Organized counter-proselytizing institutions built the nationalist middle class

Evidence

The monks created associations to better organize themselves (e.g., The Society for the Propagation of Buddhism in 1862 in Kotahena), established printing presses (e.g., Lankopakara Press in Galle in 1862), and resorted to public debates to disabuse Buddhists of Christian teachings. Among the numerous debates held to counter the proselytizing Christian missionaries, the ones in Baddegama (1865), Udanwita (1866), and Gampola (1871) received much attention. But the seminal debate took place August 26–28, 1873, in Panadura, a town south of Colombo. The Buddhists were represented by a formidable monk named Migettuvatte Gunananda Thera, who thereafter was considered the leader of the Buddhist Revival. The revival received a boost when Theosophists Colonel Henry Steel Olcott (a former officer for the North in the American Civil War) and Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky visited the island in May 1880 and publicized British mistreatment of Buddhists. Olcott may not be a familiar name in contemporary America, but his organizational skills led to the creation of a number of excellent Buddhist schools—schools that in a short time churned out middle class men and women who were crucial to solidifying Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 106

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cultivated middle classes drove vernacular nationalist movements across Europe — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 480; The meaning of ‘middle class’ varies by national political history — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2251; Secular nationalism failed because it was a middle-class ideology serving its own class — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 327 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Cultivated middle classes drove vernacular nationalist movements across Europe #corroborates (0.80) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 480
• Secular nationalism failed because it was a middle-class ideology serving its own class #contradicts (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 327
• The meaning of ‘middle class’ varies by national political history #responds-to (0.70) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2251