This paper has three important factors of contemporary interest, both for political and cultural theorists. The debates arising out of them are endless. This paper necessarily deals with the way and manner in which religion, ethnicity and the state interact in Sri Lanka with consequences which have affected the country as a whole. The concept of State is invested with certain significations which are hard to dispense with in any discussion of the state of any country. There are two perspectives which need to be articulated.

The first approach puts forward a series of ideological and political factors - such as the pressure exercised by the economically dominant classes upon the state and society and how the ideological affinities build the strength of the state for action by class collaboration. The second view holds that with or without the ideological congruence, the state ensures the accumulation and reproduction of capital. The state, it would appear, in this perspective is constrained by and subordinated to external pressures. While the former view implicitly argues for the coercive function of the state, the latter does not. The latter takes away all the autonomy of the state, which is perceived to be all powerful and coercive. We take the view that while enjoying a certain relative autonomy - because of its power - and while being coercive by the nature of possessing the military, navy and police forces, it serves the interests of the dominant classes. There is a partnership of ideological affinities between those who control the state and its powers, and those who own and control the means of major economic production and activities. In democratic societies, the consent is achieved not by coercion alone - as is evident by the instances of political violence during election times - but also by the consent given through the ballot boxes.

Similarly, ethnicity is a broad concept; implicit in its usage are a number of factors, which are used to distinguish and differentiate people of one group from another. Significant among them are race, language, religion and sometimes the colour of the skin. Ethnicity does not remain passive or dormant as a social marker. It assumes a political force, politicising itself into sometimes passive social movements and sometimes into violent political movements. Theories are replete as to how the transformation takes place. Ethnicity is purposely used to mobilise groups into political entities with claims of exclusivity (Donald Harowitz, 1985; Joanna Pffaf-Czarnecka, 1999: 43; P. Brass, 1991). The question of identity in terms of language, religion or culture looms large in the way ethnicity is actualised.

The state's involvement by design in the process of the transformation of political ethnicisation is a major factor, which has caused havoc in many countries (Nepal, Sri Lanka and India). The interesting phenomenon that needs to be underlined here is the state's collaboration not with the dominant classes (economical) but how this collaboration is transformed into one with dominant ethnic groups (socio-political factors). Sri Lanka is a typical example of this ethnic collaboration. However, this is not to totally ignore the economic argument. The minority communities' resentment arises out of a series of oppressive experiences, both socially and economically, where the state has legislated them out of employment or deprived them of economical activities. Often the argument is that the cake is not large enough to divide economically among the various groups- whether ethnic or any other, which brings about the understanding of the phenomenon of identity formation and political mobilisation. This is contested on the ground of a thesis of economic reductionism, which takes away the issue of social marginalisation that the groups suffer.

There is an abundance of literature on the history of the ethnic conflict and the responsibility of the Sri Lankan state and its governance patterns (Obeyesekere 1975; Thambiah 1986; Roberts 1993; Silva 1994; Gunawardene 1984). In terms of how the Sri Lankan government handled the ethnic conflict, there is much to be desired. But proportionately its policy towards the manner in which it handled the religious question of the people is much less discriminatory. However, the fact that religion is tied to ethnicity among the Sri Lankans, has its implications for an overall lack of an ideology of pluralisation. The manifestation of this implication is very well captured in the phrase: Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism. The rise of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism too, has been documented by various scholars (Gombich, Richard and Obeyesekere 1988; Nissan 1989; Obeyesekere 1975, Jayawardena 2003: 101-118)

This phraseology has an in-built sense of exclusivity in a multi-ethnic society, especially when the state is the chief protagonist in the promulgation and an adherent of the ideology through legislation. The principle of democratic secularism has been eroded. The Sri Lankan state made Buddhism the state religion and introduced clauses in the Constitution which provided, amongst others, the clause that Buddhism should be protected by the state, thereby giving a privileged position to Buddhism, the religion of the majority Sinhalese. As far back as 1939 a future prime minister of independent Ceylon was to make a speech that 'we (the Sinhalese) are one blood and one nation. We are a chosen people' (Jayawardena: 2003:33). The Sinhalese, it is believed, are a chosen people because of the religion they practice, i. e, Buddhism, which according to a myth in a chronicle was specially bestowed by the Buddha. This kind of political rhetoric further contributed to the idea of the tyranny of the majority to which the state was socially and politically held responsible.

The Legacy of Colonialism
As everywhere else in the colonial empire, the British employed a strategy of divide at empera in Sri Lanka as well. If we go back into pre-colonial history there is evidence of state patronage for religion, culture, literature and art. The temples were governed by the state. The modern concept of secularism, democracy and pluralisation are new to governance systems from the pre-colonial times.

The Portuguese, the Dutch and later the British, continued with the ancient practice of patronage in their governance patterns. When the British introduced representative governance, unfortunately the old ideology prevailed. Representation of communal, ethnic and religious interests, were adhered to in the state machinery.

