SRI LANKA, August 31, 2026 (Christian Daily): For decades, religious persecution in Sri Lanka was framed mainly as Sinhala-Buddhist nationalist campaigns against Christians and Muslims, but a growing body of research points to a less-examined front: Hindu nationalist or Hindutva-style movements among Sri Lankan Tamils in the northern and eastern provinces drawing ideological and organizational support from India’s Hindu right. The research comes from Colombo-based think tanks to international watchdogs, now corroborated by direct testimony from Sri Lanka’s leading Christian advocacy body, the National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka (NCEASL). This convergence of two nationalisms – Sinhala-Buddhist and Tamil-Hindu – is creating what religious freedom monitors describe as an increasingly precarious environment for Sri Lanka’s Christian minority, particularly Tamil-Hindu converts.

A December 2025 report by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), “Contours of Emerging Hate in Sri Lanka,” finds that Hindu nationalist organizations have steadily built grassroots influence in Tamil-majority regions since 2016, naming Siva Senai, Rudra Sena and Ravana Sena as the vanguard. Activists founded Siva Senai in Vavuniya in 2016 to “protect Hindu heritage and communities” from “Sinhalization” and from the growing presence of Christianity and Islam in Tamil areas. Rudra Sena followed in 2020; Ravana Sena has also gained a foothold across the north and east. Siva Senai’s chief organizer, Maravanpulavu Sachithananthan, told reporters the group formed “after consultations with many organizations in India, including the Shiv Sena, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh [RSS], Vishva Hindu Parishad [VHP] and the Goa-based Hindu Jana Jagruthi Samithi.”

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