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Sonia Faleiro, "The Robe and the Sword: How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern Asia" (Columbia UP, 2025)
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A
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C
Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to have Sonia Falero on the podcast with me to talk about her book, published by Columbia Global reports in 2020, titled the Robe and the Sword How Buddhist Extremism is Shaping Modern Asia. Which takes us into some very interesting things happening now that might change some perceptions about Buddhism, which is often, I think, more commonly thought about as a faith that focuses on peace, on compassion, on nonviolence and yet if we go to a number of places, as we will, I'm sure in our conversation in south and Southeast Asia today, there's a bit of a different way that Buddhism is being used that very much does involve some violence. So it's quite an interesting transformation that involves politics, economics, all sorts of aspects of society. And so, Sonia, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast to tell us about your book.
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B
Hi, Miranda, thank you so much for having me.
- [02:55]
C
Could you please start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write this book?
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B
Absolutely. I am a nonfiction writer. I live in London, and my work often sits at the intersection of private lives and public forces. For the Robe and the Sword are How Buddhist Extremism Is Shaping Modern India, which is my new book just published by Columbia Global Reports. I traveled across the region for about two years. So I start in India, where Buddhism originated. I then went to Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Myanmar, which is where we are seeing the most friction. And my goal during this period was to understand how a religion which, as you say, is associated with compassion, with kindness, is being mobilized for exclusion, for violence, and in the case of Myanmar, for genocide. What I wanted to do with this book, Miranda, was to tell a story that is historical but is also deeply contemporary. So I traveled widely, as I said, but I also looked into the archives and I amassed a vast amount of historical material. And what I found was a story that goes back hundreds of years, but which is having really profound and deadly impact on people today, every single day, in fact.
- [04:18]
C
Yeah, there's some really clear ways in which there's links in the past. You know, things started in one place and then, wow, the impact, as you said, that they're having now is quite intense. And as you mentioned, we are going to be discussing a number of countries, sort of individually and in comparison. But we should probably start with one before we kind of expand our conversation from there. So I wonder if we can first go to Sri Lanka, and if we're thinking about relatively recent politics in the country. The civil war that ended in 2008 looms pretty large, I think is fair to say, both in outside understandings of the country and, of course, within Sri Lanka itself. Is it too straightforward to say that the impact of this incredibly brutal war that impacted really the whole country in quite intense ways? Is it too simple to say that? Well, because there was this really nasty war. That's why we see the rise of things like militant Buddhism more recently, or is the story more complicated Than that.
- [05:16]
B
I do think the story is more complicated than that, Miranda. But, you know, the civil war lasted over 20 years. It was deeply violent, deeply polarizing, and there are tens of thousands of people who have been disappeared, who we know nothing about. So, of course, the sins of the war, you know, they're very, very deep. And to say that that is something that has simply gone away because the war ended would be completely incorrect. What the war did was that it militarized society, it normalized emergency powers, and it fused Sinhala Buddhist protectionism with state security. Then, once the state declared victory over the forces that had led to the civil war, which is essentially a group of militants who were fighting for Tamil independence, that created a triumphalist mood. It led to a desire on the path or part of the state, which is dominated by the Sinhalese, to police the peace. And that meant defining who belongs to Sri Lanka, who threatens Sri Lanka. And that post war insecurity, rather than easing the tensions that had always existed, was channeled into the cultural war politics that is ongoing today. And that it's really fed into this extremism that has been growing in the Sinhala Buddhist majority for many years now.
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C
Yeah, that's definitely worth understanding as an important factor. But as you said, it's not the only factor. The picture is more complicated. So what are the other causes that contribute to this rise in violence?
