Abstract:
The concept of social harmony is a paradox which is gaining more importance in
post-war Sri Lanka. Though Social Harmony is used to referring to ideas about
living in harmony in general, there are differences between various groups.
However, numerous efforts have been undertaken to bring consideration
regarding social harmony in post-war Sri Lanka. But achieving it still remains
challenging. Religious extremism is considered as one of the major factors that
influences social harmony. This has made the view of social harmony in Sri
Lanka a complex and challenging one. Therefore, this study aims to examine the
implications and challenges of religious extremism in the social harmony in postwar Sri Lanka. This study is conducted mainly based on the secondary data and
carried out through the interpretative analysis method. Specifically, 30 of the
literature were used for this study to attempt to investigate the growing religious
extremist activities and their impacts on social harmony. According to the
findings it was revealed that the activities of Buddhist extremism have intensified
in post-war Sri Lanka. On the other hand, a very few groups were motivated to
involve in Islamic extremist activities. The study also reveals that this situation
undermines the trust, tolerance, and goodwill found among the Sri Lankan
communities and poses a great challenge to social harmony between the
communities.
