Note

Of Religion and Violence

Ram Puniyani

Most of the countries of South Asia have faced the bar baric problem of violence targeted against religious minorities. The form of this may have been different, but the outcome has been similar, the brutality against religious minorities, violence against innocent human beings. The current times (mid 2013) may be one of the worst when people witness continuing sectarian violence in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Myanmar, more or less running parallel. Many a time when talk about violence involving Muslims has been under discussion, some propagandists have tried to associate Islam with violence and so the strife. Similarly some others may say that Hinduism permits violence as in Gita or so and so is the problem. In popular perception Buddhism is the religion of peace. The truth is that while the religious precepts are for morality, the part of religion invoked for violence has more to do with contemporary political issues, which are given the garb of religion. While Lord Gautama Buddha is surely the major apostle of peace, one has seen violence by Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, Thailand and now overtly in Myanmar (March 2013).

Troops are keeping a vigil, martial law has been declared to stop the communal rage which has lasted for three days in Meikhatila in Myanmar. This violence has involved the Buddhists and Muslims. Here the official toll stands at 31 dead, while the unofficial figures are higher. A state of emergency has been declared in this state. As usual a trivial incident involving the argument between the Buddhist couple and a Muslim owner of gold shop resulted in the triggering of simmering dislikes and discord between these two communities resulting in violence. While one Buddhist monk has also been killed the major victims of the violence are Muslims. This bring to the memory the communal clash of June-July (2012) in Rakhine State in western Myanmar. In that violence officially 110 people were killed and it left 120,000 people homeless. Those killed and left homeless were mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims.

Interestingly the communal strife was under the wraps during the preceding dictatorial regime. With the efforts to bring in democracy in some form these strifes are coming to surface due to the diverse and plural nature of Myanmar society, which is majority Buddhist but has substantial number of Muslim minorities. Rohingiya Muslims are probably the most persecuted minority in the world. Being a substantial number in Myanmar, they are from Indo-Aryan group, who settled in this part over a period of last couple of centuries, during the British rule, primarily. While the majority Buddhists are of Sino-Tibetan stock. Muslims live in the Western state of Rakhine state on country's Western border. They have been adversely affected by the 1982 citizenship law, which has deprived them of the citizenship; there is a total violation of their human rights due to this unjust law. They are subjected to forced labour and have to work for the Government without any pay. The UNHCR has noted that since 1991 their freedom of movement is restricted. They are treated like second class citizens. Facing this adverse situation of gross violation of their rights many of them are trying to flee to Thailand, Malaysia and other places amongst others.

In Sri Lanka, the large number of Tamils who had gone there as plantation labour was denied equal rights and denied equality leading the extreme reaction in the form of formation of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE).

With this violence in Myanmar coming to the fore the whole South Asia has to wake up and come to the grips of the legacy of the colonial past, a legacy perpetuated due to economic and political policies of rulers, rulers who have in a short-sighted manner resorted to abuse of religious identity for their political goals. Some political tendencies have thrived on the identity of religions and spread the 'Hate' about 'other' community. It is retarding the process of development in each of South Asian countries and also putting strong brakes on the same.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 51, June 30 -Jul 6, 2013

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