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B
You know, one of the most important things that we need to understand about societies like India, like Sri Lanka, like Myanmar, is that having been colonized, they really underwent a sea change in how they perceive themselves. You know, because what the British did, and they did this very well, was to introduce racial hierarchies. And part of the reason they did that was, of course, to justify why they were occupying these territories. And in those racial hierarchies, they got to decide who was on top, who was, you know, in the middle, who was at the bottom, and who was an outsider. So essentially, what the British did when they went to Sri Lanka was to create a society in which they supported and encouraged and extended patronage to some groups while leaving others out. And in the case of Sri Lanka, the community that felt left out were the Buddhists and who, you know, who are primarily Sinhalese, the community that was widely understood, correctly or incorrectly, to have been embraced by the British. And I mean, you know, when one uses the word embrace, one uses it obviously very loosely, because the British were an occupying force. But the group that was seen to have been embraced were the Tamils, some of whom are indigenous to Sri Lanka, and some of whom had been brought over, you know, they were essentially laborers brought over to work in the hill country on tea plantations. But this community was the one that was seen to be, you know, some of them were taught English, entered the administration, and was seen to have received protection. And that created or rather enhanced the friction that already increased, that already existed between communities. Now we see these racial structures and the frictions that they cause recurring over and over again. In India, for example, it was a case of Hindus versus Muslims. In Myanmar, it was the Burmese against the Indians, because the Indians had followed, in some cases, were forced to follow the British when they colonized Burma. And I think that separation, which to a large extent did not exist before, became a rallying cry and became a part of the nationalist movement. So, for example, in Sri Lanka, it was used by the Sinhalese to rise up against the British, but it meant excluding the Tamils. In Burma, it was used by the ethnic Burmese, again to get rid of the British, to call for the end of British rule, but it meant excluding all of these other immigrant communities that had, you know, lived in Burma, that had helped build Burma, and who considered themselves Burmese. And it led to tremendous amount of violence. And at that time, you know, in the run up to the independence of Burma, it led to a spate of ethnic cleansing against the Indians, the majority of whom were Muslims who had come to Burma and who had set up, you know, trading communities and were indeed very vital to the development of Burma, particularly places like Rangoon. So I think what we are seeing today. And, Miranda, this, as you will know very well, is true of most things that we are seeing in the world, which is that everything that is happening today has its roots in the past. And, you know, the sins of empire run very deep, have never been explored fully. And furthermore, we have never really talked about how trauma functions. You know, I mean, it would be, I think, quite convenient for us to look at the violence that is playing out today as simply, you know, politically motivated or motivated by nationalist forces. And that is, without a doubt, a large part of it. But I also think that people who have been colonized continue to suffer enormous rupture, enormous trauma. And that is something that we need to continue to study and understand more. And Buddhist extremism, the violence that we are seeing is definitely connected to the turmoil that these communities suffered under occupation.
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C
Yeah. No, again, this idea of history causing things now, or at least history contributing to things now, is a point very well taken. These things don't just come out of nowhere. But also have to be understood and justified in a bunch of different ways. Right. Obviously talking about empire is, as you said, still a very, very live topic. But in the context of Buddhism specifically, can you help us understand how the use of violence is rationalized?
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B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a story, Miranda, that I heard over and over again. I heard it in India, I heard it in Sri Lanka, I heard it in the borderlands, I heard it in Thailand. And that's essentially the idea that protecting the Dhamma is the most important duty of a Buddhist and particularly so of a monk or a nun. And what radical, and I shouldn't say radical because, you know, radical has, can have very positive connotations. And I don't really speak of these particular monks in a positive way. So let me say nationalist monks, I would say the nationalists, the violent monks have taken the idea of protecting the Dhamba and they have turned it into a permission structure. So how they justify their words and their actions and the genocide in Myanmar and the violence in Sri Lanka is by saying that, you know, their faith and therefore their nation is under siege and they have to defend it. And if they are defending the Dhamma, then it's not aggression. So what they're doing is that they are going into their history, they're going into their chronicles, and they are cherry picking whatever aspect suits them and they are using it to justify their behavior. They are recasting their hate speech as correction. They talk about their political theology as, you know, something that they have received from the scriptures. And they're essentially saying, look, I mean, this is what the Buddha wanted. The Buddha wanted us to protect our religion. And you know, repeatedly these same violence prone hate speech making monks will turn to India and they'll say, look what happened to Buddhism in India. It is the source country and yet it has all but vanished. We cannot allow Buddhism to vanish in our country. And Miranda, you'll know this, you know, in countries where Buddhism is extremely powerful, extremely beloved, and all of the three countries that I mentioned in the book fall into that category people. Buddhists, I'm sorry, believe that it is their very specific calling to protect Buddhism. So if you go to Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan Buddhists say, you know what? It is our duty, the duty of us, the Sri Lankan Buddhists, to protect Buddhism. And it's the same story in Myanmar and in Thailand. But what we must keep in mind is that Buddhism is a religion of compassion and it does not call for violence, it does call for protecting the religion. But there is no actual sanction of violence. And in fact, the Buddha was against even violence perpetrated against the self. And the Buddha also said it wasn't just one's moral duty to not be a violent person, but it was one's moral duty to intervene in the case of violence, to prevent violence. So we must be very clear that when one of the violent Buddhist monks attempts to use history and religion to justify their actions, they are being duplicitous.
