Entering Monks into politics – What made it happen?
by Shamika Soysa

18 March 2004 - It has been 56 years Sri Lanka has been offered with the freedom by British rulers. It is considered that Sri Lanka is now a free Nation. It is considered that Sri Lankans are not slaves of any other Nations in the world.

However in present Sri Lanka has become a paradise of violence and corruption. How this Buddhist state became a paradise of drunkers? How the term “corruption” has become a definite adjective to the term “politics”. How has this beautiful Island become vulgar?

Although Buddhism was firmly established on Sri Lankan soil, the Buddhist religion faced many attacks when Sri Lanka was invaded by South Indian armies. But the faith was kept alive, even when monks and nuns had to flee for their lives and monasteries and temples were ransacked and destroyed.

The Portuguese arrived in Colombo in 1505 and gradually occupied all the maritime provinces, remaining till 1658. The Sri Lankan chronicles as well as the records of other historians describe them as cruel, inhuman, rapacious and savage persecutors of Buddhism in their endeavour to impose their own faith - Roman Catholicism - on the people of Sri Lanka. Buddhist monasteries and institutions were destroyed and their treasures looted. Libraries were set on fire. Thus did the period of Portuguese rule become one of the darkest periods of Buddhism in Sri Lanka.

Then came the Dutch in 1658 after ousting the Portuguese. The Dutch established a system of education where the school building was both church and school. The school master was both teacher and representative of the religion. All civil rights and inheritance depended on a person's church affiliation. No person who was not a Christian could hold even a minor office under government, no person who was not a Christian could get married legally or register the birth of a child. Throughout the territories under Dutch occupation, Buddhists had been compelled to declare themselves as Christians, and during the period of British rule this law was enforced for 70 years, being abrogated only in 1884, when on behalf of the Buddhists Colonel Olcott made representations to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London.

From the beginning of British rule in 1796, several Christian missionary bodies engaged themselves actively in missionary activities in Sri Lanka. The Baptists had already started their activities in 1972. They were followed by the Wesleyen Methodists in 1814, the Americans in 1816, and the Church of England in 1818. These missionary bodies received every encouragement and assistance from the government. Schools were established across the country. In these schools Buddhist children were moulded according to the requirements of the missionary bodies. Each student was required to learn the Christian religion and to participate in the morning and evening religious services in the school. They had no opportunity of participating in their open religious observances. The lessons imparted to these children were arranged with a view to undermine their Buddhist religion. The teaching of the Buddha was criticized and condemned and the Buddhist practices were ridiculed. Buddhism was held up as a religion of the vulgar masses as opposed to the Christianity of civilized people.

After all these centuries of colonial oppression and Christian imposition, isn't it amazing that Buddhism is still alive in Sri Lanka? Why is that?

That is because none of the missionaries or rulers could productively show in their teachings something more than in Buddhism. There had always been laymen and monks who were to sacrifice their lives to protect Buddhism.

British rulers and previous rulers could not vanish Buddhism from this Island. Then these British rulers had to take another approach. What they did was, instead trying to vanish Buddhism from this state, they took measures to make bad Sinhala Buddhists. We don’t call those people as Buddhists, but labeled Buddhists. They gave liquor to people freely. Once they got addicted they had to spend all what they earned to drink. The unit called family began to decline. Then the society, and then the country got into the path of decline. They were able to create some Kalu Sudhdas to rule this Government whom they always had the control.

Some people argue that if British rulers were there till now, then this country would have become a heaven. One example they take is the railways, as none of the Governments have not being able to extend it for 56 years. British rulers did all those things to transport treasures of this country to Colombo to be transported to their countries. It is not underestimating the development done by British, but what they have really done in their era is destroying the society and the culture of Sri Lanka. Now we are experiencing the consequences of their plans with corrupt politics, violence, fragmentations by political parties, threatens for the existence of Buddhism and unity between races and religions.

During last couple of years evangelism activities have grown through out this country. All the rulers and politicians have given their least concern to the Buddhism even though it is emphasized from the constitution to protect. Various materials were spread all over the world to insult Lord Buddha. Finally on 12 December 2003, it happened the greatest disaster for Buddhists in recent history.

Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero was not afraid to talk about these issues in public. Ven. Ellawala Medananda Thero also talked greatly against these evangelism activities. Soma Thero traveled village by village and did a great service by doing sermons on the most basic concepts of Buddhism. He strongly criticized the evangelism activities carried in Sri Lanka. As a result of that these two monks were able to have their names in a hit list of some witness groups of fundamentalists.

Still there is no proper investigation regarding the death of Soma Thero. The presidential commission given surely is sort of an Election promise because this was requested long time ago, but was given few days ago. Few weeks later the death of Soma Thero, we saw “Gangodawila Soma” was available as a drug, but none of the rulers of this country took any action regarding this.

We have seen Buddha biscuits, Dog Buddha, Cat Buddha, and Lord Buddha in menus, key tags and under wears and naked Buddha statues with women and lots of things like this.

Bhikkus of the country asked for an Anti-Conversion law and Bhikkus had to starve for many days at least to get a word for that. But the parliament was dissolved before the act is approved and implemented.

The country goes decline day by day. None of the politicians think about the protection of Buddhism and they have separated into parties to win their luxury. Bhikkus had been advising and advising and advising them all the time but they never listened. They did not even care what these Bhikkus says.

Even though Bhikkus other than Soma Thero and Medananda Thero knew these threats to Buddhism through these corrupt politics they did not have the courage to talk. Finally the death of Soma Thero could not be tolerated by the leading other Bhikkus of the country. They understood that advising these politicians is not going to be enough if they really want to protect the Sinhala Nation, Buddhists, and the country. According to this present environment of the country they had no option other than coming forward to contest election to obtain the political power needed to unite this country and clean corrupt politics from the Parliament and the country.

The intention of them is crystal clear and they are not with narrow conventional political minds, which we see with all the other political parties in the country. If they can get some power in the Parliament then other parties and leaders will have to listen to them more than they did. Having being in the Parliament, which is supposed to be sacred place (which is not at present), it is expected that Bhikkus will be able to create a new culture of politics based on the philosophy of Buddhism, which will ensure the unity among all the communities, races and religions in the country.

I must give the credit to Sonali Samarasinghe (Wellington, New Zealand), as I have extracted some paragraphs (3, 4, 5, 6, 7) regarding the history of colonial oppression in Sri Lanka from her article “Why we must stand behind the bastion of Theravada Buddhism” (http://www.buddhistnews.tv/current/sl-bastion-050204.php), which was published on The Buddhist News Network, February 5, 2004