Narendra Modi and the Rajapaksa Controversy
Narendra Modi has invited the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa to his swearing in ceremony. The Tamilnadu chief minister Jayalalitha and the LTTE sympathizer V. Gopalaswamy have expressed displeasure over it since Rajapaksa’s decisive military campaign against the LTTE resulted in the deaths of several innocent Eelam Tamils.
Eelam Tamils have endured terrible suffering over the last three decades because of the ethnic war between the Sinhalese and Tamils. Indiscriminate bombings, displacements, denial of fuel, and the lack of basic infrastructure have been the characteristics of the precarious Eelam Tamil existence. They deserve to rehabilitated and granted equality in Sri Lanka. Hindus, no matter where in the world they live, have a moral duty to express their solidarity with Eelam Tamils.
However, solidarity with Eelam Tamils doesn’t translate into sympathy for the LTTE.
The origins of Eelam Tamil separatism and the rise of the LTTE is a complex story. It would suffice to say that it was a response to the Sri Lankan government-sponsored discriminatory practices against the Tamils and the violence directed at the Tamil civilians. LTTE was a necessity then. However, the power-hungry LTTE not only prolonged the war but also came under Christian influence and acted against Hindu interests.
Eelam Tamils are predominantly Hindus. It is no surprise that the LTTE cadre was predominantly Hindu as well. Hindus in Tamil Eelam cremate their dead as is the prevalent custom among Hindus everywhere. Before 1991, slain LTTE cadres were cremated according to Hindu rites. However a small but highly influential Christian cadre objected to the practice of cremating the slain fighters. So, in 1991, in deference to the Christian demand, LTTE banned the practice of cremation of its slain cadres and mandated that they be buried in a graveyard. Parents of the slain Hindu fighters objected but were overruled. Hindu parents of LTTE fighters lost their sons and daughters as well as the fundamental right to perform their final rites according to Hindu customs. Their children were forcibly buried in Christian-style cemeteries.
LTTE propagandists claimed that when the slain fighters are cremated, they are reduced to ashes and no memory of their sacrifice is preserved whereas burying them in a graveyard preserves their memory for future generations. It was claimed that the LTTE was reintroducing the ancient Tamil practice of erecting vīrakkal, i.e., the hero stone. However, these are disingenuous explanations because one could’ve very well cremated slain Hindu fighters according to Hindu customs, brought their ashes to a memorial place, and erected hero stones in their honor as was the practice in ancient Tamilnadu. There was no need to ban cremation. LTTE selectively and directly assaulted a core Hindu religious observance while simultaneously forcibly imposing a Christian practice upon the defenseless Hindus.
The ban on cremation has to be seen in the overall context where LTTE actively suppressed Hindu identity and facilitated the spread of Christianity. Just as churches discourage converted Hindu women from wearing bindi or flowers, LTTE too disallowed its female cadres from wearing bindi or flowers. Even though a majority of the LTTE cadre was Hindu, its influential leaders were predominantly Christian. Missionaries and their Western handlers influenced the organization policies. In areas controlled by the LTTE, Christian conversion was rampant. It is an irony that so many Hindu youth laid down their lives only to be posthumously denied their religious rights and to inadvertently facilitate Christian proselytism.
Christian missionaries have been active on the Sinhalese side as well and have benefitted the most by sustaining and prolonging the civil war. Even though Christians are a minuscule minority among the Sinhalese, half of all Sri Lankan presidents have been Christians. As in India, in Sri Lanka too Christians enjoy political clout and power disproportionate to their numbers. The continuation of animosity between the Sinhalese Buddhists and Eelam Tamils only benefits Christian proselytism. It is in the best interests of both communities to bury the hatchet and come together. Ambedkar lamented that the numerical majority of the Hindus doesn’t translate into political power. The same is true of the Sinhalese Buddhists as well. On the other hand, Christian organizations are backed by imperial powers, ruthless in their machinations, and work single-mindedly to weaken Hindu and Buddhist societies.
Buddhism and Hinduism are dhārmic religions. They have coexisted in the past and can coexist in the future. Buddhists and Hindus have always lived together and Sri Lanka needn’t be an exception to this norm. In Sri Lanka, several Buddhist temples have altars for Hindu deities in the four corners of the courtyard. Many Hindus consider the Buddha as an avatāra. This millennia-old shared legacy should help offset a few decades-old Christian-fed animosities.
