only mode of defense against state terror and racial violence was an independent state for Tamils where they could live with dignity. This state was, of course, to be achieved through armed struggle as the Sri Lankan state made it illegal to politically advocate separatism. After all this was the state that did not follow through on its promises of political autonomy for Tamils even within a unitary state.

Thus the LTTE became an established movement representing the Tamil people and the civil war was born.

As the war was escalating, Sri Lankan military committed countless massacres against civilians and continued to harass, torture and rape with impunity, which drove many more Tamils to the LTTE as many thought that they were going to die anyway and it was better to die fighting for their freedom than to die a useless death.

Margaret Trawick, a cultural anthropologist who had shortly lived in the LTTE-controlled Batticaloa region of eastern Sri Lanka for her study which was later published in a book titled, Enemy Lines: Warfare, Childhood, and Play in Batticaloa, interviewed Tiger members there and writes that a certain female cadre by the name of Sita "made it quite clear that she and many other combatants were motivated to join the LTTE by frustrated anger at the death of loved ones killed by the army." (p. 82)

Sita the Tigress recounts her family tragedy at the hands of Sri Lankan government forces and explains her motive for joining the LTTE:

"In 1985, an older brother, when he was coming home from school, the STF [Special Task Force] pursued him and shot and killed him. Another brother, in 1990, was shot and killed in Vantharumulai University [in Batticaloa District]. ... We were living happily before. After my brothers died, I decided to join the movement. After my brothers were killed, bitterness and frustration [virakti] came upon me. I wanted to die as my brothers died. ... If I were at home, I could not do all these things. I have become even more ready to die. I see the suffering of the people, and I have no fear about fighting and dying for them. Even if I die today, I will be satisfied. When people in the movement die, it is a useful death. If I died in the house, there would be nothing remarkable about that." (pp. 83-84) 

 Trawick interviewed another Tigress, Malaimalli, then the head of the Batticaloa-Amparai branch of the women’s wing of the LTTE and when asked of the reason for joining the movement Malaimalli recounts a similar family tragedy:

"Her older sister saw her husband shot before eyes. Her younger sister was imprisoned and tortured: they peeled off the skin on her leg and rubbed pepper in, and pulled off her fingernails. Now she is at home but unable to do anything. Malaimalli says there are sixteen thousand widows in Batticaloa District. Why get married just to become a widow? One must go to war in search of a peaceful life ..." (p. 159)

Even children felt compelled to join the Tigers after experiencing similar tragedies at the hands of government forces. According to a Human Rights Watch report:

"children who witnessed or suffered abuses by Sri Lankan security forces often felt driven to join the LTTE. Government abuses prior to the cease-fire included unlawful detention, interrogation, torture, execution, enforced disappearances, and rape. A 1993 study of adolescents in Vaddukoddai in the North found that one quarter of the children studied had witnessed violence personally. In response, many children joined the LTTE, seeking to protect their families or to avenge real or perceived abuses."

Likewise, the Tehelka news magazine reported the motives of certain child soldiers for joining the LTTE:

"Sureka was once a regular young girl in a village in the east, but the war between the LTTE and the army caught up with her. It killed her mother, leaving her orphaned. She had no siblings; her father had died a few years earlier. Soon after, soldiers began to turn up at her house regularly to torment her. They poured boiling water on her head once and hit her on the back with sticks. It’s what drove her to join the LTTE in 2000. … Like Sureka, Easwaran was orphaned in the 1990s when his parents were killed by the Sri Lankan Army. His father, an electrician, had dared to refuse to work for free for the soldiers. They paid him back by entering his house some days later and killing him and his wife. Easwaran was eight when he saw this happen. He and his two siblings screamed for help but fear had paralysed the neighbours into silence. He joined the LTTE to avenge his parents’ death, he says. … “All I wanted is a safe place for Tamils to live,”"

There are many more stories like the ones above that go covered up, unpublicized, whitewashed or drowned out by the mass hysteria over "terrorism" which is but a symptom of a much larger problem that is state terrorism.
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List of anti-Tamil violence before Tamils took up arms:

• Tamil Parliamentarians attacked & 150 Tamils killed - 1956
• Genocide '58
• Sinhala army attacks Tamil Satyagrahis - 1961
• Eleven Tamils killed at 4th International Tamil Conference in Jaffna - 1974
• Suppression of peaceful Tamil resistance -1972 to 1975
• Organised pogrom against Tamils - 1977
• Tamil resistance met with Sri Lankan state terrorism - 1979
• Destruction of Jaffna Public Library - 1981
• Continued attacks on Tamil civilians - July/August 1981
• Tamils detained without charge or trial - 1979/83

