Congress, BJP, religiously sanctify genocide
[TamilNet, Friday, 07 September 2012, 05:16 GMT]
By inviting Mahinda Rajapaksa to inaugurate a Buddhist institution at
Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh in India, both New Delhi’s Congress regime and
the BJP-run Madhya Pradesh state government endorse religious sanction
to the kind of genocide committed and being committed by the Rajapaksa
regime of Colombo. In the process they undermine the prospects of
Buddhism re-emerging as an expression of the downtrodden masses, accused
Dalit Buddhist circles in Tamil Nadu. Sinhala Buddhism is an
Orientalist rediscovery in the libraries of the colonial West. India’s
Hinduism is no exception. Both have agreed upon the deployment of
genocide in the annihilation of nations in the region and it is tested
on Eezham Tamils. It is a warning to peoples all over South Asia and
elsewhere, commented an academic in Jaffna.
Immediately after the New Delhi-Colombo partnered genocidal war against
the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island, New Delhi’s Mauryan
specialist Romila Thapar went to Colombo to preach Buddhism. This week,
Hindutva BJP’s parliamentary leader in New Delhi’s Lok Sabha, Sushma
Swaraj, unveiled a portrait of the Mauryan emperor Asoka at Colombo’s
High Commission in New Delhi.
Last week, while New Delhi was
desecrating the Kapila Vastu relics by their display in the land of
genocide, Indian intelligence cum corporate run Observer Research
Foundation’s spokesperson Sathiyamoorthy was eulogising the ‘cultural
relations’ between the two countries. And a few months before that,
Romila Thapar’s student Sudharshan Seneviratne chose to talk about
regional unification at the same foundation.
Exploiting all
avenues –trade, Bollywood, foundations, media, sports etc – it now comes
to Buddhism sanctifying the genocidal partnership of New Delhi and
Colombo.
* * *
In the last three years
after the genocidal war, ample exposure has been made on Rajapaksa
regime openly using Buddhism as a weapon for the structural genocide of
the nation of Eezham Tamils in the island.
Sinhala-Buddhist
stupas mushroom in the country of Eezham Tamils where there are no
Sinhala-Buddhists except the occupying genocidal military. They appear
at landmark localities even in the Jaffna city and the peninsula.
While
the war-torn people live in camps and shelters, the Sinhala state’s
money as a priority goes to the Buddhist structures of massive
dimensions.
While showcasing patronage to a few such as the
Nalloor Kanthasaamy temple, several hundreds of Saiva temples in the
remote areas as well as sensitive localities in the north and east are
systematically destroyed and Buddhist images and structures are planted
there with the help of the occupying military, in the model of European
colonialism of the Portuguese and the Dutch.
The whole exercise
is clearly targeted to deny territoriality to the nation of Eezham
Tamils, to psychologically deal a blow to them that their country
doesn’t belong to them but to the Sinhala-Buddhists, to pave way for
demographic changes through military-Sinhala-Buddhist enclaves and
finally to the annihilation of the nation of Eezham Tamils.
The same is done to the Tamil-speaking Muslims too.
* * *
The
reality is very obvious that the genocidal process could never be
checked without recognising the nation and territoriality of Eezham
Tamils and restoring their sovereignty.
Not that this reality is unknown to the establishment in New Delhi.
But
it becomes increasingly clear nowadays that the roadmap for the
genocide of the nation of Eezham Tamils in this way has been agreed upon
between the establishments in New Delhi and Colombo. In this respect
there seems to be no difference between the Congress and the BJP, as in
the case with the SLFP and UNP.
Eezham Tamils compromising with
them, thinking that it would at least help ‘survival’, is not going to
save them from structural genocide that is a foregone conclusion as far
as the outlook of New Delhi and Colombo is concerned.
Therefore,
the option given to Eezham Tamils and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu is
nothing but struggle – essentially against New Delhi, inside India as
well as in the international arena.
* * *
The
most dangerous precedence conceived by both the Congress and the BJP,
which intellectuals and media in India should counter outright is
bestowment of state recognition to genocidal religion. In future the
precedence would sanctify religious genocide inside India too.
Inviting
Mahinda Rajapaksa to inaugurate a Buddhist institution in India is
worse than his coming as ‘Guest of Honour’ in 2010 to Commonwealth Games
in New Delhi.
Unfortunately sections of mainstream media in
India such as The Hindu is yet to acknowledge what has happened and what
is happening in the island is genocide, fearing that it would
automatically justify the independence of Eezham Tamils.
But
media of other nations in the neighbourhood, facing the brunt of the Sri
Lanka model patronized by New Delhi, have noted the point and its
impact.
Sri Lankan Buddhism inspires religion-oriented animosities in Myanmar, revealed a feature appeared in New Mandala in June.
Junior
monks of Myanmar, studying Buddhism in Sri Lanka and elsewhere spread
made-up stories against Muslims in Myanmar, stirring public anger that
the ‘Kalar’ [a derogatory term used for dark-skinned Muslims of Bengali
origin] are trying to take over the Buddhist nation, the feature by Sai
Latt said.
Meanwhile, Dalit circles in Tamil Nadu were commenting
on genocidal Rajapaksa banning an annual animal sacrifice at a folk
temple in the Northwest Province a few days ago, citing the arrival of
New Delhi’s ‘Kapila Vastu’ relics to the island. In India they could
fight for the folk religion, but people are gagged in Sri Lanka, they
commented.
The Dalit Buddhists are worried about the genocidal
image Buddhism gets by New Delhi promoting Rajapaksa as a symbol of
Buddhism.
The British allowed the Sinhala-Buddhist Anagarika
Dharmapala who once called the Tamils of the island as Para-demalas
(foreigners, the word also means untouchables), to operate at Sanchi.
Even now some important Buddhist relics of the site are in the custody
of the Mahabodhi Society started by Dharmabala.
The
Orientalism-rediscovered Sinhala Buddhism had a death of disgrace with
the genocide it committed in Vanni, and Rajapaksa and New Delhi now
parade the credibility-lost ghost.
If the Hindutva Hindus of
India don’t see the Rajapaksa peril, Dalits and Muslims should remind
them of it, commented a political activist in Chennai.
Chronology:
Related Articles:05.09.12
BJP denies inviting Rajapaksa as Tamil leaders announce prot.. 04.09.12
‘BJP legitimizes Sri Lanka’s culture of genocide through Bud.. 03.08.10
New Delhi academic comments in Colombo on diaspora transnati.. 02.08.10
Assert Eezham Tamil identity in international arena: Es Po 30.01.09
'Vision' of a Sinhala sociologist
External Links: