Religion and Land: Drivers of Conflict in Sri Lanka’s North and East

Photo courtesy of Tripadvisor

“The past is continually remade to suit the present.” Richard Gombrich and Gananath Obeyesekere

The root causes of Sri Lanka’s 26 year civil war have yet to be addressed, resulting in many consequences including exacerbating the issue of land conflicts and contestation related to places of religious worship. Escalating conflicts over land and religious sites, particularly in the north and east, are deeply intertwined with issues of ownership, control and access, which have been persistent drivers of conflict in the region.

Land disputes and contestation over religious sites are not new phenomena. Decades of ethnic tensions, civil war and post-war policies have left deep scars on the nation, with land ownership and access being central to these conflicts.

The Department of Archaeology’s efforts to protect “national heritage” are seen as being aligned with the interests of the majority community, particularly in terms of identifying and preserving sites associated with Sinhala Buddhism. The use of terms such as “protecting national heritage”, “sacred areas” and “archaeology” often serves to reinforce a narrative that privileges the Sinhala Buddhist identity over others.

The identification of certain sites as Sinhala Buddhist sacred sites has fuelled fears among minorities that their lands and religious practices are under threat. There are several instances where Buddhist temples have been constructed on contested lands, displacing minority communities and leading to allegations of land appropriation.

There is an increasing involvement of Buddhist clergy and the military in land disputes. Local communities have reported that their private lands are being taken over by Buddhist clergy, with little to no action taken by the authorities to address these concerns.

Buddhist temples are being constructed on lands claimed by Tamil and Muslim communities, highlighting the nexus between the central government, security forces and Buddhist clergy in facilitating land appropriation. Such practices are indicative of a broader trend of ethno-nationalism where Sinhala Buddhist hegemony is reinforced through state policies and practices.

The most recent example is the controversy relating to the expansion of the Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya, a recently constructed Buddhist temple in Kankesanturai, which has become a flashpoint between local Tamil residents and Sinhala nationalist groups.

“The problem it appears is not the temple itself but the large area that is sought to establish a Sinhala Buddhist zone in a predominantly Hindu area. The problem is not Buddhism as a religion but the use of religion as a vehicle for territorial assertion and demographic changes in a region that bore the brunt of the war. Likewise, there are other parts of the north and east where other temples or places of worship have been established by the military personnel in their camps during their war-time occupation and questions arise regarding the future when these camps are finally closed,” wrote Dr Jehan Perera, Executive Director of the National Peace Council.

In 2018, Dr Elizabeth Harris published a monograph titled Religion, Space and Conflict in Sri Lanka: Colonial and Postcolonial Contexts. It took nine years to write and the trigger for it was the post-war spatial expansion of Buddhist symbols/centres in Tamil areas in the north and east through the discovery of new Buddhist sites, the expansion of existing sites and the Buddhicisation of multi-religious and multi-ethnic sites. She sought patterns and parallels between conflict over religion and space in the colonial period and conflict over space in the postcolonial period, particularly that which arose post-2009.

Dr Harris, who has a doctorate in Buddhist Studies from the Postgraduate Institute for Pali and Buddhist Studies, University of Kelaniya, spoke to Groundviews on the impact of colonialism on religion, what has changed since 2009 and what it would take for Sri Lanka to become a truly pluralistic society. The interview was done after Dr Harris gave a talk at the Social Scientists’ Association on her 2018 monograph. 

Is it correct to say that before colonisation different religions in Sri Lanka co-existed largely peacefully in multi-religious spaces?

I would say it’s rather a romanticised view of the past. Anthropologists such as S.J. Tambayah have studied the Kandyan kingdom before it was taken over by the British and detected a hierarchy between religions. Minorities would be welcomed if they recognised that Buddhism was the dominant religion in the Kandyan kingdom and so there was a kind of subordination but also a tolerance and an acceptance because of course the Kandyan kingdom accepted Roman Catholics that fled from the Dutch areas.So they would welcome people of other religions and ethnicities. There seemed to be an agreement that those who came in had to recognise that Buddhism was dominant and the Kandyan kingdom expected even Jaffna to recognise the prior claim of the Kandyan kingdom and to almost act as though they were not exactly subservient but had a duty towards the Kandyan kingdom. So I would say yes, before the colonial period there were porous boundaries between religions and people of different religions would go into other places of worship and would co-exist together. But I would say that there was still a hierarchy and if groups moved out of that hierarchy and challenged the dominance of the Buddha, then they could be demonised.

