Abstract
This article explores some of the memorial practices that emerged after the devastating 2001 earthquake in Gujarat and the Tsunami of 2004 that decimated most of the coastal regions in Sri Lanka. In both locations, acts of memorialization were inseparable from reconstruction initiatives and broader political currents. In Gujarat, regional politics, Hindu nationalism, and the irresistible rise of Narendra Modi overshadowed memorialization processes. In Sri Lanka, political fallibilities of the state and localized manifestations of the ongoing civil war in the northern and eastern regions of the country had a significant influence. In both cases, politics of all kinds, and at all levels of collective representation, have influenced the ways in which memorials have been designed, located, and inaugurated.
The authors wish to express their grateful thanks to Samanmali Kumari Jayawardana and Dilip Vaidya.
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Notes
- 1.
He had been instructed to remove these now-ragged, black-and-white flags in preparation for the President’s visit to inaugurate the Fernandopulle Memorial which is located opposite his property, but had refused.
- 2.
The message from President Rajapaksa, on the plaque beside the statue, proclaims this statue as symbolizing the ‘Buddhist temples destroyed by the tsunami and World Heritage Buddha statues destroyed by terrorists’. The latter seems to be a reference to the Bamiyan Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban and supposedly replicated by this statue.
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Simpson, E., de Alwis, M. (2018). Memory Interventions: Gujarat and Sri Lanka. In: Reddy, S. (eds) The Asian Tsunami and Post-Disaster Aid. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0182-7_13
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