‘You Can Do Anything With a Temple’: Religion, philanthropy, and politics in South London and Sri Lanka

Sidharthan Maunaguru,Jonathan Spencer

doi:10.1017/s0026749x17000385

Abstract

AbstractOur title quotation is taken from an interview with the chief trustee of a leading Hindu temple in south London, and captures the curious mixture of philanthropy, politics, and individual ambition that has emerged around Sri Lankan Tamil temples in the diaspora. During the long years of civil war, temples became centres of mobilization for the growing Tamil diaspora, and were often accused of channelling funds to the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) and its various front organizations. Since the end of the war, in 2009, the same temples now support orphanages and other good works in Sri Lanka, and their efforts are starting to be emulated by temples in Sri Lanka itself. At the heart of our article is a dispute between the UK Charity Commission and the chief trustee of a London temple, who is accused of misuse of temple funds and ‘failure to dissociate’ the temple from a terrorist organization. A close reading of the case and its unexpected denouement reveals the difficulties of bounding the zone of philanthropy.

Highlights

Our title quote is taken from an interview with the chief trustee of a leading Hindu temple in south London, and captures the curious mixture of philanthropy, politics, and individual ambition that has emerged around Sri Lankan Tamil temples in the diaspora
The trustee was telling us about his decision to found a temple in South London, and the particular goddess he decided to build the temple around, a choice apparently as much dictated by real estate options as by his own devotional preferences: South London Tamils were keener on Amman than on, say, Pillayar, a site became available in south London, so Amman it was
What we present in this paper is one episode in a longer story, as diaspora activists responded to the disastrous defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009: even as the end of the war made Sri Lanka, and the families they had left behind, far more accessible, activists experimented with new organizational structures and political forms in efforts to come to terms with the scale of defeat (Brun and Van Hear 2012)

Summary

Introduction

Our title quote is taken from an interview with the chief trustee of a leading Hindu temple in south London, and captures the curious mixture of philanthropy, politics, and individual ambition that has emerged around Sri Lankan Tamil temples in the diaspora. Comparison with other religious traditions in Sri Lanka itself, provided examples of Hindu temples somehow bounding themselves and their activities off from the political dangers of the war, and failing to act as an institutional platform for the emergence of powerful community leaders.

Results

Conclusion