Buddhist Monks and Ethnic Politics:
A War Zone in an Island Paradise
Prof. H.L.Seneviratne
[courtesy: Anthropology Today, April 2001, vol.17, no.2, pp.15-21]
Front Note by
Sachi Sri
Kantha, 10 June 2005
Buddhist monks in post-colonial Sri Lanka have been treated
like holy cows by the academics. For their studies, Tamil academics - with
the sole exception of Stanley J.Tambiah - and prattling analysts cum
journalists wouldn�t dare to touch the Buddhist monks, with a barge pole.
Only four books, which are of relevance, have chronicled the 20th century
political activities of this yellow-robed, pampered tribe of Sri Lanka.
These are,
1.Assassination
of a Prime Minister (1969) by Lucian G.Weeramantry,
2.
Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka (1976) by Urmila Phadnis,
3.
Buddhism Betrayed?(1992) by Stanley J.Tambiah and
4.
The Work of Kings: The new Buddhism in Sri Lanka (1999) by
H.J.Seneviratne.
Here, I present an interesting research study by
Prof.H.L.Seneviratne on the Sinhalese Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka, which
formed the nucleus of his 1999 book. It first appeared in the
Anthropology Today journal in April 2001.
Being a Sinhalese himself, Prof.Seneviratne brings to
limelight the largely uncovered aspects of the lives of contemporary
Buddhist monks, which none of non-Sinhalese academics [like the breeds of
anti-LTTE Tamil analysts from Sri Lanka, India and USA] can present. For
understandable reasons (Spineless cowardice is one! Not to upset the
yellow-colored hornet�s nest is another! Lack of proficiency in Sinhalese
script is a third one.), the non-Sinhalese academics and commentators have
treated the nefarious roles of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks in the island
politics, with kid gloves. But, Seneviratne being a Sinhalese and also as a
professor of anthropology, at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville,
Virginia, USA, has courageously tackled this thorny issue. I can count in
two hands, the number of Sinhalese academics with whom I have had contact
during the past two decades. And Prof.Seneviratne is among the six, with
whom I have corresponded.
Currently when the Buddhist monks are enjoying the limelight of media
cameras, and while one of their activists,
Ven. Omalpe Sobitha Thero, is on a �fast to death� campaign a la Mahatma
Gandhi, its opportune for non-Sinhalese to digest Prof.Seneviratne�s
research study. Three marked developments which occurred after this study
appeared need mention.
In the 2001 general election, one Buddhist monk was elected
to the Sri Lankan legislature for the first time.
Secondly, in 2004 general election, Buddhist monks
themselves formed a political party, Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and nine of
them entered the parliament as a pressure group.
Thirdly, since signing the Cease Fire Agreement in early
2002, for more than three years, Tamil Tigers have shown considerable
restraint and have disproved Prof.Seneviratne�s concern [expressed in the
first paragraph] that �the Tamil Tigers may not be ready for peace even if
monks become less militant�.
In 2005, it is the party of Buddhist monks which seems to
indulge in anti-peace demagoguery.
Prof.H.L.Seneviratne�s Study
The chronic conflict in Sri Lanka, once considered an island
paradise, derives from the political and moral deficiencies of both the
Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority. In this paper I am dealing with the
Sinhala side of the issue, and not with the ramifications of Tamil morality
and politics. Specifically, my concern in this paper is a new stratum of
Buddhist monks who in the 1940s played a leading role in bringing about a
nationalist revolution which unfortunately deteriorated into a narrow ethnic
chauvinism.
They are now a major obstacle to peace, which can only be
achieved by sharing power with the Tamils. This is not to blame the Sangha
(the Order of Buddhist monks) as a whole, if only because the Sangha is not
a monolithic structure with one defining ideology, as will become clear in
the discussion below. Besides, monks are only one part of a complex
political game in which the laity are the overwhelmingly dominant players.
