It is generally believed that Buddhist majoritarian nationalism in Myanmar is a political tool in the hands of its rulers, especially the military who have ruled the country for the best part of 60+ years. In our final post in this series, Minn Tent Bo discusses the complex historical, sociological, cultural and religious underpinnings of Buddhist nationalism, tracing it to British colonial times and their policies on the one hand, and the dominance of the Sangha in the lives of everyday people on the other. Together, they have made Buddhist majoritarian nationalism a potent tool for political power-brokers in the country.
Myanmar has been gripped by a revolution for nearly three years since the military — known as the Sit Tat — re-took power in a coup. This multi-ethnic country in Southeast Asia has been ruled by the military for the better part of 60 years. It staged its latest putsch on 1 February 2021, citing ‘election fraud’, a few hours before the National League for Democracy (NLD) was due to form a government after winning a second landslide victory in elections in November 2020.
The coup followed turbulent years of transition from military to quasi-civilian rule. In 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi won her first election, ending decades of junta rule. However, Myanmar’s ‘new dawn’ was overshadowed by the rapid rise of a xenophobic Buddhist-majoritarian nationalist movement, culminating in the mass expulsion of over 750,000 Rohingya Muslims to Bangladesh in 2017. This powerful nationalist movement led by monks has been successful in shaping the political agenda and stirring hate against the country’s Muslim minority.
Since the coup in 2021, General Min Aung Hlaing has tried to establish himself as the protector of Buddhism, freed and later honoured firebrand anti-Muslim monk Wirathu, and found support from monk-led militias. Although less successful than in the previous decades, this strategy now seems like an increasingly desperate manoeuvre by a junta leader fighting for survival. The ground reality in Myanmar has shifted substantially since the coup with a growing number of Gen-Z advocates apologising for the Rohingya genocide and re-assessing the military’s role in manipulating social constructs around race and national identity. Increased coordination by anti-junta forces have brought together national struggles cutting across religious and ethnic fault lines.
This post examines some of the root causes of the rise of Buddhist majoritarian nationalism in Myanmar. It will focus on two key actors: the military, and the Sangha (especially the Buddhist clergy). It seeks to debunk the argument that the past waves of sectarian violence have been driven purely by the army, including by looking at the historical prominence of the Sangha as a political force and the role of Buddhism in shaping Myanmar’s cultural landscape. It will also examine the historical and cultural drivers of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar, and critically evaluate the role of the military and the Sangha in shaping this movement.
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The rise of Buddhist majoritarian nationalism in Myanmar must be understood in the context of a complex colonial history of a multi-ethnic state, where the British sowed ethno-religious discontent for decades, and the military sought to gain political legitimacy and supress minority resistance through majoritarian Buddhist identity politics. Managing the culturally influential Sangha has been a persistent challenge for the military state (evidenced by the 2007 monk-led Saffron Revolution), and the two institutions are not necessarily aligned. Since the transition towards quasi-civilian rule, the military has escalated its support for Buddhist nationalist movements in a bid to capitalise on their political power and position themselves as a defender of the Buddhist nation-state.
After a quasi-civilian government came into power in 2011, Myanmar was rocked by a series of religious clashes, mostly targeting the country’s Muslim minority, leading to the rise of a popular and xenophobic pro-Buddhist movement. The most publicised aspect of this crisis has been the persecution and genocide of the Rohingya minority, who were expelled en masse to Bangladesh in a military crackdown in 2017. The close alignment between the Sit Tat and Buddhist nationalist movements against the Rohingya minority led to speculation about the role of the military in orchestrating the violence from ‘above’.
In general, members of the nationalist organisations have been politically supportive of the Sit Tat, praising it as the only strong force able to protect race and religion from ‘overseas’ threat — in other words, Muslims! During natural disasters, soldiers and monks are often seen organising humanitarian activities together, for example to flood victims affected by monsoon rains. C4ADS reported that during one flood relief effort in Shan State in September 2015, a monk was pictured with soldiers and captioned: ‘The military and monks are always the first to help whenever the people face problems.’
