Buddhist Statecraft and the Politics of Ethnicity in Laos: Buddhification and interethnic relations in historical and anthropological perspective

Research Group EMSE
Ethnic Minorities and the State in Eurasia: Relations and Transformations

Patrice Ladwig

1. The project

The relations between ethnic minorities living in the highlands of mainland Southeast Asia and the dominant groups living in the valleys are shaped by a structural pattern in which Buddhism and its notions of statecraft play a crucial role. In the area that expands over the current nation states of Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and as well as parts of the Chinese province Yunnan, Theravada Buddhism is perceived as a ‘civilisational’ force that brought with it a class of religious professionals, permanent and interconnected religious institutions, script, and most importantly concepts of kingship, statecraft, and legitimacy (Coedès 1968; Lingat 1989). Developing hesitantly from the 8th century onwards in various forms, Buddhism provided the basis for forming (taxable) political entities (mueang; mandala) beyond the village level incorporating the wet rice cultivating groups living in the valleys (Tambiah 1976). In contrast, the highlands were populated by numerous and highly diverse ‘animistic’ ethnic minorities, belonging to the Mon-Khmer, Tibeto-Burman, and Tai-Kadai linguistic families. Due to their form of agriculture (‘slash and burn’), they were highly mobile and occupied peripheral regions, mostly out of reach of the early Buddhist ‘states’ and ‘empires’ of mainland Southeast Asia (Scott 2009). This periphery outside and at the margins of the state was and still is perceived as mostly backward and non-civilized by lowlanders (Turton 2000). However, due to economic and cultural links, ethnic and religious identities have often taken multiple and fluid forms (Leach 1954; Robinne & Sadan 2007) with complex religious hybridity or conversion to Buddhism being a constant feature in the region. Moreover, localised concepts of Theravada Buddhist statecraft also provided mediation between high- and lowlands and established relations between them that were for example expressed in local mythologies and ritually enacted in state rituals. A complex interaction entailing domination, resistance, integration, and segregation following blurred lines of ethnic and religious affiliations are up to the current period salient features of the social spaces of the region (Condominas 1990).

This research project sets out to explore how the relationships between ethnic minorities in the highlands and the Buddhist groups living in the lowlands of the current Lao PDR have been mediated by Buddhism, its notions of statecraft, and its political technologies of power. From the perspective of the anthropology of the state it explores if and how this statecraft and its practices can be conceptualised as forms of a specific governmentality (Foucault 2007) and internal colonialism aiming at a Buddhification and civilising process of the margins of the state. The project also researches processes of acculturation and the strategies of resistance to this integration into larger state formations (Clastres 1989; Scott 2009). By employing a historical and social anthropological perspective, the present examines a period spanning from the pre-colonial era (19th century) to the current phase of reformed socialism, highlighting perspectives from hegemonic groups and, if historical data is available, minorities. This broad, comparative longue durée perspective for the earlier period is combined with a strong anthropological focus on the present in order to investigate to what extent modern Lao state socialism and its politics of ethnicity and religion are still imbued with older patterns of Buddhist statecraft and its ‘political theology’ (Schmitt 2005). Laos is a privileged field to study these relationships as about 40% of the population are composed of non-Buddhist ethnic minorities. For analysing the transformations and continuities of these ethnic-religious relationships, it is also crucial to look at the massive ruptures in this structural pattern that were brought about by the rise of modern statecraft and the nation state. For example, the intervention of the French colonial forces, the socialist revolution of 1975, and the politics of reformed socialism advanced since the 1990s have significantly altered ethnic relations and the position of Buddhism. Besides focusing on a specific region located in the present Lao PDR, a regional comparative approach will be advanced in order to supplement the data and widen the scope of the project. This takes into consideration that this pattern of ethnic-religious interaction is by no means limited to Laos, but is to be found across an interstate region defined by distinctive agro-ecological, cultural, and political characteristics across parts of mainland Southeast Asia (van Schendel 2002). The north of Thailand, for example, has a very similar ethnic and religious composition and the Thai government officially promoted Buddhification projects for minorities in the 1960s (Tambiah 1976; Keyes 1994).