We must also remember that the targeting of Buddhist monks and Buddhist
sacred sites by the Tamil Tigers may have encouraged or aggravated monastic
militancy, and that the Tamil Tigers may not be ready for peace even if
monks become less militant.
Nevertheless, opposition in principle to a meaningful
devolution of power is indefensible, and only reveals an absence of both
political realism and political morality.
Ideally, and perhaps in the earliest culture of Buddhism,
the monk was a person who renounced material goods and lived on the
generosity of the householder, devoting all of his time to the quest for
liberation from the cycle of birth and death. Early in the history of
Buddhism, this total dependence of a renouncer on the laity for material
sustenance led to a social relationship which, at its core, was one of gift
exchange � returning the laity�s gift of material goods with the spiritual
guidance which is explicitly understood in Buddhism as the gift that
surpasses all other gifts. This eventually evolved into an ornately wrought
priestly and pedagogic role. Despite periodic �declines� in Buddhism, the
monk�s anchor in the code of monastic discipline (vinaya) was firm, the
foundations of his belief in it unshattered, and his relations with the
laity maintained within clearly demarcated boundaries. It is within this
framework of monk/lay relations that the social role of the monk in Sri
Lanka was defined through the centuries.
Monks and �social service�
The educated monks of today, however, define their role
quite differently. They label it as samaja sevaya, �social service�, which
covers a broad spectrum of advice and guidance in wholly secular activity,
conspicuously including political activity, understood as the right to make
and unmake governments, and to exert pressure on the elected representatives
of the people. They further hold that this was always their role, going back
to the establishment of Buddhism two thousand years ago. This belief is now
tacitly accepted by the laity, especially the middle classes. Upon close
observation, however, it becomes clear that this conception of the monastic
role is not ancient, but an innovation of the nationalist reformer
Anagarika
Dharmapala
(1864-1933).1 Dharmapala�s project of
nationalist regeneration needed an indigenous leader, and he found the monk
to be the ideal choice. In making this choice, Dharmapala elevated the monk
to a position he never held before, and invested him with the specific
secular role which the modern monk has come to believe is his heritage, as
explicitly stated in
Walpola Rahula�s masterpiece charter for monastic activism, The heritage
of the Bhikku.2
Dharmapala understood the task of the monastery-led national
regeneration to be twofold � economic and cultural. The economic project was
taken up in the 1930s and 1940s by a section of the monks, primarily those
of the Vidyodaya monastic college in Colombo. Their project, following
Dharmapala�s plan, was grama samvardhana, �rural development�, which meant
the encouragement of methodical activity among the impoverished peasantry
and instructing them in scientific agriculture, health, conflict resolution,
rural self-government and, not least, a Buddhism sanitized of magical
belief. In their rural development work, and in their general outlook, these
monks accepted ethnic and cultural diversity as a fact of Sri Lankan life.
In this they represent a continuity with the dominant current of the
island�s history which was inclusivist and accomodatory. We can refer to
these monks as �pragmatic monks�.
The cultural aspect of Dharmapala�s nationalist project was
taken up primarily by the monks of Vidyalankara, the other prominent
monastic college of the island, also located in Colombo. This part of the
project came to the fore in the mid-1940s, reaching its climax in the
electoral victory of the nationalist forces in 1956. Unlike the rural
development monks of the Vidyodaya college, these monks advocated an
exclusivist and hegemonic appropriation of the country for the majority
ethnic group, Sinhalas, and their religion, Buddhism.
They borrowed Dharmapala�s slogan �country, nation and
religion� and made it a rallying cry for the Sinhala Buddhists to justify
depriving the Tamils and other minorities of their rights to equal
citizenship. Unfortunately for the country, this cultural part of the
Dharmapalite agenda triumphed over the more sober and benevolent economic
part, yielding a bitter harvest of social turmoil, economic stagnation and
civil war. These monks can be labelled �ideological monks�. The terms
�pragmatic� and �ideological� are used here only to describe a state of
mind, and not the exclusive location of one or other type of monk at one or
the other of the two monastic colleges.
