I am an Indian Buddhist, but let me make it clear: I do not belong to the clan of neo-Buddhists of Ambedkar, who believe in schism with their heritage and eternal grudge against Hinduism, and are held in scant regard by all genuine Buddhists—Theravada, Vajrayana, and Madhyamaka.
I come from the Vajrayana tradition, but what I write here will give you a few instances of India and other countries’ experience with Islam, and then pick a controversial Buddhist figure from Myanmar to discuss a few ideas of what should be done as a response from so-called “infidels.”
The Martand Surya Mandir (Sun Temple), an architectural wonder built by King Lalitaditya Muktapida, in Kashmir, is one of the most important spiritual sites of ancient India. Under Islamic rule, it became known as “Shaitaan ki Gufa” (The Devil’s Crypt)—a classic case of how Hindu heritage and Hindu symbols were villainized where they could not be entirely razed to the ground.
If only the Persians were able to resist, Zoroastrians and indigenous Persian civilization may not have been wiped out in Iran to be replaced by Arabic ideology. What would Persian civilization have looked like had Zoroastrians successfully resisted the Arab conquest?
In Afghanistan, the fate suffered by the Bamiyan Buddhas in recent times is well known. All these examples clearly show that Islam is incompatible with all other ways of life.
Ashin Wirathu—a voice of defiance, born of a wounded history—is not merely a monk whose sermons crossed international boundaries; he is a product of Myanmar’s unresolved traumas—colonial, demographic, economic, and spiritual. To judge him only through the lens of international headlines is easy. To understand why thousands followed him is harder, but necessary.
Burma’s anxiety about Islam did not begin with Wirathu; it began under British rule. From 1824 onward, when the British annexed Burma into their Indian Empire, the British began importing large numbers of Indian Muslims into Burma’s cities for administration, trade, and labor. Yangon (then Rangoon) became majority Indian by the 1930s. Native Burmese watched their economic control recede. Their land was not just governed by foreigners—it was worked, taxed, and traded by them.
All these examples clearly show that Islam is incompatible with all other ways of life.
Three consequences followed:
- Burmese Buddhists became minorities in parts of their own towns.
- Trade and finance shifted into Indian Muslim and Hindu hands.
- Buddhism felt pushed into retreat—not only politically, but spiritually
Tension rose. Riots followed. In 1938, Buddhist-Muslim violence erupted in Yangon for the first time—nearly eight decades before Wirathu’s sermons. The seeds were already sown.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Saudi-funded Wahhabi influence quietly spread through parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh. Burmese Buddhists noticed a harder, more literalist form of Islam replacing older syncretic forms. Mosques multiplied rapidly. Many Burmese Buddhists saw this as cultural conquest, not mere worship. When communal violence broke out in Meiktila in 2013 and later in Rakhine, it was not created by Wirathu—he simply gave voice to the fears already circulating.
Wirathu’s message resonated not because it was gentle—but because it spoke to a fear that Burmese Buddhist identity was slowly eroding, while the world seemed to care only for minority rights, never for majority anxieties.
His famous metaphor—“I am like a dog barking when a stranger comes to the house”—reflected a sense of guardianship. For many Burmese, he voiced an unspoken worry: “Will Buddhism survive here? Or are we next to disappear?”
One may disagree with his tone, his exaggerations, his political alliances—but it is difficult to deny that Burmese Buddhists felt existentially unsafe, especially as Islamist movements grew violent globally and the Rohingya conflict gained international attention.
The Rohingya problem now has spread to India—many illegal entries from Bangladesh, and their appeasement by people who should have known better have ensured that. But that is a different discussion.
Ashin Wirathu must be remembered not as a provocateur but as a symptom of deeper wounds in Myanmar’s history. His resistance to Islamism cannot be dismissed as mere bigotry. It was rooted in anxieties that the world did not hear—or did not ask to understand. When identity feels cornered, it lashes out. For Myanmar to find genuine peace, it must do what Wirathu could not:
- Affirm Buddhism’s dignity.
- Recognize historical grievances without letting them harden into hatred.
- Build a nation not of fear, but of cultural confidence.
The response to political Islam ultimately may not be religious war, but strategic clarity: the revival of plural civilization. But if war—by sly means if necessary, and lies—and domination is all Islamists understand, then it’s very hard to see how denying oneself the option of proactive, stiff resistance is any option. Violence in this case has to be met with violence. Negotiation with Islam is not possible.
We see Myanmar being repeated all over the world. We need more Ashin Wirathus to give an angry voice to people’s fear, and then only we can think of moving ahead. Recent incidents in India have once again exposed as a lie the leftist position that Islamism grows in a vacuum of purpose, and we need employment-driven urban policies to prevent radicalization.
