By Thulasi Muttulingam Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Scientists have figured that one out – it was the egg, laid by a bird that was not a chicken. That’s how evolution works. Which came first, a Hindu or Buddhist temple in Neeraviyadi in Mullaitivu? That one is harder to figure out not because we lack scientists or social scientists to settle the matter, but because we lack independent research bodies untainted by politics – and that includes the Department of Archaeology currently arbitrarily annexing “heritage sites” all over the North and East, but not so much in the South. Surprise, surprise. As for the disputed temple area currently in Mullaitivu, according to the Tamil press, it has always been a Hindu shrine, in living memory for generations. According to the Sinhala press, it was a Buddhist shrine over 2,000 years ago. The Archaeology Department, despite validating the 2,000-year claim, has yet to proffer proof to the courts in Mullaitivu when asked for it. State-sponsored racism Archaeology and history are valuable social sciences. Yet, in a land like Sri Lanka, we have little to no hope of these fields not being politicised. Narratives are carefully curated – and even manufactured. As a northerner, you’ll forgive me, therefore, if I take the Archaeology Department’s “findings” – made via a team of Buddhist monks armed with Buddhist artefacts because the Archaeology Department allegedly does not have enough resource personnel to carry out their own work – with a pinch of salt. Actually, make that a heavy dose of salt. I am not in denial, nor am I a conspiracy theorist. With the many conspiracies the Sri Lankan State manufactures to inflict upon its minorities, we don’t have to imagine our conspiracies here. It’s downright Machiavellian. The issue is not that there could be no ancient Buddhist sites here in the North and East – there most definitely are, as there are ancient Hindu sites in the South too. The issue is that even in living memory, those of us living in the North and East in Tamil and Muslim-majority areas have been made repeatedly familiar with the State’s blatant habit of putting up Buddhist temples and artefacts in our midst, then coming back just a few years later to claim that this is proof of an “ancient settlement” and that they therefore need to settle it with Sinhalese settlers from the South. These days, it is not even a few years in the making. Villagers in the North and East have repeatedly complained to the People’s Alliance for Rights to Land’s (PARL) People’s Commission on Land, which held multiple sittings across various areas recently, that the Archaeology Department comes and buries artefacts in their midst the previous day, then comes back and claims to have “discovered” ancient artefacts there the next day, thus accumulating land for the State as “archaeological sites”. They do this repeatedly, openly, and unashamedly with the help of Buddhist monks leading the fray. It is also to be noted that the right-wing Jathika Hela Urumaya’s (JHU) founder monk Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera acts as a senior advisor to the Department of Archaeology. He has made his politics of Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinism repeatedly clear. Yet, it is his advice and his “findings” that the Department of Archaeology repeatedly endorse. When “finding” such artefacts, they do not attempt to have democratic conversations with the people living in the area. They immediately call in the military and militant monks to secure the area and then tell the Sinhalese masses that they are being attacked for only doing their duty. See a pattern? Looking back at our history, Sri Lanka had Hindu/Animist worship roots before Buddhism spread across the land. The mythical King Ravana was said to have been a Shiva worshipper. It is Shiva (Saivaite) worship that is still predominant among Hindus in the land. Then came Buddhism proselytised by King Ashoka. Given that his daughter Sanghamitta Theri landed first with the sacred bo sapling in Mathagal, Jaffna (called Dambakola Patuna by the Sinhalese), Buddhism almost certainly spread in the North and likely the East too, not just the South of the country. There are well-recorded instances of Tamil Buddhists populating this land in the past. For that matter, there still are Tamil Buddhists populating the land. As such, there certainly are real Buddhist artefacts to be found all over the country – and even earlier evidences of Hindu artefacts all over the country too, but that is not a fact that the State wants to let out. They just want to portray that there are Buddhist sites all over the country, and therefore, that means it was the Sinhalese alone who populated the country and then the Tamils and Muslims drove them out in certain areas such as the North and East. This is not history. This is spin doctoring, and the Sri Lankan State has a well-recorded habit of rabidly engaging in it from the times of the Mahavamsa. Various academics such as