Abstract:
Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi lingual country comprising four of the world’s
major religions: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Buddhists are the predominant ethnic
group, constituting three quarters of the total population, while Muslims make up the second largest
minority in the country. There are a wealth of records in history that prove the cordial relationship
between Buddhists and Muslims in the past. However, the aftermath of civil war (1983-2009) caused
tension to brew between these two communities. This is because of hate campaigns undertaken by a
number of Buddhist Nationalist Groups (BNGs) through instigation of Buddhist nationalism among
Buddhists adherents. These groups have been actively protesting against the Muslim socio-cultural
practices and behaviours, such as the issuing of halal certification on consumer goods, slaughtering of
cattle, conducting of prayer services, maintaining worship places, Muslim women’s hijabs and niqabs
and so on with disseminating misunderstandings about them with derogatory speeches among the
public. Given the above backdrop, this study attempts to identify the outstanding quality of historical
relationship between Buddhists and Muslims as well as its nature in post-war context. Also, this study
tries to explore the views in regard to the hate campaigns and the impacts of it on the relationship
between Buddhists and Muslims with identifying major interrupting factors to the relationship. In order
to achieve the above objectives of the study, in total 1219 questionnaires were distributed
among Sri Lankan Buddhists and Muslims in 14 Buddhist majority districts and also 28 individuals
were interviewed. Analysis and results of this study reveal that 50% of the Buddhists maintain a
moderate approach neither opposing nor supporting on the recent protests against the Muslims by the
BNGs. Besides, the recent attempts instigated by the BNGs have not impacted the relationship between
Buddhists and Muslims in any way and especially in the case of Muslims, even though the Buddhists
had attacked some of them, they are still hopeful of reviving their once harmonious relationship with
Buddhists as better as maintained throughout the history. However, these hate campaigns could be
expected potentially ruin their already harmonious relationship, turning it into a conflicting relationship
instead. The finding of this research is essential to the policy makers to effectively design the corrective
measure to increase inter-religious understandings and peaceful co-existence among the societies in Sri
Lanka.