Narendra Modi’s invitation to Rajapaksa should be seen as the starting point of establishing Hindu-Buddhist solidarity. Modi could play a decisive role to secure equal rights for Eelam Tamils. In return, India can bestow Most Favored Nation status on Sri Lanka, extend military aid to the island nation, and open its markets to Sri Lankan goods. In this Modi-inspired initiative, Hindu and Buddhist religious leaders could work toward building bridges between the Eelam Tamil and Sinhalese Buddhist communities. WikiLeaks reveals that Rajapakse is a Christian and that the church has been campaigning on his behalf with imperial powers. So, it is important to remember that he might covertly act against the emergence of Hindu-Buddhist unity. One must take sufficient safeguards against such covert machinations. One should aim for Buddhist presidents in Sri Lanka in the future along with proportional representation for the Hindus.
Eelam Tamil civilian deaths in the Sri Lankan army surge against the LTTE are regrettable. But what other option was there? LTTE had no intent of giving up and had no qualms about inflicting the worst suffering on Eelam Tamils and Sri Lanka in its greedy pursuit of power. It would’ve continued to harm the Hindus and Hinduism and strengthen Christian proselytism. A limited warfare would’ve only reinforced the LTTE and prolonged the suffering of Eelam Tamils. In such a scenario, an all-out war against the LTTE was the only option even though it came with the inevitable and terrible consequence of civilian deaths as collateral damage because the LTTE leadership unscrupulously used civilians as shields against the Sri Lankan armed forces. It is the LTTE that must take the primary blame for the civilian deaths.
Only a naïve Hindu would sympathize with the LTTE.
(The author is a Silicon Valley-based writer, an atheist, a practicing orthodox Hindu, and author of What Every Hindu Should Know About Christianity.)
THIS IS NOT A GODDAMN RELIGIOUS WAR THIS IS AN ETHNIC WAR! The sinhale monkeys from West Bengal&Orrissa hate the Tamils from Tamil Nadu cus they’re more successful.
Stop making this Hindu Vs Buddhist when its just Tamil VS Sinhale Bengali pigs!
Not all Hindus cremate.
In some places in South India, people bury. We have been doing it for generations.
It is news to me that LTTE hindu soldiers denied their religious sentiments. So sad. No media in Tamil Nadu brought out this. Even Elam Tamils who are writing blogs kept this fact as secret.
A few corrections are needed. There are more Sinhalese Christians in Sri Lanka than there are Tamil Christians. Sinhalese Christians are not a miniscule minority.
Further, the issue of Buddhist-Hindu unity is a myth only perpetuated in India. Buddhists have been responsible for the eviction of Hindu Nepalese from Bhutan, of Hindu Bengalis and Tamilians from Burma, of those Hindus of recent Indian origin (as opposed to indigenous Sri Lankan Hindus) from Sri Lanka, not to mention the viciously anti-Hindu Sri Lankan-sponsored Ambedkarite neo-Buddhists in Maharashtra. The Buddhist clergy leads the anti-Hindu charge in Sri Lanka.
Rajapakse has refused to concede the rights due to the Tamil Hindu minority in Sri Lanka as encapsulated in the Indian brokered 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution.
The author Kalaivani Venkat has over simplified the war by heavily going against the LTTE. Yes! LTTE deserves unreserved condemnation for its brutal conduct but oversimplifying the historical Tamil-Sinhala divide to few decades old ferocious animosities is regrettable.
The conflict that escalated into war was not a Hindu-Buddhist warfare. The whole conflict is language/culture based Tamil-Sinhala conflict. This conflict is historical and precedes the independence of Ceylon from the British. The Hindu religion and its priests are non-political unlike the bigoted Buddhist hierarchy that pursued the anti-Tamil-Hindu campaign so vigorously. Tamil Christians too had their say in the historical struggle and paid a heavy price like the Hindu Tamils.
Hindu culture is inherent part of Tamil culture. My father’s book ‘The cultural Contribution of the Tamils’ will give some insight into it.
The aggressive conversion mission of the extreme Evangelical groups are not political and their contribution towards political struggle is unheard of. If at all conversions had taken place to Christianity, it is on the whole through these extreme Evangelical groups outside the political theatre. Of course, victims of the war would have been easy prey for them.
The successive Sri Lankan governments and their heads have been cunning and devious. India learnt this from the worst J R Jayawardena, Premadasa and now is learning Mahinda Rajapakse. If this is what the regional power and concerned world enjoy with Sri Lanka, the predicament of the Tamils can be easily measured.
What is practiced in Sri Lanka is a systematic campaign of marginalisation of the Tamil to bring them to a level of manageable minorities.
