Columns

More than two thousand years ago, the Buddha was asked by his chief disciple whether he could erect a statue of the Buddha for the benefit of those who came to worship him in his absence from the grove where he usually dwelled.

The Buddha’s response to Ananda was a firm ‘no’.

He said to Ananda, ‘Do not erect statues of me, Ananda, for statues will only divert them from following the Dhamma. I’m only the Tathagata, the teacher of the Dhamma.’

Even after three hundred years of his passing away, the Sinhala kings of Lanka observed his tenet strictly and faithfully. When they built the towering stupas in Anuradhapura to make the capital the grandeur of the then-known world, they did not build a single statue, in obedience to the Buddha’s call.

They in their wisdom realised that statues will only waylay the devout from following the path to the Dhamma. But they could not foresee how 20 centuries later a Buddha statue would become not only an icon of worship without which no Buddhist temple would be replete but also an icon of political hate.

Last Sunday’s late-night raid by the police on a Trinco Buddhist temple to forcibly remove the installed Buddha statue amidst the protests of the temple’s resident monks, even to the extent of assaulting two monks so badly that they had to be warded in hospital, was the shocking spectacle people saw on social media the following morning.

The public outrage that ensued prompted Police Minister Ananda Wijepala to make a statement in Parliament on Monday. He told the House, ‘The Buddha statue of the Sambuddha Jayanthi Vihara in Trincomalee, which was removed last night for safety, will be re-erected today.’

But the question was raised by an outraged public whether this was the usual practice of the police on receiving a threat that an installed Buddha statue – or any other religious statue – would be damaged, to storm the temple at night where it lies and remove it by force themselves against protests from its guarding monks and remand it at the police station?

RAPPORT AFTER RUMPUS: Police return the Buddha statue to the temple with all pomp and ceremony

Rather than raising religious tensions in the surrounding areas, wouldn’t the most sensible and pragmatic measure have been to place the STF to guard the site?

If, for instance, there had been a threat of vandalism to the Samadhi Buddha statue at Anuradhapura’s open-air park, would the police have gone stealthily at night and removed it from its historic site? If a similar oafish police force had existed at Anuradhapura, no doubt, they would have done the same.

Pity for the policemen though, who were probably not acting on their own initiative but simply acting on orders received from above. But whether from above or on their own initiative, the remorseless keenness they showed in trampling over Buddhist sensitivities to accomplish their mission made one ask, ‘Aren’t they Buddhist, too? Do they not go to a temple with their wives and children, even on a rare day, to pay respect and fall in worship and pay homage before the symbolic image of the Buddha?’

Sunday night’s raid on a Buddhist temple to forcibly seize and remove the Buddha statue without a court warrant and without the consent of the resident monks succeeded in making it an illegal act. Due to the public uproar that followed this ill-advised, illegal act, this sacrilege, Minister Wijepala said on Monday morn in Parliament that it will be duly returned to the temple forthwith.

Though the police duly released from police custody the illegally seized Buddha statue and brought it back to the temple with all pomp and ceremony, it could not mitigate nor excuse the bullish and brutal behaviour shown the night before.

Neither could a minister’s simple sorry absolve him from his ministerial responsibility to take the blame for this unpardonable and sacrilegious act committed by the police under his ministry under his control. Their thoughtless acts on Sunday night could well have set the country aflame, burning in religious fires.

This heinous act done by Buddhists in police uniform in a land Buddhist to the core made the Mahanayaka Thera of the Amarapura Chapter rise in protest to express his dismay and shock to President Anura Kumara over the incident that transpired on late Sunday night at the Bodhiraja Sambuddha Jayanthi Viharaya in Trincomalee.

In the letter to the President, Amarapura’s chief, the Most Venerable Karagoda Uyangoda Maithrimurthi Thera, declared, ‘“The police have violated Article 9 of the Constitution by assaulting Buddhist monks and removing the Buddha statue at the Viharaya. Buddhism has to be safeguarded as per Article 9 of the Constitution. The injured monks have been admitted to hospital, as they needed urgent treatment. The Buddhists in the area have been saddened by this move. It is questionable as to who directed the police to act in the way they did. This alone is a blatant violation of Article 9 of the Constitution.’

‘We request you to focus on this matter and see to it that the Viharaya is safeguarded and the initial plan to demolish some of the buildings is suspended.’

He also cited the Viharaya’s existence on this site since 1951 and said that the ownership of the land had been conferred on the temple authorities by a presidential decree in 2014. ‘Therefore’, he said, ‘it is regrettable that resident monks are subjected to various forms of harassment today.’

