JAFFNA/MULLAITIVU: In the Tamil-majority northern province of Sri Lanka, as a road turns uphill towards Old Chemmalai, near the scenic Nayaru Lagoon in Mullaitivu district, there stands a statue of Lord Buddha. The nation’s Department of Archaeology now recognises this as an ancient Buddhist site of significance. Adjacent to the statue stands the small Neeraviyadi Pillaiyar Kovil. Local Tamil-speaking Hindus say they have worshipped the Hindu deity here for generations.
In recent years, this location has become a site of contested identities; the latest report of the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), titled The Intersectional Trends of Land Conflicts in Sri Lanka, terms this a sign of increasing “Sinhala-Buddhisisation” in the northern and eastern provinces, where large numbers of Sri Lankan Tamils and Muslims reside.
Raja Chinnathambi, secretary of the Neeraviyadi Pillaiyar Kovil and resident of Chemmalai, claims the identity of the place has been altered since the final Eelam War when people of his village had to flee.
For generations, families from the village had access to land in Old Chemmalai, he says. This changed once the war ended in 2009. The Lankan army has since set up a camp there, rendering a large part of that land inaccessible. A board erected by the DoA at the contested religious site now prohibits many activities, including land clearing, logging, and cultivation.
“Earlier, we had unfettered access to this land. We would graze cattle and pick forest produce. Now, even observing festivals at our temple has become difficult,” he says. Local Tamil-speaking Hindus fought a long and intense battle — on the ground and in the courts — to retain their right to worship here.
The changes in demography and cultural identity in many places, with the support of state agencies such as the DoA, are a major cause of ethnic tension, especially in the eastern province.
Construction of new Buddhist temples in Kuchchaveli in the eastern district of Trincomalee and of a Buddhist place of worship in Kuruthurmalai in the northern district of Mullaitivu, which was traditionally used by Tamil-speaking Hindus to worship Athi Shivan Iyanar, are some of the widely-discussed instances of Sinhala-Buddhisisation.
Pointing out how the DoA focusses primarily on the discovery of “ancient” Buddhist sites, Mahendran Thiruvarangan, an academic from University of Jaffna and member of the Jaffna People’s Forum for Coexistence, says these decisions of these institutions are all made at Colombo.
“Maybe there is a history to a particular site. But they (the State agencies) don’t want to think how these sites undergo changes over a prolonged period of time, that they are fluid and there are overlapping identities. They don’t think of the possibility that the people, who really worshipped at those sites in the past, might have identified themselves differently and perhaps not as Tamils, Sinhalese etc. Isn’t it an issue to now go and brand a place as Tamil, Hindu or Buddhist?” he asks.
VSS Thananchayan, a lawyer from Puthukkudiyiruppu, has represented Tamils in such cases. He says a majority of these legal battles are futile. He points out how T Saravanarajah, a magistrate of the Mullaitivu district court, reportedly had to flee the country last year, owing to severe pressure and threats, as he had delivered a verdict in favour of the Tamils.
“These issues have permeated through the use of legal structures and state agents… who are appropriating such mechanisms to fuel ethnic and religious tensions in the northern and eastern regions of Sri Lanka, laying groundwork for divisions that can lead to future conflicts,” the CPA report, released in August, says.
Noting that this trend has led to the emergence of extremist Hindu nationalistic rhetoric in the north and east, the report concludes, “The inability or unwillingness to address these trends and bring sustainable solutions will exacerbate conflict and further impede Sri Lanka’s efforts at rebuilding and reconciliation”.