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C
Yeah, that does seem like a hard circle to square.
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B
Absolutely.
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C
Thank you for explaining the attempt at it. But I have to say I'm personally not particularly convinced. And I think perhaps some of the reasons that this is entrenched, even though maybe the logic doesn't fully work on a sort of religious sense, is the way in which this is intertwined with political power and with economic concerns as well, which you've talked a little bit about already. But can you tell us more about how these things are threaded together in Myanmar and the extent to which, or help us understand the extent to which this is or isn't similar to the way that they're braided together in Sri Lanka?
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B
So that's a great question. And, Miranda, there are similarities. In both cases, monk networks have aligned with the most powerful people in their country. So that would be politicians, the business elite, and the security forces. There are, however, some differences. For example, Myanmar has long been militarized. It is not a democracy, and it has instrumentalized the Sangha to help it run its war economy. Now, Sri Lanka is a democracy, and it does have elections. There are political parties that are competing for public support, but that means that the political parties need to get an edge. And the way they get that edge is by attempting to get the support of monks and those relationships, that proximity between politics and religion has created a corruption that involves money and that involves power and has empowered the monks to behave in ways that are absolutely shocking. You know, it is one of the countries in the world where people who wear robes can be seen out in public assaulting civilians who they claim are insulting Buddhism or who they claim are trying to convert Buddhists or who simply, you know, they. They have a difference of opinion with. So in Sri Lanka, it is very visible, this friction, this empowering in the worst possible ways of Buddhist monks. But certainly in both countries, Buddhist monks potentially enjoy an enormous amount of power that allows them to really change the lives of people. And sometimes that change. And I think we've seen that in the case of Myanmar most recently, has been terrible.
- [18:46]
C
Yeah, it's not Subtle, I think, is the key thing that's coming through here. And it is, as you said, not just one monk kind of off doing something. There's really networks and movements going on with militant monks in both countries. And in fact, that's something I wonder if we can talk about because we've been sort of comparing them so far because kind of from the outside, they look similar in many ways from the inside. Are these networks linked at all ideologically, financially, politically?
- [19:17]
B
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I think one of the things that became very clear to me while I was reporting this book was how the extremism that is festering in these individual countries has spilled over and formed relationships. And that's what makes this a much bigger problem than a Sri Lankan problem or a Burmese problem. So, for example, monks in Sri Lanka, the ultra nationalist monks in Sri Lanka have forged relations, relationships not just with monks like themselves in Myanmar, but also with ultranationalist groups in India. And that's deeply troubling. That means that this ideology of violence, the weaponization of religion, the identification of immigrant and religious minorities as outsiders as the problem is gaining support and is gaining strength. Very specifically, it means, you know, money is flowing, donations from business people, donations from the diaspora is flowing between these countries. It means that monks get to meet each other face to face. They meet at conferences, for example. This is very true of Sri Lanka and Myanmar, where ultranationalist monks have very close relationships and travel frequently between the countries to meet each other. It also leads to mutual amplification online. It means that they are sharing tactical information, they are forming political links and really these very disturbing ideas they have around purity against democracy, promoting an inward looking way of moving through the world, is gaining support, is gaining traction and is spreading much faster than it would have if these monks had stayed within their respective networks in their respective countries.