Among the rewards that the monks received from the
nationalist regime elected in 1956 was the granting of university status to
these colleges. As universities, Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara produced a
substantial body of young monks educated in secular subjects who were
employable as salaried workers or who could otherwise seek profit in a
modern economy. A monk involved in such profitable activity is no longer
dependent on the laity for his material sustenance, and he has developed a
new sense of �self-respect� that does not allow him to accept lay
generosity.
Correspondingly, he does not feel obliged to offer any
religious or ritual service to the laity, although he might perform some
such function as a personal favour. Because of his full-time occupation, he
does not have the time to work for the laity anyway, even if he so desires.
These changes have generated the new doctrine that the monk/lay relation is
not only a hierarchical exchange of economic goods for ritual services, but
also, where appropriate, an egalitarian exchange of goods, services and
social favours. The effect of this is a secularization of the Sangha not
seen since the ganinnanse institution of the 18th century, when monks took
to both economic productivity and family life, prompting a royally
instituted religious revival that climaxed in the importation of ordination
from Thailand. These educationally qualified monks hold the view that a monk
can practise almost any art or craft, science or profession.
Today, there are monks who teach for a salary. Some are
managing directors of well-funded nursery schools. Some are investment
specialists. Some own car repair shops and taxi services. Some are active in
politics. Some practise astrology and the occult sciences. One is the
president of the Nurses� Union. One is a songwriter with a good-sized fan
club, and another writes stirring battle songs for the soldiers in the
ethnic war. Some are novelists. One is a prolific painter and another a
sculptor. One holds meditation classes for foreign tourists. Another is the
President of the local Rotary Club. Except for the monks who are
professional teachers, the numbers of monks who engaged in these activities
are few. But this numerical insignificance masks the pervasive nature of the
change that has occurred in the culture of the monastery.
Most of the activities listed above belong broadly to the
economic sphere, and are contrary to the orthodox monastic ideals. But,
albeit in different guises, economic activities have existed and prospered
from very early times in the history of Buddhist monasticism. Only a
religious purist would object to the monks engaging in such activity, at
least up to a point. However, when we move on from these economic
enterprises to the cultural agenda of the monks (derived from Dharmapala),
we are faced with quite a different picture, that of the establishment of
majority hegemony, to the detriment of the rights of the minorities, which
cannot go unchallenged.
As observed above, the new monks have mobilized themselves
against legislative attempts to accommodate the minorities by devolution of
power, and they have done so on every occasion that such attempts have been
made. By way of illustration I shall briefly refer to the very first. Having
created a majority versus minority problem the proportions of which it did
not seem to have anticipated, the nationalist government of 1956, led by
Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike, tried to ease the situation by entering
into an agreement, in 1957, with the Tamil leader
S.J.V.Chelvanayagam.
The central idea in this agreement, known as the
�B-C Pact�, was a scheme of power-sharing by means of Provincial
Councils linked into Regional Councils, in effect creating a unit of local
self-government consisting of the Northern and Eastern provinces of the
island, where Tamils predominate.
In reaction to this,
a group of vociferous monks staged a sit-in protest in front of the Prime
Minister�s residence, which led the latter to hastily abrogate the pact.
It is now widely accepted, with the benefit of hindsight, that had the monks
not prevented this agreement, the problem would have been nipped in the bud,
and the country spared the trauma that has taken 60,000 lives, displaced a
million, dismantled democratic institutions, and derailed attempts to lay
the foundations of a sound economy. Politicians have not learnt the lesson
of this sad history, and until they do the conflict is not likely to be
resolved.
