April 21, 2019, disaster struck Sri Lanka’s commercial capital of Colombo when a group of Islamic extremists targeted churches and hotels in a suicide bombing attack. Investigations revealed that the National Tawahujja Jama'ath (NTJ), roughly translating to ‘The National Monotheism Organisation’, were behind the attacks. Almost two years later, the Sri Lankan Minister of Public Security Sarath Weerasekera came out with an announcement that all burqas – a traditional Islamic headwear that guises the face - would henceforth be banned within the country, quoting “The burqa has a direct impact on national security, it is a sign of religious extremism that came about recently. We will definitely ban it.”

This statement did not pass without severe domestic opposition. The Muslim minorities of Sri Lanka have expressed their concerns on the official statement, with Hilmy Ahamed, vice president of the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, calling it a “racist agenda” against the religion of Islam, where “[wearing a burqa] should be considered a right of women to choose.” This seems to stem from the fear that the Sri Lankan Muslims, who comprise only a small minority of the Sri Lankan population, are at risk of being marginalized by the Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

The Story of the Teardrop in the Indian Ocean

This fear is not completely unjustified, considering how Sri Lanka has long been a country with a Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Sri Lanka’s close ties with Buddhism took shape shortly after its first Sinhala kingdom rose almost two and a half millennia ago, indelibly tying the ethnicity of Sri Lanka to its religion. This, however, does not mean that Sri Lanka is completely homogenous, both ethnically and religiously. While the central and southern parts of the island remain mostly Sinhalese, the northern districts of the island, sport a significant Hindu Tamil minority originating from India. Various urban areas along the island’s coastal areas also partially consist of Sri Lankan Moors of Middle Eastern descent, who constitute most of the Sri Lankan Muslim population.

Like many other countries with similar ethnical makeups, Sri Lanka has had trouble settling its internal religious problems with the Buddhist Sinhalese majority dominating the rest of the island. In 1983, barely three decades since its independence from the British Empire, the Northern and Eastern parts of the island rose in a revolt to create a separate Tamil state, calling out that the general discrimination against Tamils in Sri Lanka was unbearable.

The civil war waged on for nearly 30 years, during which the Sri Lankan government was observed to have violated the most basic of human rights. Large amounts of Tamil citizens were noted to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Moreover, intentional shelling of civilian buildings, rape, and the drafting of underaged soldiers were common fear tactics used by the Sri Lankan army during the last vestiges of the war. When the Tamil front finally surrendered, the total civilian death count numbered over 40,000, of which the vast majority were Hindu Tamils, making them victims of a widespread effort to wipe out all ethnic dissent.

Fear and Loathing in Sri Lanka

In light of such atrocities, the fear that the Muslim minorities within Sri Lanka feel over the recent ban on burqas seems justifiable. Muslims only make up a measly ten percent of the Sri Lankan the population, compared to the Tamils with nearly double their headcount. If the Sri Lankan government, with their history of oppression and wanton disregard for human rights, decided on slowly strangling out its Muslim minorities, it could do so with far more ease than it took them to deal with the Tamil insurrection.

While the burqa ban per se may not be as aggressive as a full out civil war, it does gesture towards what kind of response the government is planning to take. While they certainly are justified in having to take action against religious extremists such as the NTJ, whether the Sri Lankan government can maintain a fair hand that won’t oppress its Muslim minorities is doubtful. At this point it is questionable whether the governments’ accusations against the Burqa are valid in the first place.

Burqas, Threat or Culture?

Professor Lee Hee Soo (Department of Cultural Anthropology, Hanyang University) takes a slightly different perspective on these concerns, explaining that “while the burqa may indeed seem like an antisocial symbol of segregation, the real reason why the Sri Lankan government is under fire is not because they deemed the burqa to be related to Islamic extremism. What critiques are worried about are the dangerous ulterior motives of religious oppression that lie behind a thin veil of stability.”

Professor Lee noted, however, that the burqa, unlike the hijab, is lambasted by many Islamic scholars, who claim that it is based on an mediaeval, overly strict interpretation of the Quran’s teachings, being almost exclusive to the Hanbali and Shafi’i schools. Some predominantly Muslim countries following other denominations such as Morocco, Tunis, Turkey, and Uzbekistan have even gone ahead in banning its usage in certain public environments, attesting to its disputed status. These countries are, as aforementioned, predominantly Muslim, making the risk of concealed religious oppression against Muslims very unlikely.

Unlike the above nations, Sri Lanka has a different background, which is why Professor Lee emphasises that “while the ban on the burqa itself may not affect the Muslim communities of Sri Lanka, it may signal the start of far-right extremist rule in Sri Lanka that seeks to spread Islamophobia and systematically institute legal measures to oppress its Muslim minorities.”

A nation must be able to provide its citizens with a delicate balance between the freedom to exercise their rights, and the guarantee of safety from harm. The Sri Lankan government has a long way to go in settling its internal conflicts – whether the recent ban on burqas is the right method to achieve that however is highly doubtful. Even if it may seem noble in cause, one never knows when a well-intended law may be misused to oppress the very people it intended to serve. Perhaps such concerns, along with the recent history of Sri Lanka’s ethnic tensions, suggest that the best way to move forwards is to take a look into a more tolerant approach.