The 969 Movement was formed after the violence in Rakhine in 2012. The name was based on the numerological representation of the three jewels — Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha — going further by identifying the 9 attributes of the Buddha, the 6 attributes of his teachings, and the 9 attributes of the Sangha. Alex Bookbinder argues that the number 969 can be traced back to one of the books written by senior members of the Ministry of Religious Affairs in Myanmar in the late 1990s. Muslims in South Asia often use the number 786 (representing the phrase ‘bismillah-ir-rahman-ir-rahim’ (‘In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Merciful’)), and businesses display the number to indicate that the owners are Muslim. The 969 Movement’s proponents see this as evidence of a Muslim plot to conquer Myanmar in the 21st century, based on the implausible premise that 7 + 8 + 6 = 21.
The 969 Movement targeted mainly Muslim businesses, organised calls for boycotts of all Muslim-owned businesses in the country and encouraged Buddhist women to marry only Buddhist men (rather than from other religions, especially Muslims). The Movement later developed into the Association for the Protection of Race and Religion (also known under its Burmese acronym Ma Ba Tha), a civil society association consisting of monks and lay people, promoting ideas and cultural concerns about the existential threats to the Buddhist faith. They succeeded in persuading the Parliament to pass four race and religion Protection Laws to protect Buddhism from outside/external threats. The laws make it difficult for non-Buddhists to marry Buddhist women. Most Myanmar people welcomed the four laws because they believe it their duty to protect their culture and religion.
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The rise of Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar after 2012 cannot be blamed only on the army. The Rakhine crisis, which triggered the wider nationalist movement, had many historic and cultural roots, and its main instigators were members from both the local monkhood and political parties. The rise of Ma Ba Tha must also be understood as a decentralised and leaderless movement that gathered support for many reasons: it aligned with the Sit Tat and regressive political forces, but emerged largely independently, drawing much of its inspiration from Buddhist scriptures, as well as international social and media stereotypes about Muslims.
It is also important to look at how Buddhism and the Sangha shaped and influenced state politics since independence, even before the military took power in 1962, and how Buddhism became an increasingly powerful political tool, employed by different state actors including the civilian post-Independence government, and subsequently the army. The Sangha continued to flourish and develop with relative independence from the State throughout this time and influenced Buddhist nationalist sentiments. As we will see later, the military would not have been able to stir Buddhist nationalism unless it was able to exploit pre-existing cultural norms.
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A nationalist and protective Sangha was already emerging during the pre-junta (1961) era within the historical context of Myanmar’s political turmoil. In 1961, Prime Minister U Nu controversially declared Buddhism as the state religion, which contributed to dissent among Christian-majority ethnic groups. The monastic community added pressure on U Nu to protect Buddhism from the (Islamic) ‘mujahidin’ threat, criticising him for giving other religions equal rights even though Buddhism had been declared the state religion.
After the military coup in 1962, General Ne Win formed the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) and started entrenching xenophobic politics, including stoking ethnic tensions and violence. The Ne Win regime also used Burmanisation and Buddhification to tackle insurgency in the border areas of the country, including by banning indigenous customs, languages and practices. There was unwritten discrimination of non-Buddhist personnel in government offices which stopped them getting promoted after they turned 45, restrictions not applicable to Buddhists.
The military regime made extensive efforts to harness the cultural power of Buddhism to earn political legitimacy, defining themselves with, and exploiting, Buddhist identity politics. According to a Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, official state media showed government officials with monks, while state-owned newspapers often included Buddhist religious quotes as words of wisdom. This escalated in post-1988 junta-ruled Myanmar when (according to the Report) the media often showed
military leaders and government ministers paying homage to Buddhist monks; making donations to pagodas throughout the country; officiating at ceremonies to open, improve, or restore pagodas; and organizing forced donations of money, food, and labour to build or refurbish Buddhist shrines throughout the country.
But Ne Win also sought to influence and contain the Sangha during his term, underlining important cleavages between the two most powerful Myanmar institutions. For example, the Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (Ma Ha Na), a government-appointed body consisting of the highest Buddhist officials, was formed in 1980, and can be seen as an effort to control the clergy. Mikael Gravers suggested that Ne Win cracked down on the Sangha as he did not feel comfortable to see monasteries, temples and pagodas becoming political centres for future resistance movements, like they were in colonial times.