I have so far dealt mostly with the socially undesirable effects of the
Sangha�s new role. Let me now consider the possibility of a socially
positive and beneficial monastic role, created by a cosmopolitan and
progressive Sangha that might conceivably act as a countervailing force to
the abuse of state power, and as a guardian of civil society and democratic
values. Such a development would confer new meaning on the hackneyed phrase
�guardian deities of the nation� that the monks often use to describe
themselves. The view that the monk�s role is social service can be a
liberating doctrine, potentially enabling the rise of an ethically based
liberal humanist Sangha. I am only too well aware of how remote this
possibility is, but recent developments warrant some speculation.
A new lay critique of the monks
When the Dharmapalite idea that the monk�s work is social
service was first restated and amplified by Walpola Rahula in his The
heritage of the Bhikku half a century ago, the laity�s critique of that
position was based on religious-moral grounds.3
They expressed the fear that social service would inevitably lead the monk
to compromise monastic discipline. With the gradual acceptance of the idea
that the monk�s work is social service, a new and secular criterion to
assess the worth of the monk has come into being. As opposed to the
religious-moral criterion, this is an ethical and liberal-humanist criterion
of social responsibility. According to these lay critics, the monks do not
measure up, unlike, for example, some of the more liberal and radical
sections of the Christian priesthood.
This new lay critique was articulated intermittently throughout the late
1970s and the 1980s.4 The ethnic
problem, in particular the support of the monks for escalating the war, has
provided fertile ground for a more systematic articulation of this critique.
The stand of the monks on the ethnic issue is cited by these critics as
illustrative of the Sangha�s internal contradictions and moral bankruptcy.
During the election campaign of 1994 this critique became more focused,
cogent and unmistakable.
The rise of this critique also parallels another significant development,
namely the break-up of the Sangha coalition which had been built in the
turmoil before the 1956 elections. Prior to this date, politically inclined
monks were divided into two broad groups � those who supported the
conservative rightist but pluralist politicians, and those who opposed them.
As the historic victory of the nationalist forces in 1956 became
established, the rightist, hitherto pluralist conservatives reversed their
policies and embraced the nationalist, hegemonist agenda. Correspondingly,
the more sober voices of the Sangha epitomized by the pragmatic monks of the
Vidyodaya were silenced, and the Sangha as a whole became a single force
championing the nationalist, hegemonist agenda.
The 1994 campaign signalled a possible return to the days of division in the
Sangha, this time around between the exclusivist, hegemonist monks discussed
above and a possibly growing group of progressive, liberal-humanist
inclusivists. This can be seen as a new version of the division between what
we have termed the ideological and the pragmatic monks. The contribution of
the lay critique of monks to this development is considerable. As we noted
above, this critique was most clearly articulated during the 1994 campaign.
It came from both independent writers and groups, notably a
group of journalists called the Free Media Movement and radical writers and
columnists of the Sinhala weekly paper, Ravaya, and writers from the Vibhavi
Cultural Centre. It formed part of a larger critique of the abysmal state
into which an authoritarian, murderous and war-mongering regime had
precipitated the country. Part of the paraphrenalia that shored up that
regime was a Sangha unified in its religious-ethnic hegemony, as expressed
in a stratum of favoured monks who could be induced at will by the
government to issue what were in effect endorsements of corruption, tyranny
and war. In the face of such violation of fundamental ethical principles,
individuals were increasingly emboldened to express their disgust and scorn
at both the political regime and the monastic hierarchy that propped it up.
This sentiment is a far cry from the traditional lay critique of the monks
on grounds of sila or Buddhist morality, the critique advanced, as mentioned
above, in 1946 when Rahula�s The heritage of the Bhikku was published. Lay
critics are now treating these monks almost as secular social group, which
they are entitled to do given the monks� own insistence that their work is
social service. These lay critics also suggest that the monks have sunk to
their lowest level, but are potentially reformable and socially useful.
Somewhat like Dharmapala, these lay groups are trying to tap the monks as a
resource for building a nation, though quite a different one from that which
Dharmapala envisaged.
