Step to Stop the Religious Nationalism in Politics and National Integration of Post War Sri Lanka

Abstract

Nation building and national integration is the mirror of the stability and harmony in a country. Most of the states in the world are multi ethnic societies, thus the democracy and the secularism are vital for that. Sri Lanka is also a multi ethnic country and it has accepted the democracy and the secularism. The post independence governments have introduced many of steps for the nation building and advancement of national integration. But Sri Lanka has been facing the problem of nation building and religious nationalism has spread in to politics. Thus it is worthy to examine the practice of religious nationalism in politics and its impact to the national integration of Sri Lanka. The study covers the time period from 2005 to 2014. The study was based on the secondary sources with qualitative data and further examines the public opinions on religious nationalism. According to the study, the government has only established the Buddhist Advisory Committees for the policy making excluding other religious leaders. The government maintained a specific ministry only for Buddhist Affairs. The political coalitions between majority and the minority political parties have addressed only the political purposes but not ethnic harmony. The legal acts and policies have addressed only the language problems. The government or religious authorities haven’t taken the necessary steps to prevent the religious conflicts and aggressive violence of the Buddhist societies. The special police task hasn’t been introduced as the suitable solution to prevent the religious conflicts. There are no suitable programs to enhance the ethnic harmony within the multi ethnicities. The responsible authorities haven’t taken the necessary and suitable steps to stop the religious nationalism in the politics and it has affected for the national integration in Post war Sri Lanka.