Militant Buddhism and the Sri Lankan Civil War

There's this popular misconception that the Sri Lankan ethnic conflict and the civil war it produced had nothing to do with religion which has some truth to it but only half-truth. It is true it was an ethnic conflict but dividing the conflict into either religious or ethnic is a false dichotomy as these supposed disparate categories do intermingle. Religion was and still remains an important part of the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology and their claims to the island. The Tamils, however, did not identify their cause with any religion:

"Despite the rise of Buddhism in Sinhalese politics in the 1940s and 1950s, the Tamils did not follow with religious claims of their own. Hinduism played an important role in Tamil mobilization against British Christian influences in the mid-1800s. But Tamil leaders of the twentieth century did not call on Hinduism to mobilize Tamils against the Sinhalese nationalist threat, nor did Hindu leaders on the island emerge and form organizations aimed at political mobilization." (Gregg, Heather Selma (2014). The Path to Salvation: Religious Violence from the Crusades to Jihad. Potomac Books, Inc. pp. 82–83. ISBN 9781612346618.)

"some Sri Lankan Buddhist monks claim that politics is their heritage. Some of them have spearheaded the Sinhala nationalist movements; as a result Tamils have suffered in the process. However, there is no Hindu clergy counterpart in the Tamil national movement." (Deegalle, Mahinda (2006). Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka. Routledge. p. 94. ISBN 9781134241897.)

"By contrast, the Tamil cause, it should be noted, is mainly separatist and not closely linked to religion." (Grant, Patrick (2009). Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. SUNY Press. p. 65. ISBN 9780791493670.)

Indeed unlike the Sinhalese Buddhist political monks who can exert enormous influence, the Tamil Hindu clergy do not have much influence outside their services in the temples:

"Brahmins in Jaffna are not only few in number, they also have little influence in the day-to-day affairs of society and are accorded limited respect outside the temple context." (Fuglerud, Øivind (1999). Life on the Outside: The Tamil Diaspora and Long-distance Nationalism. Pluto Press. pp. 22-24. ISBN 9780745314334.)

Despite majority of Tamils being Hindus, one of their prominent political leaders was a Christian, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, who agitated for a secular and socialist state of Tamil Eelam. Subsequently, the LTTE continued the struggle for Eelam on a similar ideology.

It's important to keep in mind that the version of Buddhism or the bastardization of it that inspired Sinhalese nationalism is unique to Sri Lanka and is not a reflection of Buddhism as commonly understood. True Buddhism or not, it's a religion nevertheless.
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The following excerpt is from a Wikipedia article on Buddhism and violence

Buddhism in Sri Lanka has a unique history and has played an important role in the shaping of Sinhalese nationalist identity. Consequently, politicized Buddhism has contributed to ethnic tension in the island between the majority Sinhalese Buddhist population and other minorities, especially the Tamils.

Mytho-historical roots
The mytho-historical accounts in the Sinhalese Buddhist national chronicle Mahavamsa (‘Great Chronicle’), a non-canonical text written in the sixth century CE by Buddhist monks to glorify Buddhism in Sri Lanka, have been influential in the creation of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism and militant Buddhism.[70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78] The Mahavamsa states that Lord Buddha made three visits to Sri Lanka in which he rids the island of forces inimical to Buddhism and instructs deities to protect the ancestors of the Sinhalese (Prince Vijaya and his followers from North India) to enable the establishment and flourishing of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.[79][80] This myth has led to the widely held Sinhalese Buddhist belief that the country is Sihadipa (island of the Sinhalese) and Dhammadipa (the island ennobled to preserve and propagate Buddhism).[81] In other words, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists maintain that they are the Buddha's chosen people, and that the island of Sri Lanka is the Buddhist promised land.[82][83] The Mahavamsa also describes an account of the Buddhist warrior king Dutthagamani, his army, and 500 Buddhist monks battling and defeating the Tamil king Elara, who had come from South India and usurped power in Anuradhapura (the island's capital at the time). When Duthagamani laments over the thousands he has killed, the eight arhats (Buddha's enlightened disciples) who come to console him reply that no real sin has been committed by him because he has only killed Tamil unbelievers who are no better than beasts and go onto say: "thou wilt bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha in manifold ways; therefore cast away care from the heart, O ruler of men."[84][85][86]

The Dutthagamani's campaign against king Elara was not to defeat injustice, as the Mahavamsa describes Elara as a good ruler, but to restore Buddhism through a united Sri Lanka under a Buddhist monarch, even by the use of violence.[87] The Mahavamsa story about Buddha's visit to Sri Lanka where he (referred to as the "Conqueror") subdues forces inimical to Buddhism, the Yakkhas (depicted as the non-human inhabitants of the island), by striking "terror to their hearts" and driving them from their homeland, so that his doctrine should eventually "shine in glory", has been described as providing the warrant for the use of violence for the sake of Buddhism and as an account that is in keeping with the general message of the author that the political unity of Sri Lanka under Buddhism requires the removal of uncooperative groups.[88][89]

