Is Thailand’s Hindu past under attack?

Listening to the news of the bomb blast in the heart of Bangkok in which 15 people have been killed at the time of writing, I could not help but wonder if Thailand’s Hindu past is under attack. If so, it may not directly impact on India-Thailand relations, but would suggest a certain unhappy cultural polarisation among Thais. For what the news broadcasts have not emphasised sufficiently is that the Erawan Shrine is dedicated to the Hindu god, Brahma, in a Buddhist-majority country with a militant Muslim minority.

The Erawan houses a statue of Phra Phrom, the Thai representation of Brahma. One sees Thais bending low in homage to the god at all times of day. Sometimes they bring a few flowers or light a joss stick. Sometimes, there are performances by resident Thai dance troupes, whom worshippers hire in the expectation that their prayers will be answered as a reward of piety. The same devotion is evident at statues of the elephant-headed Ganesha. Thai Buddhism is not exclusive. Thais regard their kingdom as an incarnation of the mythic Ayodhya — they spell it Ayutthaya — and revere their monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej as King Rama IX.

But when I mentioned the manifest Indian influence to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, a scholar in Pali and Sanskrit, she gently corrected me. I should use the neutral scho-larly term “Indic”, she said, and not Indian. The latter had political connotations; the former was purely civilisational.

It’s too early to suggest if any such complex was connected with Monday’s outrage. Like everyone else, I am presuming the target was the Erawan Shrine and not the nearby Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel or popular shopping malls such as the Gaysorn, Central World and Amarin Plaza. It is also possible, of course, that the aim was to cause the maximum damage and that is why the busy intersection of Ratchadamri Road in Bangkok’s Pathum Wan district was chosen. The Bangkok Skytrain’s Chitlom Station’s raised walkway overlooks the shrine.

Whatever the target and the motivation, it bears recalling that this is not the first time the immensely popular shrine has been attacked. A man — 27-year-old Thanakorn Pakdeepol — vandalised the shrine on March 21, 2006, by smashing the statue with a hammer. Unfortunately, outraged bystanders lynched Thanakorn before his identity or motivation could be revealed. Two municipal street swee-pers were arrested and charged with the fatal beating. It’s said he was mentally ill, and the autopsy revealed Arabic characters tattooed on his back and arms, prompting suspicions of possible links with Muslim extremists who are restive in southern Thailand bordering Malaysia. The - installed a new statue of Brahma in just two months.

Let me hasten to add that the Erawan Shrine is by means one of Thailand’s ancient monuments. It was built in 1956 as part of an exercise to eliminate the bad karma believed to have been caused by laying the hotel’s foundations on the wrong date. The hotel’s construction was delayed by a series of mishaps, including cost overruns, injuries to labourers, and the loss of a shipload of Italian marble. The Ratchaprasong intersection is a place where once upon a time criminals were put on public display.

An astrologer advised that a shrine might help to counter negative influences and the Brah-ma statue was designed and built. The hotel’s construction, thereafter, proceeded without further incident. Local politics can’t be ruled out either. When the first Erawan Shrine was destroyed, Thaksin Shinawatra, the hard-pressed Thai Prime Minister, lost no time in praying to the desecrated deity. But at an anti-Thaksin rally only a few days later, his arch-critic Sondhi Limthongkul accused the PM of masterminding the destruction so that he could pose as the restorer.

Such allegations are possible because history has endowed Thailand with two faces. You see saffron-draped Buddhist priests everywhere. But at Kanchanaburi railway station on the way to the infamous Death Railway, I once saw three shaven-headed men in white. I was told they were brahmins, descendants of Hindu priests imported form India. They had intermarried with Thai women over the centuries and looked absolutely Thai. But they serve a purpose. Publicly, the royal family is Buddhist but many of its private rituals are Hindu.

As external affairs minister in Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government, Jaswant Singh came upon this duality. When he proposed a Ganga-Mekong Suvarnabhumi cooperation plan in July 2000, south-east Asia welcomed the initiative but baulked at the name. Some didn’t like the Mekong following the Ganga; others pointed out that — as Bangkok’s new airport later exemplified — Thailand sees itself as the real Suvarnabhumi.

There is thus a slight hint of a sublimal civilisational rivalry between the colony and the metropole. P.V. Narasimha Rao had the insight and sensitivity to address this challenge when he met the Thai monarch in Bangkok. A meeting that was scheduled to last 30 minutes went on for two hours: His Majesty and the Prime Minister discussed Thai and Indian scripts and the scope for introducing them to the computer. India waived visa fees for Thai monks on pilgrimage, and after years of aloofness, the two countries agreed on scholastic programmes, an ambitious trade target and a political dialogue. Not many Indian leaders since have had the confidence or ability to undertake such confidence-building.
The problem may have nothing to do with history. But if not, India has done nothing to build on its historic past and take advantage of ancient links. Nor has India been able to counter the mentality that makes many Thais today believe — as Princess Sirindhorn told me — that the Buddha was Thai.

The writer is a senior journalist, columnist and author