RESEARCH ARTICLE The Revival of Buddhist Nationalism in Thailand and Its Adverse Impact on Religious Freedom Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang Chulalongkorn University E-mail: Khemthong.T@chula.ac.th Abstract Triggered by the sense of crisis, the Thai state and Thai Buddhism are renewing their traditional relationship kindled by the monarch-led reform over a century ago. Thai Buddhism is reviving its lost aura and hegemony while the political conservatives are looking for legitimacy and collective identity in a time of democratic regression. The result is the rise of the Buddhist-nationalistic move- ment, Buddhist-as-Thainess notion. The phenomenon has grown more mainstream in recent years. These extreme Buddhists pressure the government to adopt a new constitutional relationship that brings the two entities closer to a full establishment. They also target both religious minorities as well as non-mainstream Buddhists. The revival of Buddhist nationalism foretells rising tension as well as diminishing religious freedom. Keywords: Thai Buddhism; royalist nationalism; Thai Constitution; Dhammakaya; anti-Muslim movement 1. Introduction Violence has recently surged across the world of Theravada Buddhism. Everywhere, Buddhists abandon the language of human rights once lovingly embraced. 1 The war against Tamils in Sri Lanka and the plight of Rohingya in Myanmar are two examples that shocked the world. 2 In Thailand, the Malay Muslim insurgency has continued into its seventeenth year. 3 These conflicts are not religious, stricto sensu, but the result of political amalgamation of Buddhism and nationalism—the two topics that generate overwhelming passion from believers. 4 The dangerous mix makes the religion of peace hardly peaceful at all. Lately, Thailand has been experiencing the rise of Buddhist extremism. A product of decades of hypernationalistic indoctrination and unhealthy political circumstances, many Buddhists, in both the monastic and the lay communities, are known for their ultrasensi- tivity, inclination to violence (at least verbally), disregard of the universal norm of human rights, and advocacy for Buddhist supremacy. The phenomenon should not be taken lightly because these extremists are the central force behind the anti-democratic movements that resulted in the military government, the National Council of Peace and Order (NCPO), and radical changes in a legal framework regulating religious affairs. 5 If Buddhist supremacy is © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Asian Journal of Law and Society 1 King (2011), pp. 103–6. 2 BBC (2018). 3 Liow (2016), pp. 99–134. 4 Ibid., p. 18; Helbardt, Hellmann-Rajanayagam, & Korff (2013). 5 See Ukrist (2008); Heikkilä-Horn (2010); Dubus (2017), pp. 31–9. Asian Journal of Law and Society (2021), 8, 72–87 doi:10.1017/als.2020.48 at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/als.2020.48 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 207.241.225.241, on 17 Aug 2021 at 05:04:22, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available