According to Neil DeVotta (an Associate Professor of Political Science), the mytho-history described in the Mahavamsa "justifies dehumanizing non-Sinhalese, if doing so is necessary to preserve, protect, and propagate the dhamma (Buddhist doctrine). Furthermore, it legitimizes a just war doctrine, provided that war is waged to protect Buddhism. Together with the Vijaya myth, it introduces the bases for the Sinhalese Buddhist belief that Lord Buddha designated the island of Sri Lanka as a repository for Theravada Buddhism. It claims the Sinhalese were the first humans to inhabit the island (as those who predated the Sinhalese were subhuman) and are thus the true "sons of the soil." Additionally, it institutes the belief that the island's kings were beholden to protect and foster Buddhism. All of these legacies have had ramifications for the trajectory of political Buddhism and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism."[90]

Rise of modern Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalism
With the rise of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a reaction to the changes brought under the British colonialism,[91] the old religious mytho-history of the Mahavamsa (especially the emphasis on the Sinhalese and Tamil ethnicities of Duthagamani and Elara, respectively[92]) was revitalized and consequently would prove to be detrimental to the intergroup harmony in the island. As Heather Selma Gregg writes: "Modern-day Sinhalese nationalism, rooted in local myths of being a religiously chosen people and of special progeny, demonstrates that even a religion perceived as inherently peaceful can help fuel violence and hatred in its name."[93]

Buddhist revivalism took place among the Sinhalese to counter Christian missionary influence. The British commissioned the Sinhala translation of the Mahavamsa (which was originally written in Pali), thereby making it accessible to the wider Sinhalese population.[94] During this time the first riot in modern Sri Lankan history broke out in 1883, between Buddhists and Catholics, highlighting the "growing religious divide between the two communities".[95]

The central figure in the formation of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism was the Buddhist revivalist Anagarika Dharmapala (1864–1933), who has been described as "the father of modern Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism".[96] Dharmapala was hostile to all things un-Sinhalese and non-Buddhist. He was a racist who insisted that the Sinhalese were racially pure and superior Aryans while the Dravidian Tamils were inferior. He popularized the impression that Tamils and Sinhalese had been deadly enemies in Sri Lanka for nearly 2,000 years by quoting the Mahavamsa passages that depicted Tamils as pagan invaders.[97] He characterized the Tamils as "fiercely antagonistic to Buddhism".[98] He also expressed intolerance toward the island's Muslim minorities and other religions in general.[99] Dharmapala also fostered Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism in the spirit of the King Dutthagamani who "rescued Buddhism and our nationalism from oblivion" and stated explicitly that the Island belongs to the Sinhalese Buddhists.[100] Dharmapala has been blamed for laying the groundwork for subsequent Sinhalese Buddhists nationalists to create an ethnocentric state[101] and for hostility to be directed against minorities unwilling to accept such a state.[102]

Politicized Buddhism, the formation of ethnocracy and the civil war
Upon independence Sinhalese Buddhist elites instituted discriminatory policies based on the Buddhist ethno-nationalist ideology of the Mahavamsa that privileges Sinhalese Buddhist hegemony in the island as Buddha's chosen people for whom the island is a promised land and justifies subjugation of minorities.[103] Sinhalese Buddhist officials saw that decreasing Tamil influence was a necessary part of fostering Buddhist cultural renaissance.[104] The Dutthagamani myth was also used to institute Sinhalese Buddhist domination with some politicians even identifying with such a mytho-historic hero and activist monks looked to Dutthagamani as an example to imitate. This principal hero of Mahavamsa became widely regarded as exemplary by the 20th century Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists because of his defense of Buddhism and the unification of Sri Lanka that journalists started talking about "the Mahavamsa mentality".[105]

