Global Phenomenon Addressed: BODH GAYA BLASTS: ISLAMISTS VS BUDDHISTS Buddha Mortified Bodh Gaya could be a warning for India to take note of the conflict in Myanmar DEBARSHI DASGUPTA, PRANAY SHARMA

Monday, July 15, 2013

BODH GAYA BLASTS: ISLAMISTS VS BUDDHISTS Buddha Mortified Bodh Gaya could be a warning for India to take note of the conflict in Myanmar DEBARSHI DASGUPTA, PRANAY SHARMA

Hurt locker A Buddhist monk injured in the Bodh Gaya blasts on July 7

BODH GAYA BLASTS: ISLAMISTS VS BUDDHISTS

Buddha Mortified

Bodh Gaya could be a warning for India to take note of the conflict in Myanmar

DEBARSHI DASGUPTA, PRANAY SHARMA

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?286844

Why We Should Worry

If communal clashes continue in Myanmar, they could lead to exodus of Rohingya refugees to India
It could also lead to retaliatory attacks against Buddhists and their assets in India
Such attacks could rally hardline Hindu forces to try and put further pressure on Indian Muslims
Attacks on Buddhist shrines in India could dissuade foreign visitors
Copycat attacks in neighbouring countries could lead to general instability, leading to a highly avoidable spiral of violence.

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It's Bodh Gaya's calm that gave Buddha's enlightenment its immediate, conducive context. It's where millions of his followers from across the world flock to every year. That calm was shattered, its temple scarred, when 10 low-intensity blasts hit the complex this week, injuring at least two monks. Three other devices were mercifully defused. Few would have thought that this house of peace could also be bloodied with violence, but this is what happened early on the morning of July 7.

Most are still trying to understand why Buddhism, a religion most associate with ahimsa, was targeted. Its founder Gautama Buddha had urged his followers not to get hostile even if a thief were carving their limbs with a double-handed saw. It's where a disillusioned Ashoka sought refuge after the destructive violence of Kalinga. It's a religion whose followers in Tibet would rather burn themselves than blow up Chinese army units. The sight of a bloodied monk being wheeled into an ambulance soon after the blasts in Bodh Gaya ties in with all those images.

The answer perhaps can be found in India's neighbourhood and more particularly, just over a thousand miles away, in Myanmar. Here, a new form of Buddhism is taking hold in parts of the country that has its Muslims fleeing for cover. For them, being Burmese is being Buddhist. Its followers prefer to arm themselves with machetes instead of sutras. They have no qualms beating Muslims to pulp. They don't think twice before torching their homes.

Shards of peace NSG man collects evidence at the Mahabodhi temple in Bodh Gaya. (Photograph by AP)

It's a conflict that should have India worried. Not only does it create a situation where it could face an influx of Rohingya Muslim refugees, trying to flee persecution in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, there is now palpable fear of things turning violent here as well. Indian investigators looking into the July 7 Bodh Gaya attack are also probing the possibility of whether this is the handiwork of Islamic militant groups trying to avenge attacks on Muslims in Myanmar. While one can surely question the all-too-pat claims that Islamists, upset over the way Muslims are being treated in Burma, carried out the blasts to extract revenge, that the conflict in Myanmar is a serious one cannot be wished away. In August last year, irate Muslims, again seething over the treatment of Rohingyas, attacked a Buddha statue in Lucknow. Mercifully, India's Buddhists, 1-2 per cent of the Indian population, chose not to react in kind. Not just the Bodh Gaya temple, even the Dalai Lama has been under threat from extremist groups, alerts to which have reportedly increased substantially following growing attacks on Muslims in Myanmar.


	A Pakistani angle is being probed as well, given how it is publicising the Rohingyas' plight at forums like the OIC.

A day after the terror attack in Bihar, India's outgoing foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai, on a scheduled visit to Myanmar, reassured its leadership that Bodh Gaya remains a "place of peace and pilgrimage". While the Indian establishment has not been able to verify whether the Bodh Gaya incident was indeed a revenge attack for recent developments in Myanmar, particularly the continuing attacks on Muslims by militant Buddhist groups, authorities say the attacks and its fallout are of "serious concern". Mindful of possible repercussions in India, Mathai and his Myanmarese hosts also discussed the need to urgently step up cooperation to tackle terrorism and to ensure the communal violence did not spread to other parts of Myanmar. New Delhi not only contributed $1 million for the rehabilitation work in the violence-affected areas and offered to share its experience of dealing with communal violence, but also briefed the Myanmarese government—through Mathai—about measures being taken by India to deal with the emerging scenario and promised to share findings of the ongoing investigation, since a Burmese monk too was injured in the attack.

That there could be a possible Pakistan connection is also being investigated, given the way the country has made attempts to publicise the plight of the Rohingyas at international fora like the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. An attack like the one at Bodh Gaya would help the international community focus on the Rohingyas and at the same time create fresh instability and social discord in India. A news report in August last year suggested extremists based in Pakistan were exploiting the Rohingya crisis to recruit people for their cause and fund their own agendas. A picture of monks standing in front of victims of a quake in China was being circulated online as one of Muslims killed by the Buddhists in Burma.