Rajan Hoole and Stanley Thambiah as well as independent land commissions such as PARL have tracked multiple instances of the State engaging in such spin doctoring to take over land belonging to the minorities in past decades. Yet, their well-documented findings never make it into either our history books or even mainstream newspapers. Manufacture of news What the Sinhalese people keep hearing instead is that their beloved religion is being “insulted” by the Tamils and Muslims who built “new” temples and mosques over their ancient ones and are now denying it. Yet, a visit to many of these areas find bewildered Tamils and Muslims who say that the temples and mosques they have worshipped in for generations have been destroyed, while militant monks and the military have taken over with Buddhist temples, which they soon reinforce with a Sinhalese settlement around to “protect” it. Meanwhile, the news in Tamil will rile up the Tamils with news of Sinhalese colonisation, while the news in Sinhala will rile up the Sinhalese with news of Tamil and Muslim invaders and colonisers. Very often, as has been pointed out by TNA Parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran, it would be the same media institutions putting out different versions of the news in their Tamil publications and channels versus the Sinhalese ones. Divide and rule. The policy is still working effectively. Thus, it was when this Mullaitivu temple issue burst to the fore last week that I saw Tamils sharing photos and videos that showed Sinhalese chauvinism while the Sinhalese showed photos and articles that purported Tamil chauvinism. The truth is lost in this fight over land, masquerading as history and archaeology. Having watched many of these videos and talked to many people on the ground in the disputed area, I am of the opinion that this is a case of Sinhalese chauvinism masquerading as vulnerable defenders of race, religion, and history from Tamil chauvinism. Tamil chauvinists exist among us certainly, and some of them gleefully rushed to the fore to pour oil on troubled waters as soon as this issue burst. But the genesis of this particular issue was Sinhala chauvinism, not Tamil chauvinism. What about building a Buddhist temple with military help in a Tamil-settled area while claiming that the temple the people had worshipped there for generations was a “new one” which ought to be destroyed; deploying militant monks to the area who arrogantly threatened and taunted the people in the area with impunity; cremating a monk’s body by the Hindu temple tank despite court orders forbidding such a cremation on the disputed ground – if the Buddhists wanted, they still could have cremated the monk on undisputed land on their Buddhist temple property granted to them by the court next to the Hindu temple – where they had deliberately burnt it just to rile the Hindus living there, then claiming to the Sinhalese masses that the Tamils were “disrespecting” their monk and his last rites. The Tamils I spoke to denied that the monk’s cremation was the problem – his cremation right by their sacred tank when the Buddhist temple had plenty of other spaces adjoining their temple to do the cremation in was the problem. Lawyers in the North staged protests against this open contempt of court exhibited by the monks and their supporters (busloads of Sinhalese supporters had been brought in to show their might), but as at the time of writing this, no action was taken against the monks or their supporters. They are apparently above the law, no matter what they do. In the meantime, the military and the Police were seen giving protection to the Buddhists as they cremated the monk, thereby also actively going against the court’s orders. They have been recorded manhandling the common Tamil people protesting as well as journalists and lawyers who went to cover the issue. Christian clergy who had gone in support of the Tamil people there reported that the Police later claimed they were “safeguarding” the honour of the Tamils by “protecting” the Sinhalese violating the court order with their cremation by the Hindu temple’s tank. In their words: “They told us: ‘We have to protect the minorities – and since the Sinhalese are a minority in this area, we had to protect them. In that way, we saved the Tamil people from further trouble. Imagine what could have happened if one of you had attacked them?’” “I only came to protect the sheep,” said the wolf to the people. This is Sri Lanka. Wolves in sheep’s clothing protect the wolves running unashamedly in their own skins. And we, the minorities, have to live with it because the Sinhalese are apparently an oppressed, marginalised race and we, the “invaders”, need to learn to live along with them instead of making “undue demands” and refrain from “insulting” them by protesting when they insult us. The Buddha watching shakes his head. (Thulasi Muttulingam is a freelance journalist based in Jaffna. All views expressed are her own and not of any organisations affiliated to her)