D. S. Senanayake, who would become Sri Lanka's first prime minister in 1947, reaffirmed in 1939 the common Mahavamsa-based assumption of the Sinhalese Buddhist responsibility for the island's destiny by proclaiming that the Sinhalese Buddhists "are one blood and one nation. We are a chosen people. Buddha said that his religion would last for 5,500 [sic] years. That means that we, as the custodians of that religion, shall last as long."[106] Buddhists monks became increasingly involved in post-independence politics, promoting Sinhalese Buddhist interests, at the expense of minorities. Walpola Rahula, Sri Lanka's foremost Buddhist monk scholar and one of the leading proponents of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, played a major role in advocating for the involvement of monks in politics, using Buddhist king Dutthagamani's relationship with the sangha to bolster his position. Rahula also argued for a just war doctrine to protect Buddhism by using the example of wars waged by Dutthagamani to restore Buddhism.[107] Rahula maintained that "the entire Sinhalese race was united under the banner of the young Gamini [Dutthagamani]. This was the beginning of nationalism among the Sinhalese. It was a new race with healthy young blood, organized under the new order of Buddhism. A kind of religionationalism, which almost amounted to fanaticism, roused the whole Sinhalese people. A non-Buddhist was not regarded as a human being. Evidently all Sinhalese without exception were Buddhists."[108] In reflecting on Rahula's works, anthropologist H.L. Seneviratne writes that, "it suits Rahula to be an advocate of a Buddhism that glorifies social intercourse with lay society . . . the receipt of salaries and other forms of material remuneration; ethnic exclusivism and Sinhala Buddhist hegemony; militancy in politics; and violence, war and the spilling of blood in the name of "preserving the religion"."[109]

In 1956, the All Ceylon Buddhist Congress (ACBC) released a report titled, "The Betrayal of Buddhism", inquiring into the status of Buddhism in the island. The report argued that Buddhism had been weakened by external threats such as the Tamil invaders mentioned in the Mahavamsa and later Western colonial powers. It also demanded the state to restore and foster Buddhism and to give preferential treatment to Buddhist schools. The same year, S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike capitalized on the ACBC report and its recommendations as the foundation for his election campaign, using it as the 'blueprint for a broad spectrum of policy', which included introducing Sinhala as the sole official language of the state. With the help of significant number of Buddhist monks and various Sinhalese Buddhist organizations, Bandaranaike became prime minister after winning the 1956 elections. Bandaranaike had also campaigned on the basis of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism, drawing influences from the writings of Dharmapala and the Mahavamsa, arguing that it was the duty of the government to preserve the Sinhalese Buddhist nature of the island's destiny. Once in power, Bandaranaike implemented the 1956 Sinhala Only Act, which would make Sinhala the country's official language and hence all official state transactions would be conducted in Sinhala. This put non-Sinhala speakers at a disadvantage for employment and educational opportunities. As a result, Tamils protested the policy by staging sit-ins, which in turn prompted counterdemonstrations by Buddhist monks, later degenerating into anti-Tamil riots in which more than one hundred people were injured and Tamil businesses were looted. Riots then spread throughout the country killing hundreds of people. Bandaranaike tried to mitigate tensions over the language policy by proposing a compromise with the Tamil leaders, resulting in a 1957 pact that would allow the use of Tamil as an in administrative language along with Sinhala and greater political autonomy for Tamils. Buddhist monks and other Sinhalese nationalists opposed this pact by staging mass demonstrations and hunger strikes.[110] In an editorial in the same year, a monk asks Bandaranaike to read Mahavamsa and to heed its lessons: "[Dutthagamani] conquered by the sword and united the land [Sri Lanka] without dividing it among our enemies [i.e. the Tamils] and established Sinhala and Buddhism as the state language and religion." In the late 1950s, it had become common for politicians and monks to exploit the Mahavamsa narrative of Dutthagamani to oppose any concession to the Tamil minorities.[111]

With Buddhist monks playing a major role in exerting pressure to abrogate the pact, Bandaranaike acceded to their demands in April 9, 1958 by tearing up "a copy of the pact in front of the assembled monks who clapped in joy." Soon after the pact was abrogated, another series of anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, which left hundreds dead and thousands displaced.[112] Preceding the 1958 riots, rhetoric of monks contributed to the perception of Tamils being the enemies of the country and of Buddhism. Both Buddhist monks and laity laid the foundation for the justifiable use of force against Tamils in response to their demand for greater autonomy by arguing that the whole of Sri Lanka was a promised land of the Sinhalese Buddhists and it was the role of the monks to defend a united Sri Lanka. Tamils were also portrayed as threatening interlopers, compared to the Mahavamsa account of the usurper Tamil king Elara. Monks and politicians invoked the story of the Buddhist warrior king Dutthagamani to urge the Sinhalese to fight against Tamils and their claims to the island, thereby providing justification for violence against Tamils. As Tessa J. Bartholomeusz explains: "Tamil claims to a homeland were met with an ideology, linked to a Buddhist story, that legitimated war with just cause: the protection of Sri Lanka for the Sinhala-Buddhist people."[113] In order to appease Tamils amidst the ethnic tension, Bandaranaike modified the Sinhala Only Act to allow Tamil to be used in education and government in Tamil areas and as a result a Buddhist monk assassinated him on September 26, 1959. The monk claimed he carried out the assassination "for the greater good of his country, race and religion."[114] It has also been suggested that the monk was guided in part by reading of the Mahavamsa.[115]