So did the majority of opposition MPs rise in one voice to vehemently condemn the sacrilegious incident that took place at Trinco’s Sambodhi Vihara on Sunday night.

Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa strongly condemned the police actions in Trincomalee. He asked, ‘On whose authority did the police come and interfere with the Trincomalee Sri Sambuddhajayanthi Bodhiraja Viharaya? Chapter 2 of the Constitution grants Buddhism the foremost place and makes it obligatory on the State to protect the Buddha Sasana. This Viharaya, established in 1951, had been registered with the Department of Buddhist Affairs in 2010 and held a ‘Pooja Bhumi’, or sacred land deed.

Furthermore, Sajith said, ‘Any issues should have been resolved through discussions with the Mahanayaka Theras.’

The leader of the Sarvajana Balaya, MP Dilith Jayaweera, said that the police had assaulted Venerable Kasama Thero and removed his robes.

“This is an attack on the foundation of this country. There are ministers in the current government who believe worshipping a statue is ‘tribal’. The government will not be able to remove the robes of Buddhist monks and assault them and get away with it. One day all the people will rise up against this government.’

Why are certain government MPs ashamed that Article 9 of the Constitution states, ‘The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place, and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana,’ while also assuring freedom and rights to all other religions?

Why do these MPs cringe when Article 9 is talked of, while official Catholic states unabashedly flaunt Catholicism as the state religion, and their citizens wear the cross around their necks to show they are proud of being Catholics? Whereas in Lanka, certain Buddhists feel far too embarrassed to be seen even dead with the symbolic ‘pirith noola’, or sacred thread, tied around their wrist, that they cut it off no sooner they leave the temple grounds.

For instance, Monaco has no qualms that Catholicism is named as the official religion in the constitution. Neither do Costa Ricans have any that Catholicism is the official religion, though other religions are also practised.

Nor do Argentinians have any qualms that only a Catholic can be the country’s president by law, while Mexico, the Philippines, Brazil, Colombia, Italy and Poland, having large Catholic populations, are known as Catholic countries.

On the Islamic front, eight Islamic states, namely, Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Oman, Pakistan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, have adopted Islam as the ideological foundation of state and constitution.

India, though a secular state, with its historically large Hindu population, is universally known as a Hindu state.

As for the United States of America, it has always been known as a Christian land ever since its founding day, and no American makes a song and dance that it should be anything else, knowing that freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution, along with all other freedoms.

The traditional blessing delivered at the end of a US president’s inaugural address is ‘God bless America’, showing the world, in no uncertain terms, that it’s a nation under God.

England, having no written constitution to spell it out, has traditionally been a Christian state, with the King sworn in at his coronation as the Commander in Chief and Defender of the Faith, the Christian faith.

Surprisingly, former ITAK MP Sumanthiran, who had never trod on racism’s or bigotry’s road, has finally decided, in defeat, to set foot on the last remaking road of the scoundrel.

With ITAK MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam for company, Sumanthiran showed no sympathy to Buddhist sensitivities over the removal of the Buddha statue from its legally occupied site but gloated on it being forcibly carried away in a night raid by police goons without a court warrant.

Are these the illegal actions that Sumanthiran, a President’s Counsel and an official of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, now sees fit to condone and to applaud?

Worse was to come. In a message posted late Sunday night, after the police had forcibly removed the Buddha statue, assaulting two protecting monks in the process, ITAK MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam thanked Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala for taking prompt action.

But on Monday, giving in to public demands, Wijepala, in a U-turn, ordered the police to return the Buddha statue back to the temple. Celebrations at the ITAK office come to an immediate halt. Whatever shining star of hope they saw in the night had disappeared in the morn. Eating humble vade, ITAK Secretary Sumanthiran, with racist bitterness in his mouth, posts a message on social media, condemning the government they had thanked only late last night.

Sumanthiran accused the government of giving in to “majoritarian pressures” and being a “racist, Sinhala Buddhist nationalist force”.

It’s deplorable that Sumanthiram, a Catholic of the deepest religious faith, who would have felt his Catholic sensitivities crushed had a statue of Christ been forcibly removed from the altar and, amidst the pleadings of church fathers and the devout against its removal, carried away by the police in the dark hours of the night, cannot feel the sensitivities of those of the Buddhist faith.

Someone, somewhere, is attempting to engulf this country in fire again. No one knows who’s kindling the flames nor whose hand bears the ladle to stir the cauldron of religious hatred. The government must find out fast – faster than it removed and returned the Buddha statue to the temple grounds – and end the threat of Lanka burning in racial fires again.