Help Hindus in Sri Lanka @Deepavali

Help Hindus in Sri Lanka Rebuild Their Lives; Light Up Their Deepavali

100% of Donations Received will be Directly Used to Culturally Support and Spiritually Uplift the Poor, Vulnerable Hindu Tamil Women, Children, Youth and the Elderly in Sri Lanka.

This is an International Non-Sectarian Effort to help the Hindus of Sri Lanka. 

Donors can even specify which particular district(s) they would like their donations to be used in.

Hundreds of our dedicated, unpaid volunteers are tirelessly working to bolster the 2.5 Million Hindu Tamils who still live in significant numbers today in these 18 Key Districts.

Northern Districts: Jaffna, Mannar, Kilinochchi, Vavuniya, Mullaithivu
Eastern Districts: Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Amparai
Western Districts: Colombo, Puttalam
Upcountry Districts: Nuwara Eliya, Ratnapura, Kandy, Matale, Badulla, Kegalle, Monaragala
North Central District: Anuradhapura
 

Background
 
Sri Lanka is the beautiful tropical island of the Ramayana era, where pilgrims go to visit the timeless Rama Sethu and beautiful Ashoka Vatika (where Goddess Sita was kept as a captive by King Ravana) and marvel at Hanuman's Giant Footprints at the spot where he landed in Sri Lanka. 



It is the sacred land containing Five ancient Shiva Temples (Pancha Eshwaram Temples), one ancient Shakti Peetham (Nagapushani Temple), ancient Karthikeya Temples (Nallur and Kathirgamam), ancient Ganesha Temples (in Jaffna and Batticaloa) and ancient Vishnu Temples (in Vallipuram and Devinuvara).


Most Sri Lankan Hindus are staunch Shaiva Siddhantha followers of the Nandinatha (Nath) Sampradaya (belonging to the Kailasha Parampara of the Himalayan Tradition).


Reduced to second class citizens in Sri Lanka, they look up to the Hindu Diaspora and India as their Holy Land that can protect them and offer them a chance at respectful existence.

The geopolitical importance of Sri Lanka, which is India’s strategic neighbor, can  never be understated, especially as it has recently emerged from the aftermath of the Civil War (that ended in 2009). Many Indians and NRIs (including Tamils) are quite misinformed or unaware of Sri Lankan society's dynamics, nuances and complexities. 
 
Rude Awakening
 
Though Sri Lanka has been a Hindu homeland for more than 5000 years; yet the position of Hindus in Sri Lanka is getting worse today. For almost 400 years (from the 16th Century till 1948), the gentle people of Sri Lanka were ravaged by the Portuguese Inquisition, Dutch Invasion and British Colonization. 

During the last century, the total Hindu Tamil population has been decimated by half, from 25% (in 1915 census) to 12.6% (in 2012 census), due to several concurrent factors:

* 35 Horrific Years of Civil War (100,000 dead; 90,000 War Widows/Orphans)
* 2004 Tsunami (30,000 dead)
* Deprivation of Citizenship and Forcible Repatriation (600,000 disenfranchised and deported to India)
* Large Scale Emigration (800,000 refugees worldwide)
* Predatory Religious Conversions (funded by Radical Groups in the West and Middle-East)
* Discrimination, Grinding Poverty, Intimidation, Suicides and Gradual Attrition.
 

The Hindu percentage of the Sri Lankan population may reduce further by attrition and emigration. Hardly had they managed to recover from the Civil War, they are now being increasingly subjected to regular religious conversions by force or inducements, silent destruction of native/indigenous culture, killings, rapes, religious bullying, and temple/land-grabbing on a daily basis in the 18 districts mentioned above.


Recently, Religious Radicals are blocking the front entrance of the Ganesha temples in Hindu villages in Mannar to psychologically browbeat the Hindus into conversion. Those Hindu villages who peacefully resisted such encroachments found their temple demolished and their Sacred Ganesha Statues destroyed by drunk goons in Mannar and Anuradhapura. Just last month, fanatic thugs grabbed Hindu temple lands during the middle of the night and put up illegal fences, but the local people got the help of the police to evict the trespassers.  