The monk and social responsibility
The 1994 government itself played a role in focusing
attention on the idea of a socially responsible liberal-humanist or
progressive monk. The government�s peace platform during the 1994 electoral
campaign, and the promise of a political solution to the ethnic problem,
appealed to a handful of monks. Echoing the pragmatic monks of Vidyodaya
half a century ago, who carried the message of regeneration through rural
development, a band of these neo-pragmatic monks traversed the country
during the 1994 campaign holding town meetings and explaining the idea of
devolution to the people.
A recent incident gives us an indication of the role of the devolution
proposals, known as �The Package�, in the potential regeneration of a
socially responsible Sangha. The proposals drew intense hostility from the
nationalist standard-bearers of both the laity and the Sangha. One
manifestation of this and of the propagandist zeal aimed at derailing the
proposals was the appointment of a commission (by a coalition of Buddhist
hegemonist groups) to enquire into the injustices done to the Sinhala
Buddhist majority over the last few centuries, and the further harm that
would surely come the way of that majority if the devolution proposals were
enacted into law.
Then, in an unusual turn of events, Mangala Samaraweera, a high-ranking
cabinet minister, publicly condemned the report, describing it as a document
eminently fit for �the garbage bin of history�. This enraged the nationalist
monks, who organized a three-thousand-strong protest and demanded an
apology. They then went to Matara, the central town of the minister�s
constituency, and staged a ritual in front of the town�s famous Bodhi Tree
to curse the minister.
Coconuts were brought to the site and ritually cracked by
dashing them on stone, to the accompaniment of magically poisonous verses,
reportedly composed by a professor. Arrangements had also been made to dash
a hundred thousand coconuts in different parts of the country to curse the
minister a hundred thousand times. Not content with this, the monks called
for the layman, the patta nikujjana kamma, the formal act of �turning over
the bowl�, which amounts to a spiritual death sentence, a Buddhist fatwah.
Thus, the monks ransacked both Buddhism and the folk religion to find the
ritual weaponry to cause the minister symbolic death. A sceptical informant
has, however, reported that while the composer of the killer verses was dead
within a week, the minister continues to be a picture of physical and
political health.
This display by the monks, given full coverage by the media, rekindled the
lay critique of the Sangha, which reached an unprecedented level of candour
and outspokenness. The Observer, a pro-government newspaper, devoted its 7
October 1998 editorial to condemnation of the event, commenting that the
ritual revealed �the dirty little secrets of the Sinhala-Buddhist psyche�.
Some writers likened the monks to the clerics who decreed
death sentences on Salman Rushdie and the Bangladeshi feminist novelist
Taslima Nasreen. The monks were described as intolerant and fascist, their
participation in the actual dashing of the coconuts as uncouth and
unbecoming, and the language of the monks as �abusive, angry and full of
hate�. Monks were also described as overfed, with plump faces like overgrown
rose apples, and insensitive to the poverty and suffering of the poor who
put up with them only out of the deep respect and veneration they have for
the religion�s founder.
Equally uncomplimentary to the monks was one columnist�s
insinuation that these monks, unable to understand
S.J.Tambiah�s book Buddhism Betrayed?, had become willing pawns of an
arms dealer who also owns the Island Group of newspapers. The reference here
was to the Island Group�s campaign against Tambiah�s book, and the
allegation that the newspaper group�s owner is an arms dealer, which would
hardly qualify him to give an impartial review of a book about peace.
Writers also drew attention to the money-making operations monks have built
under the cover of social service, and in general to their reprehensible
lifestyle.
At this point the lay critics were boosted by a further piece of news. The
abbot of the ancient and wealthy monastery Vadihitikanda Vihara, at
Kataragama, was alleged to have held three sisters � three young girls aged
between twelve and eighteen � captive in a dungeon in the monastery for six
months, abusing them sexually. He allegedly made the girls perform various
acts for which he provided instructions by the use of a pornographic film.
