ideofact

State Religion 2

Mistake in Sri Lanka? Amartya Sen says so, according to this account:

Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen is of the opinion that giving a special status to Buddhism and Sinhalese has been a mistake for Sri Lanka. Prof. Sen, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in development economics in 1998, made his observation while replying to questions on Sri Lanka during his Spring Lecture on Poverty, War and Peace, at the Nobel Institute, Oslo, on Monday evening.

He said the island country has brought a division among its citizens in question of national identity by giving special status to Buddhism and Sinhalese and thus, it has lost its glorious richness of plurality.

I'm very interested in this subject, in part because of something Borges wrote about Buddhism's tolerance (it is the only religion that does not demand that its followers renounce other faiths). It would seem, though, that Buddhism combined with political power doesn't work any better than Christianity or Islam combined with political power.