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Sri Lankan Society in an Era of Globalisation
Like all Indians, fed on a particular mythological, religious narrative, it had never occurred to me that there could be other versions, other narratives of the same legends, though in theory one is educated and intellectually prepared to accept this possibility. People weave their own myths be it political, religious or cultural and therein lie the roots of an ethnic group’s dominance giving rise to competing quests for hegemony/subjugation and consequent conflict. Conflicts that often lead to the collapse of a country amidst a people divided and an economy wrecked, with apparently no way forward. From the debris of such conflicts that are inevitably militarised in the contemporary world, where do you begin to pick up the pieces for recognition (of identity of the fratricidal foes), reconstruction (of a history of grievances) and reconciliation (of the severed parts of a multi-ethnic nation) towards revival and restoration of social cohesion? You begin with trust, as the distinguished editors Hasbullah and Morrison recommend, preceded by a rigorous mapping of a nation’s politics where conformity is the result of coercion and diversity a cause of divisiveness. Sri Lanka is seething with every conceivable kind of hate, resentment and conflict driven by caste, class, language, religion, lifestyle, disparities, discrimination and prejudices new and old – all of which, as Bruce Mathews says in his chapter on ‘Tightening Social Cohesion among the Sinhalese", continues to thwart the development of trust. This volume on Sri Lanka is the result of a project that focused on research and knowledge-building on issues of globalisation and social realities in five Asian countries; the other four being China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea. The driving premise, given in the Introduction, is that Sri Lanka will have to take up the task of building a new society and, in the absence of any prevalent model, a new social order will have to be created by Sri Lankans on their own. Problems, principles and procedures are the labels the editors give to the three elements that keep recurring in the process of societal organisation. In the chapters that follow, the contributors – some of the best minds in their respective disciplines – look at the causes for Sri Lanka’s failure to become an inclusive state; the mutual exclusiveness of the Sinhalese and the Tamils; the power of caste over religion and a nationalism that subsumes both in a self-destructive spiral of religios-ethnic violence; the rise of competing hegemonic groups trapped in an inescapable cycle of reaction and counter-reaction. The academic rigour of enquiry and assessment of the roots of the struggle for a Tamil homeland or the organisation of Buddhism and its political role does not leave the effort bereft of the emotional intensity that pervades the competing nationalisms and the cultural identities they seek to overrun if not absorb. The criss-crossing structures, mechanisms and practices that have evolved in the inclusion-exclusion process are set out with lucidity and insight. The book shows how enabling nationalism and militancy, instead of liberating has become destructive; why Tamils remain united behind the LTTE for all its brutal Pol Potist ways; the prevalent constructs of mother/woman in the LTTE and in women’s movements; and the politics of militancy and suicide. This is a rich and well put-together compilation that draws from a variety of perspectives. There is no dearth of books on the Sri Lankan condition given the vibrant intellectual traditions of and the international interest in the island republic. Yet this book is compelling because the effort is not confined to any one aspect such as the civil war or its security implications for the country and the neighbourhood. Hasbullah and Morrison break new ground with the earnestness of their endeavour in tracing the origins, causes and course of the many dimensions of Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife with the aim of renewing and rebuilding the fractured island through new thinking, activism and participation. |
ON a recent visit to Sri Lanka, I went to a Buddhist
temple. Not out of devotion, but because it was one of the locations
where the pioneer of Sinhala cinema, the legendary Lester James Peiris
(contemporary of Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray) had shot his latest
film. Although the iconography bore a remarkable resemblance to that of
a Hindu temple, what struck me was a huge idol of the Buddha and a much,
much smaller one of Vishnu. On asking the priest-guide about this
disparity in proportions given the belief of the Buddha himself being an
avatar of Vishnu, I was corrected: "Vishnu is an avatar of the
Buddha. When he had to take leave of the physical world, he entrusted it
to Vishnu". Buddha was the greater, if not the greatest, divinity.