{"id":59706,"date":"2016-10-13T11:53:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T18:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=59706"},"modified":"2016-10-13T11:53:51","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T18:53:51","slug":"siva-senai-formed-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/10\/13\/siva-senai-formed-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Siva Senai\u2019 formed in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Hindu<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

A group of Hindus in Sri Lanka has launched \u2018Siva Senai\u2019, an organisation to protect Hindus from threats from other religious groups\u201d in the island.<\/p>\n

A ceremony was recently held in Vavuniya, a Tamil-majority town located in Sri Lanka\u2019s Northern Province.<\/p>\n

Clarifying that the organisation had no direct links to Shiv Sena, the right-wing political party in Maharashtra, the group\u2019s Chief Organiser Maravanpulavu Sachithananthan told\u00a0The Hindu<\/i>: But we have their support.\u201d<\/p>\n

The organisation which, he said, was in its formative stages would campaign for an anti-conversion law in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

He added that Siva Senai was started after consultations with many organisations in India, including the Shiv Sena, RSS, VHP and the Goa-based Hindu Jana Jagruthi Samithi.<\/p>\n

\u2018Serious concern\u2019<\/p>\n

We thought of many names, but considering that most Hindus in Sri Lanka are Saivaites, we thought something with Siva would be appropriate. So we chose Siva Senai,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to him Hindus in the island face problems from other religious groups. Accusing the state of supporting Sinhala-Buddhist colonisation\u201d, he said conversion is becoming serious concern for us [Hindus]. Observing that the island\u2019s Muslims were being funded by countries such as Iran and Iraq and that the Christians received Western missionaries\u2019 support, he said: Hindus alone have no support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organisations such as the RSS, VHP and the BJP are very supportive of this move. I have met the leaders and discussed this in detail,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n

Hindus are the largest religious minority in Sri Lanka. Mr. Sachithananthan, along with fellow coordinator and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian Seeniththamby Yoheswaran from Batticaloa and religious leader Then Kailaya Adheenam from Trincomalee, plans to work across the country\u2019s 25 districts for the protection of Hindus\u201d.<\/p>\n

The initiative has caused concern, including within the TNA. Parliamentarian and TNA spokesperson M.A. Sumanthiran said the party opposed bringing religion into politics or the politicisation of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the track record of Shiv Sena in India, I don\u2019t think it is a good move,\u201d he told\u00a0The Hindu<\/i>.<\/p>\n

When contacted, Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray’s public relations officer Harshal Pradhan denied having any knowledge of overseas Shiv Sena branches. We do have people working for us in Tamil Nadu, but I am not aware of any party unit functioning in Sri Lanka. No one from there has approached us for any permission.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut said: Members of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka have set up a Shiv Sena unit and would do the party\u2019s ideological work with support from Sena\u2019s Tamil Nadu unit.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hindu A group of Hindus in Sri Lanka has launched \u2018Siva Senai\u2019, an organisation to protect Hindus from threats from other religious groups\u201d in the island. A ceremony was recently held in Vavuniya, a Tamil-majority town located in Sri Lanka\u2019s Northern Province. Clarifying that the organisation had no direct links to Shiv Sena, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}