- [21:23]
C
And definitely, as you said, making it very clear that this is a national issue, but also very much a transnational issue as well, and something that's not just related to Buddhism as a religion, but other identity groups too. We talked about this a little bit in the context of the Sri Lankan civil war and the tensions from there. And obviously one aspect of that conflict was violence towards Muslims, which we also very much see in Myanmar with violence towards the Rohingya population. So is it that this militant Buddhism is specifically targeted against Muslims in particular?
- [21:58]
B
It is at the moment, Miranda, but I do feel that, you know, who the target is dependent depends entirely on the needs of the ultra nationalists at a particular time. And those needs are often dictated by political constraints. So, for example, when I was in Sri Lanka most recently, which was a few months ago, it seemed to me that the attention of the militant monks was turning from Muslims to Christians. But it's absolutely true that in all of these countries, in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, in Myanmar, where the genocide, you know, of the Rohingya is one of the, frankly, the most shocking events of the modern era, all of these have focused on this one group. And there are a few reasons for this. You know, I mean, there are. First of all, in all of these three countries, the Muslims are a minority. Even though they have lived in that country, even though, you know, they have families there, they are very much citizens in. In most cases, they are a religious minority, they are a visible minority. They have a distinct, in some cases, food practices, symbols. They're visible in a way that makes them easy targets. Secondly, there are these demographic myths that are very much a part of the hate that attaches itself to all groups that are identified as outsiders. This is across the world, but you see it particularly in countries in south and Southeast Asia and very much so in India as well, where I'm from. These myths about, you know, Muslims having very large families, these absolute lies about things that the Quran says, this fear that is sort of inserted into society, fears of Muslims taking over, fears of Muslims forcing people to convert. None of these myths that are propagated by the ultra nationalist Buddhists are based in fact. But because there is a history of identifying individuals who are Muslim as outsiders, of persecuting them, these myths have continued to sort of stay alive and they are used to direct hate at Muslims. One of the things that we do need to understand, Miranda, is that, you know, in order for these ultra nationalist groups to survive, they need somebody to hate. Without somebody to hate, they have no purpose. They cannot rally anybody. So, you know, today, certainly in Sri Lanka, it's the Muslims, I believe, that is moving towards Christians. Myanmar, all sorts of outsiders, including Muslims, continue to be the source of victimization. And in Thailand, that could also change. But again, the underlying factor is groups like these need people to hate.
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C
And the reason that they've chosen Muslims as the ones to hate is because there's sort of a historical strand of it that's already there that makes it easy to pull up. Or are there other reasons that kind of. That's the go to target?
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B
I think, number one, there are historical strands. I think, number two, they are a visible minority. And I would say, number three, that, you know, it plays into a sort of global Islamophobia that has been sweeping the world since 9 11. That sharpened with the rise of Al Qaeda, with ISIS, with concerns that people have about a global terror threat. So it is a combination of many things that is used as an excuse by ultranationalists to position the Muslims as a credible threat.
- [26:38]
C
Yeah. So pulling on a whole bunch of things, Right. Older historical imperial issues as well as more recent ones with the global war on terror. Turning then to the third country you discuss in the book, Sri Lanka has a relatively recent history, a very nasty civil war. Myanmar has a current history of very nasty civil war. Thailand, not so much, also doesn't have the similar sort of history with the British Raj in a colonial sense. So why are there militant monks in Thailand?
