The JHU normalized Buddhist supremacist ideology while wrapping it in civilizational and righteous-state language.

Evidence

The JHU was organized just two months prior to the elections and barely a week before the deadline for candidates to file their nominations. The party fielded 286 monks. It promoted itself neither as Marxist nor right wing but as one that would ensure good governance within a righteous state (dharmarajya). The JHU’s elected monks asked not to be called members of parliament but “advisors” to the masses, and argued that their main goal was to create a block in parliament to protect and propagate Buddhist interests. Many Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists have embraced the slogan jathika chinthanaya (national consciousness). The JHU shares their belief that, given the island’s 2,500-year-old civilization, the people should embrace its roots and seek to reinstitute cultural nationalism. Indeed, the term chinthanaya has now become a slogan for Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy and, not accidentally, President Rajapakse’s election manifesto was advertised as the Mahinda chinthanaya, indicating that he seeks to satisfy Sinhalese Buddhists. — Neil DeVotta, Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalist Ideology, 172

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines dharmarajya (righteous state) and jathika chinthanaya (national consciousness) as contemporary political slogans for Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy.
• XREF: The ‘manufactured enemy sustained by righteous-state ideology’ fits this reader’s broader project on threat-hardened solidarity and manufactured enemies. — connects to: A pacifist religion has been harnessed to an ethnocentric state ideology.; Religious justification moves ethnic-control mores beyond politics into purity discourse. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 141
• SEED: Angle: how a political party clothing ethno-supremacy in ‘civilized state’ vocabulary renders threat-hardened belief respectable and self-legitimizing.

Broader Connections

• A pacifist religion has been harnessed to an ethnocentric state ideology. #corroborates (0.85)
• Religious justification moves ethnic-control mores beyond politics into purity discourse. #complicates (0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 141