This unflattering piece of news was followed by another, that a monk who
allegedly abused teenage and younger girls at an orphanage he ran was now
going to open, in a suspiciously inaccessible jungle village, a garment
factory employing young girls. These examples gave more grounds � if any
were needed � for the critics to portray the coconut-dashing ritual as a
metaphor for the moral decrepitude of the monks.
A few days later the progressive monks held a counter-rally in Colombo. They
called this rally and others held in different parts of the island
Adhisthana Pooja, �offerings of determination�. Attended by a thousand
monks, this rally staged its own ritual with its own coconut symbolism. They
distributed a hundred thousand coconuts among the poor.
The activities of the progressive monks were hailed by the lay critics as
the positive result of the coconut-dashing ritual. At long last, these
critics claimed, an inner critique and a genuine social consciousness is
emerging in the Sangha, and monks are realizing that their own house needs
to be put into some order. But the events between the coconut-dashing in
1998 and now (2001) provide ample evidence that this is still a distant
goal, its path littered with obstacles placed by the vociferous hegemonist
monks.
However, equally evident is the increase in the ranks of the
progressive monks, who in the parliamentary elections of 2000 assisted in
the re-election of the government that initiated (unsuccessfully) a
devolution package. The 2000 election itself was marked by irregularities
which puts any believer in democracy and parliamentary government in a very
difficult position; such a person has to support the government�s
championing of devolution, while at the same time condemning the government
as a whole for its reprehensible record, since it has done no more than
further fuel the breakdown of civilized society rooted in the hegemonist
policies inaugurated in 1956, and exacerbated by the authoritarianism of
previous regimes.
Buddhist modernism and lay leadership
A striking feature of Sri Lankan Buddhist modernism is the
laity�s conspicuous role in religious leadership, arising from the failure
of the monks to adapt imaginatively to social changes and initiative reforms
within their own organization. The liberal humanism of the progressive monks
we have talked about is owed in no small measure to broader lay movements of
radical protest against the conservative and authoritarian policies of the
J.R.Jayewardene regime elected in 1977.
This protest includes the advocacy of a peaceful solution
to the ethnic conflict. Surveys conducted by sociologists at Colombo
University and the independent Sinhala-language newspaper Ravaya clearly
indicate that the majority of the people support a peaceful solution, and
war mongers are a minority of about only 7 percent. Their voice however is
disproportionately loud because it is amplified by the major independent
newspaper group in the country, the Island Group. It is indeed a measure of
the irresponsibility of these newspapers, the English-language daily The
Island and its Sinhala counterpart Divayina, that they have relentlessly
been doing their best to tarnish the one bright spot in the contemporary
gloom of Sri Lanka, namely the relatively harmonious relations between the
different religions.
The Divayina, in particular in its Sunday special section,
frequently carries articles alleging dark schemes hatched by the Muslims and
Christians to eradicate the majority Sinhala Buddhists. (Interestingly
enough, Hindus are rarely perceived this way, as if in secret
acknowledgement of the fact that the Buddhist authors of these hysterical
writings are often ardent Hindu ritualists.) These newspapers also regularly
target the most visible of the organizations that advocate democratic
values, the NGOs. The major objective of their propaganda is to derail peace
efforts, as manifested most recently in their attacks on attempts at
mediation by Norway.
If, in recent times, the laity has been the Sangha�s guide to better
behaviour rather than the other way round, we must continue to believe in
the prospect that the Sangha�s inner critique will grow, even though it may
not progress smoothly. Why? Because the lay critique itself, which I have
argued is the forerunner of the Sangha�s, is alive and well. The broad
movement for equal citizenship and civilized government was born in the
opposition to the authoritarian regime elected in 1977.