- [27:10]
B
Yes, I know that was a bit of a head scratcher, Miranda. What Thailand has is a monarchy. And the monarchy maintains absolute control over society. You know, you can go to Thailand and you would find it quite hard to meet somebody who would express an honest view of the monarch. I don't think that if that honest view was critical, they would get away with it because Thailand has very strong laws that prevents people from openly criticizing the royal family. So what Thailand does not have that, for example, Sri Lanka has, is a democracy. People can't speak freely. And when they do speak freely, security forces and the courts of justice come down extremely heavily on them. Thailand also bounds its monks by rules that monks elsewhere, you know, are completely unfamiliar with. So, for example, in Thailand, monks can't vote, they can't stand for election. These are, you know, freedoms that monks in Sri Lanka have. And I think that sense of being, you know, just crushed, slowly crushed, has also seeped into the Sangha. Thailand does not have an issue with militarized monks, with ultra nationalist monks who spew hate or who prod for violence against minority groups. Every once in a while, it's true that there will be a profile of some monk who has said something that has clearly been inspired by somebody like Ashen Wirathu in Myanmar or members of the Boduwala Sena in Sri Lanka. But what you have in Thailand is something else. You have monks who are acting out. As recently as a few weeks ago, the papers in Thailand were full of stories of these monks who had been caught out in corruption scandals. And corruption is just one of the things that monks tend to get involved in. They are also known, quite unfortunately, for their sex scandals. They are known for getting involved in all sorts of crooked deals regarding land, regarding money, regarding the commercialization of Buddhism. So it is a different scenario but it also speaks of an unease, an inability to reconcile perhaps the demands of one's faith with what it actually means to move in the modern world today. And I think, therefore, yes, on the one hand, what we see in Thailand is a conflict that we are seeing everywhere in other parts of the Buddhist world. But it's a different kind of conflict. It is almost, I think, a cry for help, really.
- [30:21]
C
That's really interesting to understand the kind of way in which Thailand is different. And as you said, it's a head scratcher in some ways that militant Buddhism would even exist in Thailand, given that they don't have this history of civil wars recently or currently the way Sri Lanka and Myanmar do. But clearly something is going on here and the ways in which it's coming through are definitely very impactful. Are there any similarities, though, to what's happening with these militant monks in Thailand, with Sri Lanka or Myanmar? Even if they're not as similar as the other two, are there any similarities that you saw?
- [30:53]
B
You know, Miranda, one of the things that really stood out for me was how monks in Thailand, despite knowing that they can get into a huge amount of trouble for this. And of course, we know of many monks who've been arrested who continue to be in jail for speaking out or for protesting, but nevertheless, monks are starting to speak out. So, for example, you have had many monks who have participated in pro democracy protests. You've had monks who have called for changes and a sort of modernizing of how the Sangha operates. You've had monks who've called for gender equality. One of the things that is really most troubling about how the Sangha in Thailand works is the disparity in the treatment of, of monks and nuns. So, you know, nuns have just as much of the expertise as their male counterparts, but often they are the ones who are treated like outsiders. They are given menial jobs to do in the temple, for example. They are not consulted, they are not given any decision making powers, they are never given any leadership roles, and they end up finding themselves cleaning the temple grounds or cooking or making beds. And that is not the role of a nun, just like it is not the primary function of a monk. So I would say we are seeing monks coming together, speaking out, attempting to rally for change. Just I do think that in the case of Thailand, more monks are rallying for positive change. And I think that they genuinely want democracy and they genuinely want to be the ones who are participating in allowing that to happen.
- [32:57]
C
Yeah. Can we talk more about monks that are pushing back against some of these things. You talk a bit in the book about Buddhist monks who are really not buying into this militant idea, trying to do something to sort of stop their fellow monks pursuing it. Can you tell us more about how that's going?
