Sri Lanka: Towards A Militant Saṅgha State?

By Suren Rāghavan -November 23, 2013

Dr. Suren Rāghavan

Venerable Galagoḍaattē Gñanasāra of Bodu Bala Senā (BBS) has become the single most recalcitrant Saṅgha demanding attention to a different kind Buddhism in Lanka. His out of control anger, fistfights, ruthless and full of filth public speeches are internationalized through the social media. He perhaps is a symbol of a new brand of Saṅgha militancy that is tolerated if not sponsored/manipulated by the powerful and confrontational sections of the ruling regime. BBS has systematically targeted all sections of the society that could give an alternative interpretation to modern Lanka and her democratic struggles. During the war, leading members of present BBS stood against any negotiated settlement. They launched a violent anti –NGO campaign. After the end of the conflict under a triumphalist regime, BBS openly targeted, disrupted and aimed to destroy the fragile multi-ethnic societal fabric. Their anti-conversion, anti UN, and anti-halal agitations proved that the state ideology in some form wishes such ethnocentrism. Ven. Gñanasāra has gone on public record asking every Buddhist to be a member of the ‘unofficial Buddhist police force’ and that all Buddhist affairs to be brought under the army and Defense Ministry.

It is an intriguing yet fearful development that renouncer Saṅgha are becoming soldiers of socio- political militancy as never seen before. Like in days leading to the tragic pogrom against the Tamils in 1983, and in the context that gave birth to 88-89 violent up-rise, the Sinhala intellectuals and the influential Maha Nāyakas have decide to become observer than to intervene. History records that both those points of our recent political despondency, the involved Saṅgha damaged and disgraced the sāsana irreparably. Is BBS a forerunner for an army in the yellow robes as we have unfortunately witnessed in other Theravāda states such as Burma and Thailand? We sincerely hope not because a very fragile democracy that is belligerent by a three decades of war and now under an authoritarian regime, is the ideal condition for a religious fundamentalist ground swell.

Saṅgha and the State                                                         Read More