Burials and the begging bowl

In Sri Lanka, a Muslim family that wants to bury a loved one who has died from COVID-19 in accordance with their religious rites, can do so only at one location in Sri Lanka. Oddamavadi in the Eastern Province, an eight-hour journey from the capital Colombo which has seen the highest number of COVID-19 fatalities, is the designated ‘burial site’ for victims of the coronavirus. Everywhere else in the island, even Muslims are forcibly cremated if they die from COVID-19. Oddamavadi was the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government’s great concession to the Muslims of the country after it cruelly denied burial rights to the minority community for the better part of the year.

The forced cremation of COVID-19 victims was an ill-conceived, racist and arbitrary policy with no rational or scientific basis and a flashpoint in Sri Lanka’s relations with Islamic countries across the world. Nowhere else in the world was the policy implemented, in a year when millions perished from the coronavirus. 

Claims that burying COVID-19 victims would contaminate groundwater – the Government’s rationale for disallowing burials anywhere other than in the remote Eastern Province village – were widely discredited. But Sri Lanka still treats the corpses of those who have died from COVID-19, especially from the Muslim community as toxic weapons. 

To date, when a Muslim dies of COVID-19, the body is transported to Oddamavadi under military escort, while the victim’s family must make their own arrangements for travel to the Eastern Province. The communal burials are performed in a highly militarised environment with only two relatives allowed near the site. The ad hoc burial site does not even have basic amenities to serve grieving families.

As former member of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka Ambika Satkunanathan recently pointed out, when it comes to the Government’s burial policy, cruelty is very much the point.

It is universally acknowledged that the Gotabaya Rajapaksa presidency was built on an anti-Muslim platform in the wake of the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Since coming into power, the President and his administration have done nothing to allay fears that the current Government would be antagonistic to religious and ethnic minorities. Instead, their policies from forced cremation to archaeological appropriation have only exacerbated discrimination and hatemongering against the Muslim community.  Most recently, notorious BBS General Secretary Galagodaaththe Gnanasara Thero was given airtime on State television to vent his hatred against the Muslim community. He made statements about an imminent terrorist attack by IS that has been embraced and propagated by senior members of the ruling regime. Several Muslim MPs have complained about the monk to the CID, but to date, the BBS Chief has not even been summoned for questioning. It is in this backdrop that the recent tour of oil-rich Middle Eastern nations was undertaken by Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila. He was one of the chief protagonists in the SLPP’s anti-Muslim hate campaign, and the fact that he is now at the mercy of predominantly Muslim countries to save Sri Lanka from an impending economic disaster and desperate energy crisis is deeply ironic. 

Minister Gammanpila was in Iran this week and he had reportedly spoken to envoys of Middle Eastern countries to obtain oil on credit. Sri Lanka received a credit line of $ 200 million from Bangladesh, another Islamic nation. The obvious need to maintain good relations with Islamic states might have finally dawned upon the SLPP Government, yet this has done little to alter its views on the continuing discrimination against the Muslim community. The regime’s anti-minority positions are so deeply entrenched, that not even the cold calculation about a need to win favour with oil-rich Islamic nations will force change. The policy of carting the dead to a far-flung corner of the island, where the deceased are denied basic dignity and their loved ones are denied the opportunity to grieve properly continues even as Sri Lanka extends a begging bowl to the Islamic world to meet its energy needs. The question remains if the world will see through the charade and force the Government to end its discriminatory policies in exchange for economic respite.