The myth of secularism

"In 1972 a correction was made in the constitution by including the clause on the protection of Buddhism. This was nothing new and had been there in the unwritten constitution of king Gemunu and also in the ‘Sinhala-English’ agreement of 1815."

by Nalin de Silva

(November 26, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Many pundits claiming to be full-bright scholars preach from their pulpits that Sri Lanka should be a secular country. Some of these pundits claim that Sri Lanka is a Buddhist theocracy, without of course understanding that in Buddhism there is no theology or any God in whose name a government can be established. In fact even the word Buddhism is a misnomer and only an anglicised corrupted version of the term Budusasuna. Western Christians who could not understand the term Budusasuna coined the term Buddhism.

Without going into a philosophical discussion on Buddha Dhamma and Budusasuna let us concentrate on the secularity of the Sri Lankan state and other states in Europe and the United States of America. The latter are all Christian in culture and in some states various denominations of Christianity are the religion of the state as well. There are two arguments that these pundits can bring forward against this observation. Before discussing their intended arguments let us remember that the queen of the United Kingdom, is the head of the Anglican Christian Church.

What we have to remember is that Ms. Windsor is the defender of the faith meaning the Anglican Christian church, and of course the union jack is nothing but the union of crosses of some saints in England, Scotland and Wales. The national anthem of Britain commences with the words God save the queen and not with "devo vassatu kalena" or "Hare Krishna". Though there is no written constitution, Britain is a Christian state, not only in culture but in religion as well. The Parliament meaning not only the house of commons but the house of lords, the privy council are all Christian institutions and it is the Archbishop of Canterbury and not the Viharadipathi of the London Vihara who officiates at the coronation of the king or the queen of England. Sarvagamika concepts are not valid in Westminster Abbey.

Norway the Godfather of the peace agreements with the LTTE, is well ahead of England when it comes to religion and by no stretch of the imagination can Norway be called a secular state. The USA is also Christian though it may not be written in the constitution and as we have mentioned in a previous article, Obama did not find it proper to end his acceptance speech with "Theruvan Saranai". Instead he said God bless America.

The Sri Lankan pundits who argue for secularism could always argue that we are not bound by what is happening in the other countries and that we should set an example to others. Of course we have set an example by almost defeating a guerrilla terrorist movement and it is said that after the British defeated the terrorist movement in Malaysia this is the first time that an army has come close to defeating a terrorist movement. The pro-secularism pundits will also argue that until 1972 Sri Lanka or Ceylon was a secular state and that it was Mrs. Bandaranaike with the help of the Trotskyite Dr. Colvin R. de Silva who turned Sri Lanka into a Buddhist theocracy.
As we have said there are no so called ‘secular states’ in the world. States are interconnected with culture, and religions are born in cultures and not in vacua. In that sense states are associated with religions.

Now coming back to the so called secular state Ceylon was supposed to be prior to 1972, it can be easily seen that the state from about 1840 to 1972 was very Christian. To begin with Lanka or Sinhale had been a Sinhala Buddhist state at least from the time of king Gemunu. There would have been Buddhists in Lanka even before the arrival of Arhant Mahinda. During the reign of king Devanampiya Tissa the Budusasuna was officially established in Lanka and the king Gemunu established the Sinhala Buddhist state. In the fifth century the Sinhala Theravada Bhikkus with the help of Theravada Bhikkus from Andra Pradesh such as Buddhaghosha Thera and Buddhadatta Thera took steps to translate Buddhist texts into Pali and took upon themselves the task of protecting the Budusasuna. Since then the Sinhalas have protected the Theravada Budusasuna and when the so called ‘Kandyan convention’ was signed in 1815, the Sinhala leaders made it a point to insist on the inclusion of two important clauses. In these two clauses the English promised to govern the country according to the Sinhala laws and to protect Buddhism as practised by the Buddhists then.

In essence what this meant was that Lanka or Sinhale continued to be a Sinhala Buddhist state as established by king Gemunu and the English took over the task of protecting the Budusasuna as the custodians of the country. However in 1817 the English appointed a Muslim revenue collector in Vellassa and thus violated one aspect of the condition that the country should be ruled according to Sinhala customs. By about 1840, the English had violated all aspects of this particular clause and also violated the clause on the protection of the Budusasuna. They handed over the Dalada Maligawa to the Diyawadane Nilame and officially washed their hands off the responsibility of protecting the Sasana. It could be said that it was from this day Sri Lanka became a Christian state under English imperialism.

Ceylon from 1840 was not a secular state. In 1948, the independence that was given to us was restricted by the infamous clause 29 which allowed the citizens of the country to appeal to the privy council, among other things. The privy council being a body of the house of lords was not a secular institute and the law being a product of English culture was not dissociated from Anglo Saxon Christianity. Even the Roman Dutch Law cannot be considered a secular law and we are still not independent of the Christian culture. Further, the system of knowledge, including Science is not independent of Christian culture.

In 1972 a correction was made in the constitution by including the clause on the protection of Buddhism. This was nothing new and had been there in the unwritten constitution of king Gemunu and also in the ‘Sinhala-English’ agreement of 1815. I would say it was only a beginning to correct all those injustices done to the Sinhala Buddhists and the Budusasuna by the English. However, the ‘quarter-brights’ are upset because they think the privileged positions that they hold and the hegemony of western Christian modernity would be undermined if the process continues. - Sri Lanka Guardian