ABSTRACT
The post-colonial political elites who came to power through the Western democratic model were only concerned with the demands of their own, largely ethnically defined polities to address issues that emerged during the colonial era. This process continues as an ethno-political competition. Elite narrow family politics and class struggles resulting in the continuous division of people made public life difficult by creating and maintaining ethnicities and nationalities – highlighting differences by ignoring or centrally pressurizing to forget or underestimate similarities – which eventually led to Sri Lanka’s ethno-religious crisis. Many scholars have referred to religion in Sri Lanka as a social space for uniting members of different ethnic groups under a cosmological power. Kataragama or Kathirkamam is a sacred site created for the God Murugan in a forest area in the deep south of Sri Lanka. The Okanda devalaya was erected on the spot where God Murugan landed in the country on his way to Kataragama approximately 2,000 years ago.