200 poor Hindu women (all of them are war widows) have been forcibly converted to another religion by their employer and have been married off to unknown men in Batticaloa district of Eastern Province. 

In a shocking case that happened just last month, one young Hindu family (Jyothinathan Chandrasekar, his wife Vinojini and their 3-month old baby) escaped being burnt alive by religious extremists; but their Home and their source of income (Autorickshaw) were reduced to ashes in Amparai district (Eastern Province of Sri Lanka). This was the "punishment" they faced for their bold refusal to convert to another religion. Their fellow-villagers had given them an ultimatum to "Convert or Be Killed".   

Two weeks ago, a young Hindu boy (8th Grade Student) committed suicide by hanging himself in Rakwana (Ratnapura district) due to intense pressure on him to convert to another religion. His new stepfather was torturing and forcing this young boy to convert to another religion. But the boy loved Hindu Dharma and steadfastly refused to convert. Unable to bear the torture, the boy ultimately committed suicide.  

Campaign Issues and Goals

The main goals of this objective-based campaign are to provide Spiritual Relief and Cultural Rehabilitation so that the poor Hindus can reacquire their traditional knowledge of Hindu Traditions/Scriptures/ Festivals and gain confidence in their ancestral Saiva Tamil Culture.

 
1) Educational Outreach: We provided Hindu spiritual prayer-books and devotional songbooks to 3000 energetic high-school students on the occasion of Navarathri 2018. The Goal is to reach out to many more tens of thousands of Hindu students studying in hundreds of schools and colleges in the future. Without a Hindu spiritual anchor in their lives, some of these Tamil teenage youths are bored and don't know how to use their energies and are drifting towards gangs, drugs, alcohol, gang-violence and conversions.



2) Empowerment Outreach: Ensuring that each and every Hindu family receives a printed copy of Hindu scriptures (including Saiva Thirumurai) to study daily, one Thulasi Plant to worship daily and one large Nandi Flag (ancient temple flag) to hoist on top of their homes, shops, schools, temples and fields - to visibly and collectively boost the community confidence and deter any anti-social troublemakers. 



3) Hindu Priests/Scholars Training Project: There is a drastic shortage in the number of Trained Hindu Priests/Scholars in many rural areas. The Goal is to formally train at least one local youth as a Hindu Priest in each village, along with training the local women & men as Hindu scholars to provide counseling and intellectual leadership to affected villagers, irrespective of caste or creed.



 4) Temples and Sacred Spaces: We are working for the legal protection of ancient Hindu places of worship from alien encroachments and stopping aggressive destruction / desecration of sacred icons, by resorting to peaceful measures (including taking the help of the courts/police officials).



5) Involvement in the Community: We encourage all the Hindu voters to strengthen democracy in their respective villages and towns within the ambit of the laws of Sri Lanka; and freely exercise their voting rights without fear or favor by peacefully participating and voting in all the elections - be it community centers, farmers societies, cooperative societies, local councils, provincial councils, parliament and presidential elections - irrespective of the individual voters' choice of candidates or party affiliations.

This campaign aims to generate a fund of $12,000 that is to be used for meeting the above needs of the project objectives for the year 2018-2019.  

This works out to $1000 per month to cover all the expenses across 18 districts of Sri Lanka.

Please continue to spread the word among your friends and family. Every rupee makes a big difference in the grassroots. No donation is big or small.

Each and every contribution from far-sighted visionaries makes a decisive impact on the lives of Hindus and shapes the future of Hindu Civilization in Sri Lanka.

In the Ramayana, the humble squirrel added small grains of sand to build the mighty Rama Sethu (Rama's Bridge) - that still connects India with Sri Lanka like an Umbilical Cord.

Similarly, small donations of $1 or 10 Rupees from every compassionate person can make a BIG difference.

About Us

This is an International Non-Sectarian Effort to help the Hindus of Sri Lanka. 

Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions: 

[email redacted]
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