The legislative council of Ceylon in 1860 had three Europeans, one Sinhalese, one Tamil and one Burgher - so to say the local Sri Lankans were treated on the principle of inferior equality while the Europeans enjoyed superior privileges. Apart from the racist superiority that is played upon, the Sri Lankans were seen and treated as an ethnically or communally separate bloc and it was believed that they cannot represent each others' interests in governance. This should be seen not merely as a practice, but also as an ideology of ethnic exclusivity - the construction of the other in terms of ethnicity, language and religion. This pattern was continued and adopted for further polarisation, when in 1889, the number of councilors was increased to eight-it extended another division, that of the low country Sinhalese and Kandyan Sinhalese, while the Tamil, Burgher composition continued and the Moor as a new inclusion was instituted.

I argue that by not simply subscribing to any conspiracy theory, though there is relative truth in that, we should also look into the historical circumstances that have motivated this ethnic-oriented governance style of the British. There is evidence to show that the British were cautious - the following quote is symptomatic of the trends that were to follow:

'In a community composed of different races who are attached to ancient customs …… it is indispensable that changes in law should not be adopted precipitately' (Colebrook Cameron Report , 1829).

Besides, Earl Crewe, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, adopted the view that the Governor should retain the Executive Council in its present as there is ‘the necessity of the maintenance of the principle of racial representation’ (1909; Weinman 1918: xiii).

It would seem that there is a historical continuity. The British, not surprisingly, subscribed to the main argument of orientalism which took the view that the Asiatic communities were static, they resist changes and that they are conservative and similar in structure and ideology. The orientalist discourse gained further currency with the race theory intervening to construct an otherness of the colonial societies (Said 1979). Dynamic and progressive characters are denied to the colonies.

The Sri Lankans are divided by ethnicity, 'race' and religion. The modern representative governance, which essentially should be on the principle of political representation, picked up the natives from their ethnic and religious backgrounds. This had serious implications and consequences for the future politics of Sri Lanka. It extended an ideology of ethnic, race and religious exclusivity, created a sense of otherness towards other communities and groups, and created a working political ethics according to which the governors of the Sri Lankan polity could represent only group interests and work for the interests of that particular community from which they hailed; they were, thus, responsible merely for that community.
Religion is usually tied to ethnicity in pre-colonial societies, but conversions by the conquerors have changed this scenario. In Sri Lanka, we have three major ethnic groups but five religions. Traditionally, the Sinhalese were Buddhists, the Tamils were Hindus and the Muslims followed Islam. However, after the arrival of the Portuguese, Dutch and British missionaries, a few of the Tamils and Sinhalese have been converted into Catholicism and Christianity.

Mercifully, there are no violent religious conflicts in Sri Lanka, though in nationalist parlance the Sinhala Buddhists is a popular political term. There are indeed Christian-Buddhist conflicts at the level of ideology and we hear of a Christian conspiracy and unethical conversions which are posited and posed as a threat to a pan-Sinhala Buddhist identity. The Sri Lankan state did not intervene so violently against the church as it did against the ethnic minorities except to appoint a Buddhist Commission to enquire into the religious grievances of the Buddhists. The attitude of the state is simply due to the fact that more often, some of the more influential members of the ruling elites of the state, happen to be Christians. Sinhala nationalism and Sinhala chauvinism are invariably connected with Buddhism, though many of the Sinhala nationalists are not necessarily Buddhists. A strange phenomenon though it is, the Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka are not only members of political parties, but are involved in active politics, championing the cause of Sinhala Buddhists and often exert pressure on the state to follow a particular agenda.

Ethnicity and religion, therefore, are very much implicated in Sri Lanka in the state formation and in the manner it functions. Though religion has lost its salience in the minority ethnic groups such as the Tamils and Burghers, amongst the Muslims and Sinhalese religion is a major political marker and sometimes a virulent factor. However, even among the other communities, religion plays a major role, but only as a social and cultural determinant. Through revival of various types of rituals and cult formations are familiar sights, they are not politicised but remain dormant at the socio-cultural levels, influencing merely the religio-social lives of the people.

Language as the marker of ethnic groups is the major divisive factor in Sri Lanka. The refusal by the state to give parity of status to the Tamil language has led to claims being made now by the Tamils that they belong to a distinct society with an ancient and rich language. Tamil nationalism, however, does not include a religious fanaticism in its ideology or practice. It has a semblance of a secularism with no claims to religious exclusivity. However, the Sri Lankan state has been characterised as a failed state due to the discriminatory politics that the state indulged in since 1948, when Sri Lanka got independence from British rule.