Successive governments after Bandaranaike implemented similar Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist agenda, at the expense of minorities. In 1972, the government rewrote its constitution and gave Buddhism "the foremost place [in the Republic of Sri Lanka]" and making it "the duty of the state to protect and foster Buddhism." With another pact in 1965 that sought to establish greater regional autonomy for Tamils being abrogated (some members of the Buddhist clergy were at the forefront in opposing the pact) and the implementation of discriminatory quota system in 1974 that severely restricted Tamil entrance to universities, Tamil youth became radicalized, calling for an independent homeland to be established in the Tamil-dominated northeastern region of the island. In 1977, anti-Tamil riots spread throughout the country, killing hundreds of Tamils and leaving thousands homeless.[116] A leading monk claimed that one of the reasons for the anti-Tamil riots of 1977 was the Tamil demonization of the Sinhalese Buddhist epic hero Dutthagamani which resulted in a justified retaliation.[117] Another anti-Tamil riot erupted in 1981 in Jaffna, where Sinhalese police and paramilitaries destroyed statues of Tamil cultural and religious figures; looted and torched a Hindu temple and Tamil-owned shops and homes; killed four Tamils; and torched the Jaffna Public Library which was of great cultural significance to Tamils.[104] In response to the militant separatist Tamil group LTTE killing 13 Sinhalese soldiers, the largest anti-Tamil pogrom occurred in 1983, leaving between 2,000 and 3,000 of Tamils killed and forcing from 70,000 to 100,000 Tamils into refugee camps, eventually propelling the country into a civil war between the LTTE and the predominately Sinhalese Buddhist Sri Lankan government.[118] In the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom, Buddhist monks lead rioters in some instance. Cyril Mathew, a Senior Minister in President Jayawardene's Cabinet and a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist who in the year preceding the pogrom reaffirmed the special relationship between Buddhism and Sinhalese and the Buddhist nature of the country, was also responsible for the pogrom.[119] In the months following the anti-Tamil pogrom, authorizations for violence against Tamils began to appear in the press, with Tamils being depicted as interlopers on Dhammadipa. The Mahavamsa narrative of Dutthagamani and Elara was also invoked to justify violence against Tamils. The aftermath of the pogrom spawned debates over the rights to the island with the "sons of the soil" ideology being called into prominence. A government agent declared that Sri Lanka's manifest destiny "was to uphold the pristine doctrine of Theravada Buddhism." This implied that Sinhalese Buddhists had a sacred claim to Sri Lanka, while the Tamils did not, a claim which might call for violence. The Sinhalese Buddhists, including the Sri Lankan government, resisted the Tamil claim to a separate homeland of their own as the Sinhalese Buddhists maintained that the entire country belonged to them. Another government agent linked the then Prime Minister Jayewardene's attempts to thwart the emergence of a Tamil homeland to Dutthagamani's victory over Elara and went on to say, "[w]e will never allow the country to be divided," thereby justifying violence against Tamils.[120]

In the context of increasing Tamil militant struggle for separatism, militant Buddhist monks founded the Mavbima Surakime Vyaparaya (MSV) or "Movement for the Protection of the Motherland" in 1986 which sought to work with political parties "to maintain territorial unity of Sri Lanka and Sinhalese Buddhist sovereignty over the island". The MSV used the Mahavamsa to justify its goals, which included the usage of force to fight against the Tamil threat and defend the Buddhist state. In 1987, along with the MSV, the JVP (a militant Sinhalese nationalist group which included monks) took up arms to protest the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord which sought to establish peace in Sri Lanka by requiring the Sri Lankan government to make a number of concessions to Tamil demands, including devolution of power to Tamil provinces. The JVP, with the support of the Sangha, launched a campaign of violent insurrection against the government to oppose the accord as the Sinhalese nationalists believed it would compromise the sovereignty of Sri Lanka.[121]

From the beginning of the civil war in 1983 to the end of it in 2009, Buddhist monks were involved in politics and opposed negotiations, ceasefire agreements, or any devolution of power to Tamil minorities, and most supported military solution to the conflict.[122][123][124] This has led to Asanga Tilakaratne, head of the Department of Buddhist Philosophy in the Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies in Colombo, to remark that "the Sinhala Buddhist nationalists are … opposed to any attempt to solve the ethnic problem by peaceful means; and they call for a ‘holy war’ against Tamils."[125] It has been argued that the absence of opportunities for power sharing among the different ethnic groups in the island "has been one of the primary factors behind the intensification of the conflict."[126] Numerous Buddhist religious leaders and Buddhist organizations since the country's independence have played a role in mobilizing against the devolution of power to the Tamils. Leading Buddhist monks opposed devolution of power that would grant regional autonomy to Tamils on the basis of Mahavamsa worldview that the entire country is a Buddhist promised land which belongs to the Sinhalese Buddhist people, along with the fear that devolution would eventually lead to separate country.[127][128]

