On Suraj Yengde's column on Srilanka. - A thread. In his recent...
Rajesh Rajamani@rajamanirajesh
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Jan 05, 2025
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On Suraj Yengde's column on Srilanka. - A thread.
In his recent column, Yengde talks about his recent visit to Srilanka and claims that the Sinhalese people were very nice to him. And attributes their niceness to practicing Buddhism.
In his recent column, Yengde talks about his recent visit to Srilanka and claims that the Sinhalese people were very nice to him. And attributes their niceness to practicing Buddhism.
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I am not particularly a fan of Yengde's writing. I find his writing very shallow and clickbaity. At best, I think he is only aspiring to be a Dalit version of TM Krishna.
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But to brush aside the the militant Sinhalese nationalism and the genocide of the Tamils in the Island nation in the pretext of Buddhism is extremely a reckless perspective. And too low for even Yengde's own clickbaity standards.
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To thoughtlessly defend a hyper-nationalist state purely because of its Buddhist majoritarian nature is against the principles of both the Buddha and Dr Ambedkar. It is one thing to embrace the Dhamma of Buddha and another thing to go about defending a violent state apparatus.
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To quote my own experience of visiting Srilanka - My dad worked in Srilanka for a few years. And I have visited the country and its major cities and towns. And I do sort of agree that there is a general hospitable quality in how the Srilankans interact with any outsider.
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But it would be silly to connect it with Buddhism.
Srilanka's GDP is heavily dependent on tourism. As any city or country that draws its revenue from tourism, the service providers in Srilanka are quite hospitable when they interact with outsiders.
Srilanka's GDP is heavily dependent on tourism. As any city or country that draws its revenue from tourism, the service providers in Srilanka are quite hospitable when they interact with outsiders.
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Because that's how they make their living. Almost every service provider I met in Srilanka was kind, sweet, chatty and even mildly flirtatious.
The hospitability that you experience across their various sectors is part of their business bargaining skill.
The hospitability that you experience across their various sectors is part of their business bargaining skill.
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Just image this - when a storekeeper graciously compliments your smile, you aren't going to bargain too hard with them to lower the price. That's the kind of hospitability Srilankans have cultivated over decades. As a way to run business.
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If we have to truly understand Srilanka's spiritual or political texture, it can only be done by studying how they treat their Tamil minorities. And how the Buddhist power centers have affected the lives of both the Tamils and Sinhalese people.
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But to superficially connect their tourism based hospitability to Buddha's Dhamma is both depressing and chuckle worthy.