Nationalistic Authorship and Resistance: Performative Politics in Post-war Northeastern Sri Lanka

This chapter traces the promotion and production of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, and examines the state's mass ritual discourse and militaristic spectacle since the triumph of the state forces over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It analyses the state's institutionalisation of the 'national story' in the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), the state's post-conflict reconciliation mechanism, which issued its final report in 2010. The chapter focuses on the Rajapaksa government's post-war effort to generate political capital by authoring the military victory as a continuation of Sinhala Buddhist mytho-history. The authorship of space is examined here as part of state's post-war nation building strategy, a continuation of an historical process of Sinhala Buddhist revival under colonialism and post-independence. Local activists further describe their strategies of resistance as including internationalisation of the issue through conferences, such as a 2014 conference in London hosted by the British Tamil Forum (BTF), and engagement with the United Nations including lobbying and submitting information.