The two major contemporary political parties to advocate for Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism are The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) or "National Heritage Party", the latter of which is composed solely of Buddhist monks. According to A. R. M. Imtiyaz, these groups share common goals: "to uphold Buddhism and establish a link between the state and religion, and to advocate a violent solution to the Tamil question and oppose all form of devolution to the minorities, particularly the Tamils." The JHU, in shunning non-violent solutions to the ethnic conflict, urged young Sinhalese Buddhists to sign up for the army, with as many as 30,000 Sinhalese young men doing just that.[129] One JHU leader even declared that NGOs and certain government servants were traitors and they should be set on fire and burnt due to their opposition to a military solution to the civil war.[130] The international community encouraged a federal structure for Sri Lanka as a peaceful solution to the civil war but any form of Tamil self-determination, even the more limited measure of autonomy, was strongly opposed by hard-line Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist groups such as the JVP and JHU, who pushed for the military solution.[131][132] These groups in their hard-line support for a military solution to the conflict, without any regard for the plight of innocent Tamil civilians,[133] have opposed negotiated settlement, ceasefire agreement, demanded that the Norwegians be removed as peace facilitators, demanded the war to be prosecuted more forcefully and exerted influence in the Rajapaksa government (which they helped to elect), resulting in the brutal military defeat of the LTTE with heavy civilian casualties.[134] The nationalist monks' support of the government's military offense against the LTTE gave "religious legitimacy to the state's claim of protecting the island for the Sinhalese Buddhist majority."[135] President Rajapaksa, in his war against the LTTE, has been compared to the Buddhist king Dutthagamani by the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists.[136]

Violence against religious minorities
Other minority groups have also come under attack by Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists. Fear of country's Buddhist hegemony being challenged by Christian proselytism has driven Buddhist monks and organizations to demonize Christian organizations with one popular monk comparing missionary activity to terrorism; as a result, Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists, including the JVP and JHU, who oppose attempts to convert Buddhists to another religion, support or conduct anti-Christian violence. Number of attacks against Christian churches rose from 14 in 2000 to 146 or over 200 in 2003 and 2004, with extremist Buddhist clergy leading the violence in some areas. Anti-Christian violence has included "beatings, arson, acts of sacrilege, death threats, violent disruption of worship, stoning, abuse, unlawful restraint, and even interference with funerals". It has been noted that the strongest anti-West sentiments accompany the anti-Christian violence since the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists identify Christianity with the West which they think is conspiring to undermine Buddhism.[137][138]

In the postwar Sri Lanka, ethnic and religious minorities continue face threat from Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism.[139][140][141] There have been continued sporadic attacks on Christian churches by Buddhist extremists who allege Christians of conducting unethical or forced conversion.[142] The Pew Research Center has listed Sri Lanka among the countries with very high religious hostilities in 2012 due to the violence committed by Buddhist monks against Muslim and Christian places of worship.[143] Extremist Buddhist leaders justify their attacks on the places of worship of minorities by arguing that Sri Lanka is the promised land of the Sinhalese Buddhists to safeguard Buddhism.[144][145] The recently formed Buddhist extremist group, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), or Buddhist Power Force, founded by Buddhist monks in 2012, has been accused of inciting the anti-Muslim riots that killed 4 Muslims and injured 80 in 2014.[146] The leader of the BBS, in linking the government's military victory over the LTTE to the ancient Buddhist king conquest of Tamil king Elara, said that Tamils have been taught a lesson twice and warned other minorities of the same fate if they tried to challenge Sinhalese Buddhist culture.[135] The BBS has been compared to the Taliban, accused of spreading extremism and communal hatred against Muslims[147] and has been described as an "ethno-religious fascist movement".[148] Buddhist monks have also protested against UN Human Rights Council resolution that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes during the civil war.[149] The BBS has received criticism and oppostition from other Buddhist clergy and politicians. Mangala Samaraweera, a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist politician who has served as Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2015, has accused the BBS of being "a representation of ‘Taliban’ terrorism’" and of spreading extremism and communal hatred against Muslims.[150][151] Samaraweera has also alleged that the BBS is secretly funded by the Ministry of Defence.[150][151]

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References 
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism_and_violence&oldid=727652773#References