In 1994 the movement played a major role in the electoral
defeat of that regime, but the deep disappointment engendered by the new
government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga that it had helped elect broke
its heart and its will to live. The failures of the new regime, especially
its subversion of the electoral process in 2000, are revitalizing the
activists, recalling the pattern of resistance to the Jayewardene government
during which the movement was intially born. Anticipating widespread
irregularities on election day, the movement organized a �Yellow Ribbon
Campaign� symbolizing concern and protest, and thousands went to the polls
wearing the ribbon.
The idea caught on, extending beyond the election campaign.
For example, a yellow ribbon was part of the ensemble that bronze
medal-winner Susanthika Jayasinghe wore when she ran for Sri Lanka at the
2000 Olympics. The movement, which has grown into a coalition of some
seventy different activist groups, is preparing to launch a �Golden
Postcards� campaign to send the President a million yellow postcards
advocating �civilized government� � free media, an independent judiciary and
civil service, a police commission, independent elections and so forth.
In addition, the movement demands action on specific matters
which include the abolition of the present presidency with its extraordinary
concentration of power without accountability, the appointment of a
commission of inquiry into to the irregularities of the 2000 election, the
removal of Chief Justice, alleged to be a pawn of the President,
promulgation of an enforceable code of ethics for MPs and cabinet ministers,
and the forging of a national consensus on religious, ethnic and linguistic
rights. The progressive monks are undoubtedly invigorated by this: their
yellow robe is gaining an additional dash of colour from the ribbons and the
postcards. What we are witnessing again is the lay initiative as the
springboard for monastic activism which goes back to Dharmapala a century
ago. Whether this new and more enlightened activism will grow to be a force
in the Sangha is yet unclear; all we can do at this stage is chronicle the
mixed signals.
The data used here are derived from over three years of fieldwork carried
out intermittently between 1991 and 1996. The paper reflects the author�s
conviction that anthropology must not only make academic analyses but
contribute directly or indirectly to solving problems. Accordingly, the
paper contemplates the directions in which Sri Lanka must move if it is to
emerge from its present malaise and launch itself on the path to peaceful
and prosperous nationhood.
The most important observation that a fieldworker can make
about Sangha/lay relations in Sri Lanka is that the laity overwhelmingly
sees the Sangha�s role as religious and ritualist, and not social and
political. Based on long acquaintance with Sri Lanka both as a member of the
culture and an experienced field-worker, I firmly believe that monks have no
influence over the ballot box, and that the view that they do is a phobia of
power greedy politicians and a figment of the imagination of the city elites
and Western observers. The politicians� phobia of the monks and the
resulting reluctance to move towards power-sharing compromises the prospects
for peace and civilized government. An honest and courageous social policy
is a more sure and more lasting path to win the hearts and minds of voters.
The essentials of such a policy are included in the list of demands by the
activists of the Yellow Ribbon Campaign, cited above.
Foot-Notes
(1) Dharmapala�s
activities, his definition of the role of the contemporary Buddhist monk, as
well as the consequences of that definition, are discussed in greater detail
in my book, �The work of Kings� (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1999).
(2) The Sinhala original was published
in 1946 under the title �Bhiksuvage Urumaya�. English translation published
in 1974 by Grove Press, New York.
(3) See, D.C.R.Gunawardene et al.
�Report of the University Commission�, Sessional Paper 16 of 1963. Colombo;
The Government Press. A scholarly paper dealing with the public debate on
this question is W.A.Wisva Warnapala, �Sangha and politics in Sri Lanka:
Nature of the continuing controversy�. Indian Journal of Politics, 12 (1-2),
April-August 1978; 66-76.
(4) See for example, D.Amarasiri Weeraratne, �Devolution package and the
Maha Sangha�, The Sunday Observer, 17 March 1996; and Lucien
Rajakarunanayake, �Trade and politics amidst the yellow robes�, Sunday
Leader, 18 or 25 February 1996. A cogent Sinhala language critique, in the
form of a booklet, is Bo.Nandissara, �Loku hamuduruvan vetatayi� (�To my
abbot�), Haputale, New Royal Press, 1991.
