{"id":48926,"date":"2016-10-13T01:53:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T05:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48926"},"modified":"2016-10-13T01:53:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T05:53:28","slug":"explicit-granting-of-foremost-place-to-buddhism-in-new-constitution-is-discriminatory-to-other-religions-says-tna-spokesperson-sumanthiran-mp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48926","title":{"rendered":"Explicit Granting of Foremost Place to Buddhism in new Constitution is Discriminatory to Other Religions says TNA Spokesperson Sumanthiran MP"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s recent remarks that Buddhism would be given the foremost place in Sri Lanka\u2019s new Constitution has sparked concern among sections.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a state, the President, I and all of us protect Buddhism, not through words, but through action,\u201d Mr. Wickremesinghe said recently, the State-run Daily News newspaper reported.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wickremesinghe said all political parties and religious leaders across faiths had \u201cno issue in giving priority to protect Buddhism in the country.\u201d He added the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main political grouping here representing Sri Lanka\u2019s northern Tamils, agreed to retain those articles protecting Buddhism in the existing Constitution unchanged.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Exclusionary move<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, TNA parliamentarian and senior human rights lawyer, M.A. Sumanthiran, said he would oppose such a move. \u201cIf equality is a provision, then you cannot give primacy to one religion,\u201d he told The Hindu on Wednesday. Terming the move \u201cexclusionary\u201d, he said while the TNA would not mind \u201csome kind of recognition to Buddhism or Buddha\u2019s teachings\u201d, giving the religion the foremost place, explicitly, was discriminatory.<\/p>\n

Buddhists are Sri Lanka\u2019s majority religious group, accounting for about 70 per cent of the island\u2019s population. Hindus are the largest religious minority, constituting 12.6 per cent of the population, while Muslims and Christians, respectively, make up 9.7 per cent and 7.6 per cent.<\/p>\n

Following the January 2015 Presidential elections that brought about a regime change in Sri Lanka, the country embarked upon drafting a new constitution that, a section of lawyers and civil society hoped, would be \u201csecular\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wickremesinghe\u2019s remarks have made evident that the newly-elected government would retain the special place given to Buddhism in the 1972 and 1978 constitutions.<\/p>\n

Senior constitutional lawyer Jayampathy Wickramaratne, who currently chairs a government-appointed committee to guide the Constitution-making process, said Sri Lanka is a \u201csecular state\u201d on the basis that there is no state religion. \u201cTo that extent, giving Buddhism the foremost place does not necessarily make the Constitution anything other than secular,\u201d he told The Hindu.<\/p>\n

Debate on secularism<\/strong><\/p>\n

If a country does not have an official state religion, it is secular, Mr. Wickramaratne said, giving examples. \u201cIndia does not have a state religion, so it is secular. But Islam is the state religion of Pakistan, therefore Pakistan is not a secular state.\u201d<\/p>\n

The debate over giving primacy to Buddhism in the Constitution comes amid concerns over apparently growing religious intolerance and alleged Sinhala-Buddhist colonisation in post-war Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

Cautioning that \u201csuch an exclusionary\u201d provision might spark tensions and old fears, Mr. Sumanthiran said it should be remembered that it was a similar constitutional provision that privileged one language over the other that eventually became a cause for Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a turning point. That happens when you give the foremost place to one religion or language,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meera Srinivasan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s recent remarks that Buddhism would be given the foremost place in Sri Lanka\u2019s new Constitution has sparked concern among sections. \u201cAs a state, the President, I and all of us protect Buddhism, not through words, but through action,\u201d Mr. Wickremesinghe said recently, the State-run Daily News newspaper reported. …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Explicit Granting of Foremost Place to Buddhism in new Constitution is Discriminatory to Other Religions says TNA Spokesperson Sumanthiran MP’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48926"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48926"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48927,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48926\/revisions\/48927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}