Further Reading

• Bartholomeusz, Tessa J. (2002). In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka. Routledge. ISBN 0-203-99480-9.
• DeVotta, Neil (2007). Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology: Implications for Politics and Conflict Resolution in Sri Lanka (PDF). East-West Center Washington. ISBN 9781932728644.
• Gregg, Heather Selma (2014). "5. Buddhist Violence in Sri Lanka: Defending the Dhammadipa" The Path to Salvation: Religious Violence from the Crusades to Jihad. Potomac Books, Inc. ISBN 9781612346618.
• Grant, Patrick (2009). Buddhism and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. SUNY Press. ISBN 9780791493670.
• Deegalle, Mahinda (2006). Buddhism, Conflict and Violence in Modern Sri Lanka. Routledge. ISBN 9781134241897.
• Razak, Abdul; Imtiyaz, Mohamed (2010). "Politicization of Buddhism and Electoral Politics in Sri Lanka". Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network
• Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja (1992). Buddhism Betrayed?: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226789491.
• Bartholomeusz, Tessa J.; Silva, Chandra Richard De (1998). Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka. State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780791438336.

Sri Lankan Buddhist Extremism

An article from Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2012-08-02/buddhists-behaving-badly

Buddhists Behaving Badly

What Zealotry is Doing to Sri Lanka 
By William McGowan

A Buddhist monk protesting in Colombo, 2010. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / Courtesy Reuters)

In Sri Lanka last September, a Sinhalese mob led by some 100 Buddhist monks demolished a Muslim shrine in the ancient city of Anuradhapura. As the crowd waved Buddhist colors, gold and red, a monk set a green Muslim flag on fire. The monks claimed that the shrine was on land that had been given to the Sinhalese 2,000 years ago -- an allusion to their proprietary right over the entire island nation, as inscribed in ancient religious texts.

The Anuradhapura attack was not the only recent incident of Buddhists behaving badly in Sri Lanka. In April, monks led nearly 2,000 Sinhalese Buddhists in a march against a mosque in Dambulla, a holy city where Sinhalese kings are believed to have taken refuge from southern Indian invaders in a vast network of caves almost two millennia ago. The highly charged -- but largely symbolic -- attack marked a "historic day," a monk who led the assault told the crowd, "a victory for those who love the [Sinhala] race, have Sinhala blood, and are Buddhists."

Such chauvinism is at odds with Western preconceptions of Buddhism -- a religion that emphasizes nonviolence and nonattachment -- but is in keeping with Sri Lanka's religious history. Militant Buddhism there has its roots in an ancient narrative called the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle), which was composed by monks in the sixth century. According to the Mahavamsa, the Buddha foresaw the demise of Buddhism in India but saw a bright future for it in Sri Lanka. "In Lanka, O Lord of Gods, shall my religion be established and flourish," he said. The Sinhalese take this as a sign that they are the Buddha's chosen people, commanded to "preserve and protect" Buddhism in its most pristine form. According to myth, a young Sinhalese prince in the second century BC armed himself with a spear tipped with a relic of the Buddha and led a column of 500 monks to vanquish Tamil invaders. In addition to defending his kingdom from mortal peril, the prince's victory legitimized religious violence as a means for national survival.

Militant Buddhism was a driving force behind the 25-year war between the majority Sinhalese (74 percent of the population) and the minority Tamils (18 percent), who were fighting for an independent state in the island's north and east. (Muslims, who make up six percent of Sri Lanka's population, were often caught in the middle.) During the war, monks repeatedly undercut efforts to work out a peace agreement.

The sangha, as the clergy is collectively referred to in Theravada Buddhism, has historically exercised political power from behind the scenes, embodying a broad form of religious nationalism. But in the later years of the war, it became more overtly politicized. In 2004, the hard-line National Heritage Party (known as the JHU) elected seven of its members to Parliament; all were monks, and the party ran on a platform calling for a return to Buddhist morality in public life. Soon after being seated, the JHU staged an intramural brawl on the floor of Parliament.

The JHU also worked to scuttle a March 2002 Norwegian-brokered peace settlement that called for limited Tamil autonomy. Monks declared that Sri Lanka had always been a Sinhalese kingdom, that autonomy violated the near-mystical idea of a unitary state, and that there was no option other than a military one. Peace negotiations simply made the Tamil Tigers stronger, as one of the party's more outspoken clerics, Athuraliye Rathana, whom the Sri Lankan media dubbed the War Monk, argued. "If they give up their weapons, then we can talk," he said. "If not, then we will control them by whatever means necessary. We should fight now and talk later." In the spring of 2006, monks attacked an ecumenical group of peace marchers and led a long sit-in against a cease-fire agreement that soon came apart, leading to another round of fighting.