What did the colonial powers do that brought about religious disharmony?

They brought exclusivist models of religion. They brought a very conservative theology; it was a theology that came out of the evangelical revival at the end of the 18th century in England. But the theology in its crudest sense was that people of other religions would go to an eternal hell if they did not accept Jesus Christ as their saviour. There were some exceptions to this and some of the missionaries did not hold that theology but the majority did. This meant that they saw it as an act of compassion to convert the Sri Lankans and that it was also affirming the equality of Sri Lankans with all human beings that they should be converted. So they brought an exclusivist view of religion, an exclusivist spatial view as well because they spoke of Christianised space versus and against Buddhist space and Hindu space. The missionaries brought an exclusivist paradigm of religion that may not have been present before. And you see the exclusivist paradigm of religion entering Buddhism through people like Anagarika Dharmapala towards the end of the 19th century, who argued that Anuradhapura, for instance, had to be completely cleansed ofany Christian church or Hindu kovil and also of outlets selling alcohol and that the holy area of Anuradhapura had to be completely Buddhist. Some of them had a more exclusivist attitude towards Buddhists and would not allow Buddhists into public space or civic space. Others would not, and caused an uproar among the missionary community when they allowed the chanting of Buddhist gathas at a public event. So it’s a kind of nuanced, complex picture. The British missionaries brought about an exclusivism into Buddhism that was used as a counter. The missionaries were also less tolerant about social values such as homosexuality and imposed their Victorian values. 

Is the fact that Buddhism is given foremost place in the constitution a hinderance to building a pluralistic society?

That constitution did stoke negative feelings in the country, particularly among the Tamil community. I can understand why it was placed in the constitution because in my book, Religion, Space and Conflict in Sri Lanka, I study the dominant imaginary among Sinhala Buddhists, which is that the whole island is sacred to the Buddha. The island of Sri Lanka is surrounded by Buddhist narratives. So you have Nainativu and Nagadeepa, where the Buddha is supposed to have visited. You have the tooth relic being brought in from the east. You have Kelaniya in the south and so on. So the whole island is surrounded by Buddhist narrative, almost as though the island is the body of the Buddha. I can remember one academic telling me that many Sri Lankans would feel that having a separate state in the north and east would be like having your head chopped off because the island is almost seen as the body of the Buddha. That incredibly strong, that imaginary, and it was that imaginary that kicked in after the war. After 2009, many Sinhala Buddhist nationalists were attempting to bring back that imaginary so that it would be accepted by everyone that the whole island was sacred to the Buddha and had to be visibly sacred through symbols. So saying that Buddhism has the foremost place fits in with this imaginary and with the fact that Buddhists are in the majority. But I think it makes minorities feel that they are second class citizens, that their religions are considered to be second class, and does not help a pluralistic society.

There are many instances in Jaffna and the East where the Archaeology Department is being used to find Buddhist relics in places of Hindu worship to claim the space for Buddhists. How can these claims be verified? 

I think one can present a counter argument. I have no doubt that there are Buddhist relics in the north of Sri Lanka. Whether they were Sinhala Buddhist relics is the question. I have interviewed archaeologists in the north and have read good studies. People such as Siva Thiagarajah have argued that the Buddhist culture of the north is consistent with the Buddhist remains in India and that, for instance, the remains at Kantharodai should not necessarily have been reconstructed in a style that is similar to that of Anuradhapura but could have been reconstructed in a style that is similar to Buddhist remains and Buddhist archaeological sites in India, and that Kantharodai could have been a Buddhist burial site rather than the vihara as the Sinhala Buddhist narrative goes. So I think that Tamil Buddhism has to be taken into account and the sites such as Kantharodai could have been a multi-ethnic Buddhist site. Sinhala Buddhists, Tamil Buddhists, so in a sense a form of multi-religion and that by casting it and framing it as purely a Sinhala Buddhist site, which was destroyed by Tamil invaders, and very vicious Tamil invaders, is a distortion of history.I don’t think the counter voices have been heard adequately but research has been done and Thiagarajah draws on research by international scholars as well. It’s not just his own theory that he’s plucked from the air. So in that case, I think the ArchaeologicalDepartment over the years, perhaps even going back the British colonial period, have missed wilfully perhaps, I don’t know, South Indian influence on Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka. I think it was a British civil servant called Burroughs who’d done work on the archaeological sites in Sri Lanka, and detected South Indian influence in some of the Buddhist sites. He reported this to the Royal Asiatic Society and he was shouted down by some of his British compatriots, including one person who felt horrified that the Aryan nature of some of these Buddhist sites were being challenged because of course by that time the Aryan theory had come in, that Sinhala Buddhists were Aryans. But that the Singhala Buddhists were Aryan, and that the Buddhist sites of Anuradhara and Polonnaruwa were Aryan, built by Aryans. And here was Burroughs saying, no, but there’s South Indian influence. I think his argument was probably very legitimate, and should have warranted further research,but that was kind of denied. And I think that mindset was carried on by an independent Sri Lankan, that evidence of South Indian Buddhist provenance in Buddhist sites in Sri Lanka were ignored.