- [33:15]
B
Yeah, absolutely. You know, on one of my travels, I flew from London to Bangkok and then I took a flight to Meso, which is a little town on the borderlands between Thailand and Myanmar. And Meso has this watery seam of a river that people cross, you know, and if you to go between the two countries and if you have a visa, a passport, you could travel on the bridge. But if you don't have a passport, you can either take a little boat or sometimes if you're truly desperate, you can swim. Among the truly desperate people who swim in, coming in from the Myanmar side are these non militant monks. And the reason that they can't use the bridge is because their passports have been confiscated by the junta. And it is because they are on a wanted list. And the reason they're on a wanted list is because they have protested against the genocide. And those are the monks that I met in Mysore. You know, some of them are homeless, they don't have a monastery. They are surviving on the goodness of others, but that hasn't stopped them. They are still attempting to group together to raise money to send back to Myanmar to help people by debunking conspiracy theories online, for example, by forming interfaith coalitions, again online, or to do things that will help get the word out. So, for example, documenting abuses, putting together research, collecting data. So the monks that I met, and this is in the case of Burmese monks, but it's also true of Thailand and very much so Sri Lanka, they are working in a variety of ways to just stem this tide of hate that seems to be overwhelming them now. Are their numbers greater than those of the monks who are determined to gain power at any cost? I don't know. But I do think that they are working very quietly, very bravely, and I do think that they have been effective because if it wasn't for them, the situation would have been much worse than it currently is.
- [35:46]
C
Yeah, just because something's quiet doesn't mean it's not effective. There's a number of aspects of this book, this research you've done that I mean, you can probably already tell from how I phrase things in our conversation. I certainly found surprising and interesting in reading through it. But I wonder if there was anything in the process of figuring all of this out and putting it together that especially Surprised you?
- [36:07]
B
I think there were a few things. Certainly the deep historical links, you know, the fact that so much of our experiences today, the way that we see the world, the way that we relate to each other, and the way that in this case, the way we hurt each other goes back to the hurt that we endured because of Vampire. I think it's profound and it is very, very visible to me now, having researched this book in a way that perhaps wasn't before. I think the second thing is that when we talk about violence, this is true of the genocide. This is true of the civil war in Sri Lanka, for example. We always think in very large numbers, right? Because of course, the numbers are large. And sometimes those large figures, they actually make things harder for us because we lose sight of the fact that behind those figures there are individuals with wretchedly heartbreaking stories. I mean, stories of, of course, you know, unforgettable loss. The loss of a husband, of a wife, of a child, of a grandparent, senseless loss at the hands of a mob. Then there are the losses that also make life bearable, right? The loss of an orchard, the senseless burning of a car or a scooter. There is the loss of things that allow us to live our lives as human beings. The destruction of a shadow shop, of a school, of our church, our mosque, our temple. So these losses, when you see them, Miranda, when you see. Even years after they've happened, you know, you can see the scorched walls. You can see the hurt on the faces of victims. I think it's impossible to forget. And it really, you know, brings into sharp relief how the terribleness of. Of what these militant monks have done to their societies in which they live, and also to individuals. And I think, you know, finally, it's the role of women. We never talk about women when we talk about some of the most sort of significant movements of our time. And I think that the desire for change within the Sangha is a very significant movement. The rise of militant monks is a very significant movement. But what we don't talk about enough and what I have covered in the book, is the role that women play. How nuns have been fighting against this rising tide of hate, how nuns have been demanding equal rights. And I think that these changes are necessary if we are going to put an end to what is happening. So those are among the things that reveal themselves to me in a way that I just hadn't thought so much about before I started reporting the book.
- [39:23]
C
But those are really key conclusions to emphasize. So thank you for adding them into our conversation. And I think that's probably, probably a good place, in fact, to conclude our discussion on the book with that helpful summary, leaving me with just the final question of what you might be working on now that the book is out in the world.
- [39:42]
B
I am working on a new book on migration, which is very much in line with the themes that I have been studying for many, many years now. I'm really interested in people, in history, in movement, in how people influence global economics and politics and society. So, yeah, Miranda, I mean, you are not going to hear from me for another decade or so, but hopefully at the end of that time I'll have another book for you.
- [40:13]
C
Well, best of luck with all of your investigations in the meantime. And of course, listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled the Robe and the How Buddhist Extremism is Shaping Modern Asia, published by Columbia Global reports in 2025. Sonia, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [40:29]
B
Thank you so much for having me, Miranda.