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The Buddhist nationalist movement under the British can be dated back to 1906 when Burmese monks drew inspiration from anti-colonial monks in Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), and established the Young Men’s Buddhist Association (YMBA) in reaction to British officials’ lack of respect for Buddhism. The foundation of the University of Rangoon (estd 1920; now University of Yangon) sparked a major anti-colonial movement orchestrated by senior Burmese students who followed the Buddhist path of non-violence and peaceful resistance, and joined members of the Sangha travelling the country to lecture Buddha’s Dhamma together with teaching English and conducting political activism. Later, two well-known members of the Sangha, U Wizara and U Ottama (ethnic Rakhine) joined the movement, strengthening the cause and inspiring a new generation of local youths, while directly promoting Burmese nationalism against colonial rulers.
Colonial policies played a major role in establishing the foundations for anti-foreigner and anti-Muslim sentiments in Burma. Thousands of workers were brought from India, who soon became semi-feudal and/or dominated the country’s businesses. Muslim and Hindu moneylenders conducted business in various places; many peasants ended up in debt due to typically high interest rates demanded by these moneylenders. At one point, the young nationalist Burmese reacted with outrage that the political system was being controlled by colonisers, the economy was being run by foreign businessmen, while local peasants were at the very bottom. All these grievances accumulated to create a strong nationalist movement.
These incidents showed that British ‘divide and rule’ tactics (evidenced by pitting Indians and ethnic minority security forces against ethnic Burman nationalists) created doubt, scepticism and suspicion between communities. A major rebellion at this time was by Saya San, a former monk and local herbalist, as well as a traditional medicine practitioner and peasant; his short-lived rebellion against the authorities ended with his capture and death in late 1931. During this rebellion, the security forces were made up of Indians and other ethnic minorities. Although Saya San did not live to achieve his goal, his rebel movement left an enduring legacy, and fomented Buddhist nationalism and stirred ethnic tensions in colonial Myanmar.
Buddhism therefore had a stronghold in ethnic Burmese nationalism in colonial times, with identity politics taking on a more prominent role. Monks in general considered colonial governments and authorities disrespectful to Buddhism, and therefore believed they had a duty to interfere in politics, protecting race, religion, and culture. It is here that we find the roots of contemporary Buddhist nationalism.
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The cleavages between the Sit Tat and the Sangha were already apparent during the 1960s when Ne Win escalated his attack on religious minorities, especially the Rohingya. Apart from creating the Ma Ha Na, he also sought to position himself and the army as the main protectors of Buddhism, to consolidate control and buy political legitimacy from the Buddhist-majority Burmese population. Since U Nu had already initiated discriminatory policies (including making Buddhism the state religion), in a sense Ne Win only continued and escalated such policies, demonstrating Buddhism as a powerful political tool in Myanmar. The Sangha also played a key role at this time in fanning the flames of religious outrage when the Rohingya mujahidin movement took place.
To understand Myanmar’s contemporary Islamophobia, it is important to look at the colonial/historical context outlined above, in which the monkhood emerged as a powerful opponent of British rule. The Sasana played an important role in justifying the monks’ intrusion into politics. Additionally, British ‘divide and rule’ (and including the mass immigration of Indians) was an early source of ethnic tension which resulted in multiple clashes over decades. This sowed the seeds of ethnic discord that independent Myanmar’s governments, both civilian and military, would later continue to fuel for political gain.
But colonial history alone is insufficient to explain the fervour of Myanmar’s more contemporary Buddhist nationalism. Global portrayals of Muslims as aggressive and fearful terrorists, combined with the spread of social media in a previously closed (and still closed) country, provides a contemporary urgency to the Islamophobia that has simmered in Myanmar for decades. These factors, as well as the unique context in Rakhine, and deep-rooted cultural beliefs around the need to ‘protect’ Buddhism coalesced with the political motives of the military élite to set the stage for the Rohingyas’ genocide in 2017.
Myanmar’s current revolution is an unparalleled opportunity to stamp out the military for good, as well as the country’s ingrained brand of Buddhist and Bamar supremacy. Understanding the complex, nuanced and sometimes inconsistent motives driving Buddhist majoritarian nationalism, and its corollary episodes of violence, through the country’s history, is essential to building a future without it.
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