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| Sunday, 28 March 2004 |
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Concluding the series on Bhikkus in Politics : A Dharma Rajya in the supermarket age Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake In the first essay in this series we contended that although Buddhism is a faith whose ultimate objective is transcending the karmic cycle and is therefore directed away from the quotidian world there is a body of social doctrines in Buddhism which could justify the intervention of monks in the affairs of society either as advisors or counsellors to the rulers of the day or as leaders of the community at the village level. But can such a body of doctrines justify the present intervention of the JHU bhikkus who rather than advising the rulers want to supplant the rulers and become the wielders of political power in their own right? Here the bhikkus are on less sure ground for there can hardly be any doctrinal support for the monks to abdicate from their monasteries in order to find a place in the palaces of power. Siddhartha Gautama after all had taken the reverse route. Therefore, the monks who are aspiring for political power have to rather fall back on history and most notably the Mahavamsa version of Sri Lanka history in the glorious days of the great Sinhala kings. The oft-invoked image is that of Theraputtabhaya one of King Dutugemunu's ten giants, who had been a monk but had disrobed himself in order to join the army in the fight against Elara. This imagery of the warrior-monk serves to draw attention to another constant pre-occupation of the Sangha, namely their role as the guardians of the Sinhala race and Buddhism which they see as being coterminous. But this emphasis on Sinhala and Buddhism serves to cut the monks away from the whole of the electorate which should be the natural focus of anybody aspiring to political power. It also pushes the JHU bhikkus towards a military solution to the ethnic problem for according to this book there is no ethnic problem in the first place but only a hungry campaign for power by the blood-thirsty LTTE. Needless to say such a posture militates against the whole concept of 'ahimsa' which constitutes a cornerstone of the Buddhist faith. If this appeal to the Sinhala Buddhist constituency will necessarily circumscribe the JHU's outlook towards the ethnic problem what of their broad social and economic policies? When the bhikkus speak of a 'dharma rajya' what exactly does that entail? Is there any specific economic and social doctrine to be found in Buddhism which can guide them in such a quest? Again it is not so much to doctrine that we have to turn but to that body of traditions and values which have gathered round Buddhism as practised down the ages in the Sinhala village. A Buddhist way of life is generally considered to be characterised by a sense of asceticism. It is a non-acquisitive way of life centred on simple needs and the satisfaction of those needs within an agrarian context. In practice the traditional village found its focus in agriculture with communal ownership of the land and a co-operative way of life. On the level of the state, Buddhist governance was characterised by a benevolent monarchy unmarked by much of the oppression which was common to most feudal or monarchical orders but which was capable of fearful punishments when the king was driven to anger as the later Kandyan period demonstrated. But it was also characterised by a sense of justice as demonstrated by the story of King Elara who did not hesitate to have his son put to the sword for having driven over and killed a calf in his royal chariot. How will this non-acquisitive ascetic type of society with minimal needs square with the advanced capitalist market-oriented consumer economies of the present ruled by the multi-national corporations and conforming to the dictates of the international lending agencies and organisations such as the WTO? What kind of economy will a 'dharma rajya' uphold? It can at best only be a kind of primitive communist society based on agriculture and communal ownership of the land, a harking back to a past golden age. Such a society will necessarily be based on ethical action and while we do need an injection of ethics into politics there are areas of the economy and society where ethical action will necessarily come into conflict with economic imperatives. As we have already pointed out while there is a body of political and a social doctrines in the Buddha's teachings as well as in the practices of kings such as Emperor Dharmashoka who is often upheld as the exemplar of Buddhist kingship these are insubstantial to form the basis for a modern ideology of state and governance in this century. What is more the Sangha grouped round the JHU has not been marked as having engaged in any significant intellectual project to forge such an ideology either. The monks of the Vidyalankara Movement at least had the outlines of such a project based on socialist doctrine. In the absence of such an intellectual project however the 'dharmarajya' advocated by the JHU can only remain a nebulous utopian notion far removed from the realities of the contemporary global economy and the nation state. With the exception of this leftward movement by the Vidyalnkara monks therefore the Sangha has remained conservative and set in its monastic ways. Although in the 1950s they managed to breach the enclosed walls of the pirivena and enter the newly-established Vidyalankara and Vidyodaya universities (in a measure that raised an outcry from the purists) their education was confined to the languages and the humanities. They have been either impervious to or resisted attempts to introduce such subjects as economics, science, sociology, political science etc which fall outside their traditional realm into the curriculum of bhikku education. As a result the monks remain confined to the received oriental wisdom and this is another factor which constricts them in taking upon themselves an ambitious project such as the governance of a country. The stock argument of the JHU is that it has been compelled to take to electoral politics because the political leadership of all major parties has only pretended to listen to the counselling of the Sangha and has acted contrary to its advice. But what is the guarantee that the robe will give the Sangha the necessary immunity from being polluted by the political process? Certainly the Sangha will be immune from financial corruption or personal venality but are they equipped for the bludgeoning, blandishments and chicanery which is inherent in the political process? How will they conduct, themselves in the bargaining and parleying of the political market place? How will they figure in the rough and tumble of parliamentary combat? To sum up therefore it is a great leap into the unknown that the JHU bhikkus have taken. Abdicating from their traditional role as counsellors to the kings they aspire to the kingdom itself. In the process they have split the broad Church, the monolithic Sangha, and are striking into alien and hostile terrain. Time will tell whether it was worth the effort or not. |
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