Buddhist Statecraft and the Politics of Ethnicity in Laos: Buddhification and interethnic relations in historical and anthropological perspective

2. Historical periods

The groundwork of the project consists of an analysis of Theravada Buddhism’s political philosophy and its notions of statecraft (Schetelich 1997). Concentrating at first on Theravada Buddhism in general and then moving on to the specific Lao setting, the project explores how on a conceptual and practical level the Buddhist kingdoms shaped the relationships with non-Buddhist ethnic minorities before the colonial expansion in 1893. Sources such as reports of explorers, local and royal chronicles, and legal texts provide important information about how local concepts of political organisation such as baan-mueang (village - principality) or mandala (‘radiating power centres of Buddhist kingship’) were imagined and operated. An in-depth look at the colonial period examines how, beginning in the 1930s, the French established and promoted a specific vision of a politics of religion and culture. The latter aimed at the forging of a Lao national identity based on Buddhism as a means of early nation-building (Kourilsky 2006). These politics largely ignored the ethnic minorities and fostered the dominance of the ethnic lowland Lao. The production of colonial knowledge and the rigid classification of ‘minorities’ by colonial bureaucrats and their anthropological agents actually created and reinforced ethnic identities. Nevertheless, many regions of the highland periphery were only marginally touched by the colonial regime, and the state rituals of the royal court in Luang Prabang continued to function as a cosmological integration of Mon-Khmer groups into the Buddhist kingdom. However, when the French and the ethnic Lao tried to expand the reach of the state into the highlands, direct resistance through uprisings and revolts also occurred.

During the postcolonial period and the Vietnam War, the situation changed dramatically. Through enhanced technical and infrastructural means, the state aimed at expanding its hegemony into the highlands with its ‘high modernist’ agenda (Scott 1998). This was enforced by the massive influx of US and Vietnamese financial and military aid into Laos. After the socialist revolution of 1975, the ethnic minorities that backed the liberation struggle were supposed to be ‘rewarded’. Lao socialism abolished Buddhism’s status as a state religion, replaced Buddhist kingship with the leadership of the Lao Communist Party and introduced a heavily controlled, nationalist form of Buddhism. This was a conscious effort to break with religion as a form of ‘feudalism’ and substitute Buddhism’s civilisational hegemony with a secular socialist ideology. The new regime promoted an egalitarian multi-ethnic political line embedded in a vision of ‘secular modernity’ (Taylor 2007; Asad 2003) that allowed for the creation of a new socialist man beyond ethnic and religious affiliations. However, with the politics of reform taking effect in the 1990s, Buddhism has under the aegis and strict control of the communist party been increasingly regaining its socio-cultural relevance. Today, the government – in order to increase its own legitimacy and foster the nation-building process – again heavily promotes a specific version of Buddhist culture and state ritualism. Many ethnic Lao and the state authorities consider this a rather orthodox and rationalistic version of Buddhism superior to the ‘animistic superstitions’ and cultures of the minorities. Many lowland Lao again pejoratively label these minorities as kha (‘slaves’) – a term the revolution was supposed to abolish – and according to the official politics of religion, minorities just have ‘customs’ (papheni) but no ‘religion’ (sasana). Minorities now face increasing assimilation pressure, which is also channelled through Buddhism and the politics of religion and culture; a kind of internal ‘colonisation of consciousness’ (Comaroff & Comaroff 1992). With monastic institutions being firmly integrated into the Party State, Buddhism and the language, moral values and ethnic lowland Lao lifestyles associated with it, are now seen again as a ‘civilisational marker’ crucial for defining ‘Lao national culture’ in the postsocialist era (Ladwig 2008). Moreover, Buddhism and its ethics are presented as an antidote to the ‘decadent’ influences of a globalised capitalist modernity and Buddhification is seen as a potential means for countering the increasing Christian missionary activity among minorities.