What changes did you see during your recent visit to Jaffna since your last visit?

I was only in Jaffna for two nights one day. There was very little time. But I did visit Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya and have also read on the internet accounts of the conflict surrounding the Viharaya. In Jaffna I realised that there is disagreement about what justice demands concerning that Maha Viharaya, even among Buddhists of the Amarapura fraternity. Of course the nationalist claims that are supported by the army and police is that Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya was built at the site mentioned in the Mahawamsa. The narrative is that a viharaya was built in honour of King Devanampiya Tissa to mark the coming of the bo tree so this is a sacred site that goes back to what is seen by many as a historical record. Many Buddhists see it as a historical record. I spoke to the monk at the vihara and he was totally committed to the Devanampiya Tissa narrative. So this for him, and for the military who were supporting him and the police who were supporting him, this trumps any recourse to human rights. He sees the whole of the island as embodying a Buddhist narrative versus human rights, versus the families who actually own the nine acres of land for which a group of Tamil families have rights and deeds. So I think in the Tamil people of Jaffna who are aware of this kind of controversy and they are angered by it. It’s completely going against what reconciliation should be in a post-war Sri Lanka. I mean it’s absolutely the opposite of what should be done. The families own the land and they have various strategies to put their case further and try and get the land back. But it completely goes against any principles of reconciliation. Again I see it as a kind of imagery I’ve spoken about trumping justice for the Tamil people who live in the north of Sri Lanka. And some Tamil people might even see this as a kind of, well this was said to me by one person, a terrorist act by the Sri Lankan government. So I would say that although Jaffna might appear much more prosperous, underneath there is still this feeling that there are similar forces that want to dominate Jaffna, to dominate the Tamil culture of Jaffna. And I don’t think this bodes well. Also when the military and the police get involved, it sends the wrong message because the Tissa Raja Maha Viharaya is there because of the military and the police who support the head of the Amarapura Nikaya. So it’s a complicated issue and it needs to be settled. The President of Sri Lanka is on record is saying he would try to settle it justly. But how far can he go if the military is supportive of this? The government must build on the goodwill they have in the north and must show that they are concerned for justice and for human rights and that legal claims to land, I know the land is part of the high security zone but I believe the land is now to be given back to the Tamils who own it. So the Tamils have the deeds and the land is theirs, it should be given back. Perhaps with a compromise that the vihara is located to a very small part of the land, something like that might be possible.

What measures can be taken to promote a Sri Lanka where other religions and ethnicities are truly accepted and respected?

The school textbooks have to be looked at. From what I hear that in the school textbooks the Mahavamsa for instance is being taken as a factual historical account and is being taught as history. Whereas I would see it as a piece of literature that no doubt has some historical facts within it but is written for a moral purpose for Buddhists. So I think the textbooks, both Tamil and Sinhala textbooks, need to be revisited and perhaps rewritten. If they don’t reflect some of the research that has been done into ethnicity in Sri Lanka. When I first came to Sri Lanka in the 1980s, the Social Scientists Association produced two very good books on ethnicity in Sri Lanka, which nuanced the formation of the Sinhala and Tamil communities and bring them much closer together and show that many people originally from South India would have joined the Sinhala group and intermarried. So the division between Sinhala and Tamil is not as fixed as some people, as some nationalists might say, Tamil and Sinhala nationalists. Some textbooks need to be rewritten and some prejudices and preconceptions need to be challenged. Many Tamils do not realise that they have many Sinhalese allies in the south and that they are not alone and the south is not simply a set of Sinhala Buddhist nationalists who want to proclaim victory over the north but there are alliances that could be made between progressive voices in the south and struggles in the north.