Top Sri Lankan Buddhist monks praise India for making Buddhist-majority Ladakh a Union Territory
Colombo: The creation of Buddhist-majority Ladakh as a Union Territory after bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir state has been welcomed by Sri Lanka’s high-ranking monks, the Mahanayake Theras of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters of the Siyam Nikaya.
Mahanayaka theros are high-ranking Buddhist monks who oversee and regulate the Buddhist clergy in Theravada Buddhist (a Buddhist school) countries.
“This would further strengthen religious, political and cultural relations between the two countries and take them to a higher plane,” said the statement by the senior monks of Sri Lanka, a Buddhist majority country, today.
Thibbatuwawe Sri Siddhartha Sumangala Thero, a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who is the present Mahanayaka Thero of the Malwatta chapter of Siam Nikaya, said, “India, which had a pluralistic society, has safeguarded harmony and reconciliation in a salutary manner and its decision to proclaim Ladakh with a 70 percent Buddhist population as a separate state was a cause for happiness and pride to Sri Lanka, which is a Buddhist country”.
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Buddhist monk Gnanaratane Mahanayake Thera of the Asgiriya Chapter said: “This would be a boon to Buddhists throughout the world going on pilgrimage to the Ladakh area."
The politically-volatile and terrorism wracked Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, a bone of contention and military disputes for over seven decades between two nuclear armed neighbours of India and Pakistan, is not enjoying any special status anymore, as the ruling BJP-led government scrapped Article 370, in a move to integrate the Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country and bifurcate the state into two.
Article 370 was a constitutional provision that allowed Jammu and Kashmir to make its own laws, have its own constitution and flag.
The BJP government also announced to bifurcate Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories- Jammu and Kashmir with an assembly and Ladakh without an assembly. Thus Jammu and Kashmir lost its statehood.
The Modi government also scrapped Article 35A, which so far allowed the Jammu and Kashmir state's legislature to define “permanent residents” of the state and also provided special rights and privileges to those permanent residents, through the presidential order.
Pakistan in a knee jerk reaction expelled Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad, Ajay Bisaria.
Pakistan also decided to downgrade all bilateral trade with India.
Image: Creative Commons
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