As the bloodshed wore on, much of the Buddhist clergy gave its blessing to a final offensive on the separatist Tamil Tigers. In May of 2009, the Sri Lankan military emerged from that battle triumphant. But its brutal offensive against the Tigers has made President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government the target of broad international condemnation. Reliable estimates of civilian deaths range as high as 40,000, and Britain's Channel Four has documented summary executions of Tamil Tiger prisoners in its program "Sri Lanka's Killing Fields." Although human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Council, have called for an investigation into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes, the Rajapaksa government has resisted. The monks have backed this obstinacy, saying that such demands attack what Sinhalese refer to as the Buddhist "motherland."

Since the war ended, Buddhist clerics have been at the forefront of promoting punitive triumphalism. The Sinhalese majority widely views its victory over the Tamils as a ratification of its scripturally ordained dominion, with other groups occupying a subordinate position. Accordingly, steps toward reconciliation have been faltering. Government efforts to resettle the nearly 300,000 Tamils displaced by the fighting, now mostly accomplished, were slow and chaotic, leaving resentment. The military has established large cantonments in Tamil areas, treating civilians with a heavy hand. According to the International Crisis Group, "When challenged by public protest, the military has shown itself willing to physically attack demonstrators and is credibly accused of involvement in enforced disappearances and other extrajudicial punishments." Although the rehabilitation of former Tiger cadres -- as many as 11,000 individuals -- has largely proceeded according to schedule, there have been accusations of mistreatment of prisoners while in custody and harassment of them after their release.

Defense Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President's brother, recently said that the north and east were not exclusively Tamil areas, hinting that the government might resume Sinhalese land colonization programs, which were a major point of friction in the run-up to the war. Meanwhile, Tamils have complained that the military has allowed Buddhist temples to be erected where Hindu temples had been destroyed in the fighting, or near traditional Hindu shrines. There are also accusations that monks have taken advantage of the postwar confusion to seize Tamil land, especially in areas adjacent to new military bases. Last year, the ICG warned of a "recipe for renewed conflict" and said that reconciliation "seems harder than ever."

Another sign of militant Buddhism's enduring power is the government's refusal to confront the human rights abuses committed in the war's final push. President Rajapaksa, who went to Kandy, the cultural capital, immediately after the 2009 victory to genuflect to the country's top Buddhist clerics, has rejected a UN Human Rights Council resolution, passed in March, that called for an inquiry into humanitarian abuses and possible war crimes. Only recently did the Rajapaksa government concede that there were any civilian casualties at all. In fact, as the UNHRC voted on the March resolution, hundreds of Buddhist monks led a prayer vigil in Colombo against it. Hundreds more led protests when it passed. The Los Angeles Times quoted one demonstrator as saying, "Evil forces both local and international have joined hands to deprive Sri Lanka of the present environment of peace and take this blessed island back to an era of darkness."

Some see an irony in Buddhist monks aligning themselves so closely with a government that resists accountability for humanitarian abuses. But the greater irony is that, in protecting and preserving their particular form of Buddhism, the Sinhalese seem to have injured it gravely. The sangha's preoccupation with politics has come at the cost of spiritual focus. Most monks in Sri Lanka no longer meditate, which is supposed to be Buddhism's core. Some Western Buddhists have gone on missionary trips to Sri Lanka to revive meditational practice. But success has been fleeting.

There has also been a breakdown in monastic discipline. Last February, a monk was sentenced to death for murder -- the first monk so sentenced since Talduwe Somarama killed Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1959 after he reneged on the full implementation of a Buddhist nationalist agenda. Over the last decade, there have been nearly 100 cases in which Buddhist monks have been charged with sexual abuse of minors, and many instances of monks, particularly young ones, being cited for public intoxication and hooliganism. The fundamentalist idea that Buddhism is a unique national possession has encouraged a sense of moral superiority, which makes it hard for many Sinhalese to accept how bruised their Buddhism has become. As one prominent lay Buddhist painfully (and discreetly) explained to me more than twenty years ago, "Buddhism is hollow now in Sri Lanka. We are only going through the motions." Today, those motions are growing ever more disturbing.

Sri Lanka's toxic identity politics are not altogether unique, especially in other Theravada Buddhist nations. Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar, for example, provided a similar rallying point against British colonialism. But the conflation of "the land, the race, and the faith" among the majority there, along with a view that this majority is the steward of its own uniquely pure form of Buddhism, has been a great source of political and cultural disharmony with the country's many non-Buddhist minority groups, most recently the Rohingya Muslims. Although Buddhism might eschew violence on a doctrinal level, it is not immune from nationalist myths that see a place for it.