Buddhist Statecraft and the Politics of Ethnicity in Laos: Buddhification and interethnic relations in historical and anthropological perspective

3. Field sites, historical sources, research methods, and questions

The historical part of the project dealing with the pre-colonial and colonial era is based on textual and archival research. Textual materials from Laos – mostly local chronicles and law texts to be found in the national library or local monasteries – are then compared to the sources that deal with Theravada Buddhism’s general political philosophy as presented for example in the Buddhist canon and its commentaries. Archival research on French colonial sources will investigate how the colonial politics of religion and culture shaped ethnic and religious identities and transformed notions of statecraft. Assuming that the French colonial archives not only exemplify a functional production of knowledge through colonial governance with regard to religion and ethnicity, research in and on the archive will also focus on traces of incompleteness or uncertainty of knowledge and ‘colonial anxieties’ (Stoler 2008). An analysis of Lao sources that were produced by the Ministry of Religion and Culture and the institutions responsible for ethnic minority affairs can provide important information. French colonial and Lao sources also document the uprisings of ethnic minorities in the early colonial period, and the project will investigate if these can be seen as resistance strategies aiming at an active withdrawal from state integration based on differing concepts of socio-political organisation and their manifestations in space (Deleuze & Guattari 1987). A comparative outlook at Thailand’s missionary programmes in the 1960s will supplement the Lao data. In the context of these programmes monks visited minority villages in order to spread Buddhism aiming to integrate them into the nation state and ward off the communist threat via a Buddhist mission civilisatrice. This will involve fieldwork in Chiang Mai and an investigation of the documentation of this programme. If possible, oral history interviews with monks who were involved in this programme will be carried out. Minority villages around Chiang Mai that were targeted by proselytising monks will also be visited.

A period of fieldwork in Northern Laos (Luang Prabang) will examine the integration of Mon-Khmer minorities such as the Khamu into Buddhist state rituals. The latter have undergone significant transformations as the Party has rearranged the role of minorities in these rituals. An in-depth look at the ritual domain will help to determine if and how a socialist discourse on ethnic equality is now being replaced by a carefully engineered Buddhist hegemony expressed in rituals. Here, the contradictions of this Buddhist revival shall be researched, as this process remains incomplete and deeply ambiguous due to the surviving official discourse on socialist ethnic equality. Oral history interviews will allow for an analysis of the changes that occurred since 1975. The largest Buddhist festival in Vientiane also features ‘minority parades’ and will be researched. Here it is also crucial to examine how state discourses have been propagated by the state and its multiple agents (Krohn-Hansen & Nustadt 2005), and to understand how these ideas are received and deflected in local settings among minorities. Another focus of the fieldwork in the North of Laos (Phongsali province) will be on the topics cultural assimilation and religious conversions to Buddhism. In the last 20 years the massive resettlement of minority groups into the lowlands has caused an intensified contact with Buddhism. It will be studied how the religious field in some of these ethnically mixed villages has been transformed due to the exposure to Buddhism and its institutions. By looking at the motivations for and contexts of conversion and the multiple outcomes of this process, it will be possible to analyse how cultural and religious assimilation is negotiated in relation to ethnic identity and the promoted national culture (Buckser & Glazier 2003; Keane 2007). Fieldwork in urban temples – especially in Vientiane and Luang Prabang – will research the roles of the increasing number of ethnic minority monks and novices. Their ordination enables them to move to the lowlands and receive a free education in Buddhist schools, and thereby they get into contact with lowland Lao lifestyles. Buddhism here functions as a social support institution enhancing social upward mobility, but also brings members of minorities into contact with the orthodox Buddhism promoted by the state and thereby establishes new centre-periphery links.

Buddhist Statecraft and the Politics of Ethnicity in Laos: Buddhification and interethnic relations in historical and anthropological perspective

4. Bibliography

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