By Tamil Guardian Team
Hindu nationalist organisations have increased their presence and activities in Tamil Eelam over recent months, including by supporting the release of a racist Sinhala Buddhist monk.
Earlier this year, the ‘Hindu Federation of Sri Lanka’ wrote to Sri Lanka’s president Ranil Wickremesinghe, calling on him to pardon Sinhala Buddhist extremist monk Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara.
The monk, a notorious racist, was sentence to four years of imprisonment for defamatory remarks he made against the Muslim community, during a 2016 press conference. He was released on bail this week.
The organisation claimed the monk is “a good human being” and claimed he had helped “resolve” issues between “Hindus and some other religious extremist groups” on the island.
Earlier this month, the Siva Senai group in Jaffna protested outside the Northern Province Governor’s office demanding the immediate removal of the Zonal Director of Education who allegedly requested that images of Hindu deities be removed from his office.
The group demanded that the new director, who had assumed office last month, also requested that images of Hindu deities be removed from a workshop held by the education department.
The Siva Senai in Jaffna is headed by Maravanpulavu Sachithananthan, and is reported to have links to fellow Hindu extremist organisations in India. When Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi won elections earlier this year, less than a dozen members from the organisation gathered at a temple in Jaffna to celebrate.
This story was originally published in tamilguardian.com. Read the full story here.