The Handling of Ethnic and Religious Formations
Sri Lanka is a typical example of how contemporary categories such as religion, tradition and modernism contribute to interlocking processes in state formation first, and then into state structures and functions. Anthropological scholarship interrogates the connections between religion and knowledge, religion and power, and religion and subjectivity. In an era when we discourse about modernity, nation states, enlightenment and rationality, how does religion intervene, interact and disrupt certain processes of righteousness? It is an interesting exercise to show how, and to what extent, religion and language are used as markers of ethnic identity in constructing the nation state, law and legislation, in an era of late modernity in Sri Lanka.

After it gained independence in 1948, Sri Lanka, till the present era of ethnic conflict, has been in the dual process of the ethnicisation of politics and the politicisation of ethnicity. The state effectively came into being managing and serving not only the common affairs of the elite but also the common affairs of the majority community. In the manner that the state turned into an instrument of legitimising the tyranny of the majority, it also turned into a coercive agency. The state in its desire to satisfy the demands and aspirations of the majority community used both coercion-repressive state apparatus such as the military, and the police-and the consent of the people-through the voting system. Hegemonic groups gave their consent. The modern state that came into being in Sri Lanka, which inherited certain legacies of the colonial state, also inherited from other agencies certain other ideologies, such as caste groups, ethnic groups and religious groups, which have claimed exclusivity and have a constructed image of an 'other' with regard to other communities.

These processes are reflected in a very strange manner when the subjects who have now become citizens start to play their roles politically. Power came to be vested in the state through a process of ethnic majority collaboration. The majority ethnic and religious community was very smoothly elected into power through the party system. The political parties have ethnic name boards and had policies and plans to carry out a particular agenda. The state was in fact trapped into action. Conversely, the state is also seen as very powerful with powers vested in it. It has the power to pass laws, regulate the lives of the people, form and create public opinion by exercising control over the state media and also to create a willing and consenting citizen. When one single party did not get an absolute majority, coalition governments were formed with other parties who could be ideological partners in the state formation.

Does this mean that the state, invested with various powers, has become a necessary evil? Has democracy failed by itself or has it been made to fail? The answers to these questions are again loaded and necessarily signify the constitutional guarantees and safeguards for such pitfalls of functioning democratic structures.

The post independent Sri Lankan state has had many reversals in its management of ethnicity and religion. Abandoning the principle of secularism, Buddhism, the religion of the majority Sinhalese, was made the state religion with special clauses in the Constitution for its propagation and protection with special privileges. In a country which is multi-religious with three other major religions, this act has alienated the rest of the people making them second class citizens, feeling a sense of abandonment. If, on the contrary, the state had adopted a policy of administrative indifference to all religions, there would have been no community which would have felt either favoured or neglected. The pre-modern function of the state to protect religion has been ideologically instituted into modern state formation. Another insight that we get from the modern state is the shift of the hegemonic class collaboration to hegemonic ethnic collaboration, which essentially is the majority community.

Our modern history is replete with historical instances of how the Sri Lankan state has handled ethnic and religious conflicts. The first encounter of the Sri Lankan state's attempt to see Sri Lanka as a Sinhalese country was soon after independence in 1948. It passed the Citizenship Act which rendered 975,000 Tamils of Indian origin, who were brought by the British to work in the tea plantations in Sri Lanka without a home. The Act required that they must have proof of three or more generations of paternal ancestry in Ceylon. This is an ethnic question as well as a working class question. Seven years later, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, who was known for his liberal policies and who once championed the cause of federalism and supported the rights of the minorities, came into power on a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist (chauvinist) platform with a loud pronouncement of 'Sinhala only' - as an election slogan. This was the beginning of the prolonged ethnic strife. This rendered the Tamil speaking people, including the Muslims, as second class citizens. It was a violation of a fundamental right of a section of the citizens. This piece of legislation can be read purely as an attempt to appease majority chauvinistic aspirations.

The modern Sri Lankan state, ironically viewed the English language as a remnant of colonialism and felt that the Ceylonese should revert back to the ancient cultural symbols through their language by a cultural revival. This became the predominant ideology of post colonial Sri Lankan nationals. There is no history of a Ceylonese war of independence. There was no nationalist struggle - either political or cultural against colonialism - during the colonial period in Sri Lanka except the Youth Congress movement in the North of Sri Lanka, which did not survive for long (Kathirgamar, 1980). Hence the true nationalist struggle started in Sri Lanka, after decolonisation. It was a war of independence against the remnants of colonialism. That the nationalist dress, nationalist religion, the nation's language, culture, literature and art had to be revived in the name of Sri Lankan nationalism was the predominant ideology of the nationalists. As we have argued, the national, however, was not inclusive of the other minority culture. The nationalist movement, unfortunately, started too late and with dangerously sectarian interests riding rough on the aspirations and rights of other communities the Tamils, Muslims, Burghers and Europeans.

