In response to recent statements by Deputy Minister of Cooperative Services and Chairman of the Vanni District Development Committee, Upali Samarasinha, the Tamil Diaspora has expressed serious concern over proposals to establish a “Chinna Kathirgamam” in Vavuniya, a rationale now being used to justify the construction of a new Buddhist vihara adjacent to an existing Hindu Saiva temple.
According to media reports titled “Vavuniyavil Chinna Kathirgamam: Amaichar Alochanai”, the Deputy Minister stated that the next proposed “Chinna Kathirgamam” would be the Kallumalai Pillaiyar Temple, an established Tamil Hindu Saiva temple. The statement further suggests that this site may be reinterpreted under a “three-community worship” framework.
The Tamil Diaspora has emphasized that if the Kathirgamam model is genuinely intended to promote coexistence, it should be applied first at Sinhala sacred sites, such as the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy—not in Tamil regions like Vavuniya. Reconciliation cannot begin by selectively testing “shared religious models” in Tamil homelands while long-established Sinhala religious spaces remain untouched.
The proposal to convert or reframe the Kallumalai Pillaiyar Temple as a “Chinna Kathirgamam” raises broader concerns about a familiar pattern in Tamil areas:
Tamil Saiva temples are first redefined as ‘shared’ religious spaces, followed by archaeological, administrative, and religious interventions that gradually alter their original character.
The Tamil Diaspora has warned that such initiatives undermine trust and reinforce perceptions of cultural and demographic imposition, rather than genuine coexistence. True reconciliation, the statement stressed, must begin where political and institutional power already resides, not by reshaping Tamil sacred spaces under the language of harmony.