But the Indian establishment is equally worried about militant Buddhism in Sri Lanka, where tensions between the dominant community and the Muslim minority have also been on the rise. Unlike in Myanmar where the government at least seems concerned about limiting anti-Muslim violence, Buddhist fundamentalists in Sri Lanka enjoy the support of some senior Sinhalese political leaders. The militant Bodu Bala Sena has made Muslims its target, opposing halal slaughter and calling for a boycott of Muslim businesses. At least one mosque and a shrine have been attacked. Some sections in the Indian establishment also argue that the western media is exaggerating the crisis in Myanmar to force US president Barack Obama to slow down his engagement with the leadership in Myanmar. Sections in Washington were unhappy when US lifted the sanctions and geared up to begin a meaningful engagement with Myanmar, where military generals continue to lurk in the background. The spate of attacks against the Muslim minority by the dominant Buddhists could well raise serious questions about the regime's seriousness in creating a proper democratic and inclusive society.

However, even those who think the ideology of radical Burmese monk Ashin Wirathu misrepresents the true nature of Burmese Buddhism are worried about his growing clout. "His rise is definitely a matter of concern," says Siddharth Singh, a professor at the department of Pali and Buddhist studies at the Benares Hindu University, about the man dubbed the 'Burmese bin Laden' for his anti-Muslim rhetoric (see interview). "But his support is something that is driven mainly by local conditions. His position has also been severely criticised by senior monks in Myanmar. Therefore, any talk of a militant Buddhism emerging in the region is, I think, an over-exaggeration." This is something former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal agrees with. "Unlike Islam, militant Buddhism doesn't have a pan-Buddhist element. So, what's happening is more domestic. I also don't understand why India would be targeted because neither is India a Buddhist country nor is it supporting the persecution in Myanmar," he says.

Photograph by PTI

But can a militant streak gain the support of India's Buddhists? It's a thought that leaves Bhikshu Satyapala, a professor at Delhi University's department of Buddhist Studies, simply incredulous. "We have been dying, struggling to survive for 3,000 years. How can you call us militant?" he asks. Interestingly, some among the neo-Buddhists, Hindu Dalit converts into Buddhism, are talking of the Bodh Gaya attacks as a Hindu right-wing conspiracy. Being locked into a conflict with Islam is still not something that is being debated. Moreover, there are many scholars of Buddhism who see Wirathu's actions as an act of self-defence, more of protection than aggression. "If a thief comes to your house, will you give him tea?" asks Lokesh Chandra, a Buddhist scholar.


	Conflicts such as these, says one academic, are sustained by non-religious factors like poor economic development.

Buddhism has non-violence at its core but its spiritual cornerstone obviously hasn't stopped Buddhists from becoming violent. Not today. Not in the past. The reprehensible Khmer Rouge emerged in a Buddhist milieu; Pol Pot was a Buddhist monk in his youth. And this is not the first time in Burma that monks have endorsed violence as a tactic. They were also at the forefront of the fights against British colonialists and are known to have stabbed Europeans in Yangon in support of independence. In Sri Lanka too, violence and Buddhism go a long way back in history. Dutugamumnu, a Sinhalese Buddhist king who successfully fought off Tamil Chola king Elara in the 2nd century BC, is revered as someone who epitomises the Sinhalese identity.

The growing radicalism amongst Buddhists, especially those living as minorities in Muslim-majority countries, is something that is recurring with greater frequency at religious meets and online. Tibetan filmmaker Pema D. Gakyil, whose e-mail appendage reads 'Give peace a chance before violence...' says Buddhists are people just like anyone. His 2004 film We Are No Monks questions the stereotype of Buddhists being non-violent. "They are people just like anyone and have the same flaws. Monks are burning themselves because they don't want to be violent to others. If these same people turn to killing Chinese, there could be more ethnic and religious hatred in Tibet. My film asks that question. How long can someone be patient?" he asks. Patience is also running thin in the Buddhist monarchy of Thailand. A Muslim insurgency in its south has claimed some 5,000 lives since 2004. Some Buddhists in the area, including monks, have taken up arms and formed community defence groups.

According to Gyana Ratna, associate professor at the department of Pali in Chittagong University, these disparate conflicts are sustained principally by non-religious factors such as poor economic development. It is especially true of Burma, where poverty is widespread and where economic grievances have driven this conflict. At least one of the major outbreaks of anti-Muslim violence in Myanmar happened after an argument over the price of jewellery at a Muslim-owned shop in Meikhtila. Back in his country in Chittagong, Buddhists have been attacked several times by Islamists. This has led to a growing feeling of resentment amongst young Buddhists, who hold back from revenge attacks more because of being a minority than their belief in non-violence. "I think this violence between Islam and Buddhism will subside once the local conditions are addressed," says Ratna. His fingers though, he adds, are crossed.

By Debarshi Dasgupta and Pranay Sharma

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