The modern state picked up symbols of pre-modern life styles to build up a coherent ideology. This was essentially a Sinhala nationalism exclusive in its character which was reflected in the state policy of post-independent Sri Lanka. It left out the non-Sinhala nationalists in the game of the independence struggle of the Sri Lankan nation and there evolved strategies to construct two nations - a Sinhala nation and a Tamil nation. The centralised Sri Lankan state became coercive and made many more laws to punish the dissidents. The Prevention of Terrorism Act and the 6th Amendment which outlawed the Tamil Members of Parliament from the Parliament is an example of some draconian laws. The state failed to intervene creatively and positively, and failed to accommodate minority rights and aspirations through a regressive notion of a centralised state which refused to delegate power in the form of regional autonomy.

In 1958, immediately after the Sinhalese language was made the official language communal riots broke out and many Tamils were killed and their properties were destroyed. The state was passively inactive and intervened too late. It delayed imposing a curfew and gave time to the looters and the killers to go on rampage. The Sri Lankan state was instrumental in causing the first migration of its people. The Burghers migrated to Australia and the Europeans to the United Kingdom and some of the Tamil elite professionals migrated to various countries.

The fact that in 1959, the Prime Minister of the country - the highest executive of the state - was murdered by a Buddhist monk, in collaboration with the other Buddhist clergy and a minister of the Cabinet, has a significance with a multitude of meanings. The murder was committed because the Buddhist clergy felt that the control and power it had on the Prime Minister, was declining. His ascendancy to political power which captured state power, was largely due to the active support of the Sinhala Buddhists who were led by the clergy. He was installed in power so that he would protect the Sinhala Buddhist interests to the exclusion of others. When it felt that their power on him was waning, it decided to put him to death. This act is symbolic of political terror to such an extent that the state with its enormous power structures was stilled into silence momentarily till the legal course of action identified the culprits.

The extension of the ethnic differentiation of the state has manifested in the way the racial riots of 1958 and 1977 were handled by the state and the repressive state apparatus; the police and the army looked on passively on the terror inflicted on the common men and women and the destruction of property of the minority ethnic group. In 1958, 1977 and 1983 (the last was worst and is referred to as the ' pogrom'), the riots against the minority Tamils were engineered, planned and activated by the close collaboration of the State, which purposefully delayed the declaration of emergency and the imposition of curfew. (Kearney.1967:87 )

Rather provocatively, the state passed the 6th Amendment to the Constitution, which effectively outlawed the advocacy of secession, which meant that the Tamil political parties were denied representation in the legislature. This was a move to placate Sinhala chauvinism. With this move from 1983 - 1988, the North-East of Sri Lanka was denied any political representation. It was clearly a policy of blaming and punishing the victim - the ethnic minority (Pakiasothy Edrisinha, 1993:77)

Conclusion
What went wrong with the Sri Lankan state? Little recognition was given to the fact that Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic plural society. In Sri Lanka, we have the Sinhala majority which constitutes 74 percent of the population, which is predominantly Buddhist, but Christians and Catholics also form a part of it, forming part of the religious minority among the Sinhalese. Among the Tamils there are three denominational, cultural, groups: the Tamils of the North, the Tamils of the Eastern Province and the Tamils of the upcountry, who were brought from India to 'Ceylon' as indentured labourers by the British. Christians and Catholics are minority religious groups amongst the Tamils. Muslims are either Tamil speaking or trilingual. The Burghers, the descendants of the Dutch and Portuguese, are a politically neglected group. They do not figure so much into the political discourse of ethnicity. However, cultural and political discourse over the centuries has posited a particular detrimental ideology on the consciousness of the majority that Sri Lanka belonged to them - they inherited the land - it is the Dhamma Deepa, the chosen land of the Buddhists, where Theravada Buddhism has to be preserved. History was mythologised and mythologies were historicised. This exclusivist ideology was represented fully in the centralised state. The state came to represent a territorial unity which denied administrative or political decentralisation and achieved a centralised legislature with judicial power vested in it. The notion of a centralised state came to protect Sinhala interests and defined itself in opposition to other interests of ethnic and religious minorities (Uyangoda 1994:95)

Significantly, the notion of a centralised state with control over the legislature and judiciary, coupled with the idea of protecting exclusively the interests of the majority ethnic groups, has resulted in very violent and bloody struggles for over two decades in Sri Lanka. This whole process questions, unambiguously, the notion of representative democracy, which essentially functions on numerical strength. In plural societies, majority rule can very easily turn into ethnic or religious majority rule, and not necessarily into political or ideological majority rule. Such shortcomings should necessarily lead one to creatively look towards the principle of regional autonomy, decentralisation and the devolution of power, and the Lijphartian notion of consociationlism (1977:25) Perhaps Sri Lanka should work towards these goals.

(Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran, Editor of Nividini, a journal on gender studies published in Colombo, is also working as the executive director of the Women’s Education and Research Centre).

References