My story: I am Hindu. Born to a mother who was a Christian (Anglican) and was converted to a Hindu, due to compulsion at marriage. She was a practicing Hindu since then and the children were never taught a word of Christianity by her. Her brother Late Rev. Dr. D J Kanagaratnam was the Archdeacon of Jaffna. Neither my maternal uncle nor any of our Christian relatives never attempted influence us. My maternal uncle was more knowledgeable in Hinduism and I learnt a lot from him.
Unfortunately, the author Kalaivani Venkat lacks the depth of the issues and her writing attempts to distract realism.
Yours seems to be a unique case. Most Hindus who marry a christian (man or woman) are forced to convert to christianity. Not only that, they are brought up a strict christians, ridiculing everything that is Hindu.
Not true until the last 10 years Usha. Many Christians who married Hindus did adopt and convert to Hinduism. That trend however has now ceased given the vast resources at the hand of the church – hopefully temporarily.
I have interacted well with the cross section of the religious communities (of Sri Lanka) in Sri Lanka and in the UK. I have come across extremist sentiments among the hardcore evangelical groups. At a Hindu funeral ceremony in London of a Hindu lady, who converted to Christianity due to her sickness on the promise of miracle happening to her to survive longer, the said extreme Pentecostal group behaved appallingly. They even boycotted the Hindu funeral ceremony by standing outside the hall. They only came in to perform their service that was permitted by the tolerant Hindu family members of the dead.
Then in the Tamil concentrated London cities, these groups are campaigning heavily to convert the Tamil Hindus. When I was confronted by an evangelical pastor in streets of Walthamstow, I told him, not to sell his religion like a street dweller selling soap, comb, mirror etc., that even my dead maternal uncle (the former Archdeacon of Jaffna) would be disgusted to see from his grave.
Fr Gasper who was involved in the Manila based Veritas radio attended the Hindu temple I founded in London and praised the Hindu religion for its broader vision. He went on to give a very eloquent analysis of the Ahaval ‘Then Naadu udaya Sivane Potri. Enn-naatavar-kum Iraiva Potri’ (Praise the Shiva belonging to Southern state. God shall bless people of all nations).
What is lacking in Hindus is that we are good at harping and generalise issues without leading a practical way forward. Our attitude is more inwardly than the other religions. There is a need for us to bypass the stigmatic inwardly barriers to meet the challenges ahead. In India, the affluent Bramins and the upper racial hierarchies have to undertake a soul searching exercise to reach out to the Hindus beyond the cast and racial barriers to strengthen the Hindus and Hinduism. Subramaniya Swamy is a typical example, who reflects mephitic tendency for his inwardly good in an hurtful manner.
Thank you B.R. Haran. It is quite likely that the LTTE was controlled by the Church from the very beginning. The propaganda channel Voice of Tigers (VoT) was carried around the world by Radio Veritas, the Catholic global radio network – see http://www.kalaya.org/i990602.html. The Catholic church wouldn’t have carried the VoT unless or otherwise the LTTE was serving the cause of the church. I have also observed that the LTTE front organizations that were active in the West were rabidly anti-Hindu and unabashedly pro-Christian. The primary blame for the suffering of the Eelam Tamils should go to the LTTE, which calculatedly triggered the Black Friday massacres to escalate a low-level conflict into an ethnic warfare. I wish the IPKF para-commando operation that came inches close to killing Prabhakaran and the LTTE leadership in the 80s had succeeded because that would’ve ameliorated the suffering of Eelam Tamils and Sinhalese, helped rebuild that society, and prevented the evangelization of Eelam.
I had quoted a Sri Lankan social worker, who didn’t want to reveal his name, in my three part article titled “Tigers’ Eelam: Nothing ‘Hindu’ or ‘Tamil’ abut it” which I wrote for Vijayavaani in July 2009.
I quote:
A Sri Lankan Tamil Hindu social worker, affiliated to ‘Seva Lanka,’ a national social service institution, who is helping the poor and downtrodden in Vavuniya and Kilinochchi revealed that, “Prabhakaran enforced burials to replace cremations, enforced Dravidian weddings to replace the Hindu marriage ceremony, introduced so called Dravidian names to replace Hindu names, and recommended beef eating.” He added, “He [Prabhakaran] was perhaps never in charge, as someone else shrewder was running the show and that individual or institution disappeared and Prabhakaran alone made mistake after mistake, leading to his eventual death”.
Unquote.
Nice piece Kalavai Venkat.