(8 of 10)
Leftist and reforming in political attitudes, intolerant in its religious fanaticism (it considers itself "True Buddhism" and everything else heresy), Soka Gakkai envisions first turning Japan into a welfare state, then achieving eternal peace through spreading its gospel of chikyu minzoku shugi, or one-nation-on-earth. Since the Japanese constitution prohibits the exercise of political authority by any religion, Soka Gakkai insists—unconvincingly—that the Clean Government Party started last month under the chairmanship of Soka Gakkai's Koji Harashima is a completely independent entity. C.G.P. is putting up 32 candidates for the 467-seat lower house and ten in the upper house next spring—all likely to be elected.
> CEYLON. As an exception to the less political little-chariot tradition, CeyIon's clergy are hip-deep in politicking; in the unstable tight little island, the Buddhists are the only steady, if not steadying, power. What began as a long Buddhist temperance campaign in the 1940s turned into a drive to oust the British. In 1956 the monks formed a political organization, helped sweep Solomon Bandaranaike, a devout Buddhist and political middle-roader. into power as Prime Minister. Ironically, three years later he was assassinated by an extremist Buddhist monk, and his plump, matronly widow replaced him.
Mrs. Bandaranaike created a shaky, far-left coalition government whose every step had to have the approval of the Buddhists to survive. When the lady Prime Minister tried to balance the budget by a "tree tax" on the tapping of coconut trees for toddy, the potent and popular liquor of the masses, the temperance-minded Buddhists took this as a legalization of the drink and organized protest demonstrations and prayer meetings. Hundreds of saffron-robed bhikkus (monks) marched through Colombo, threatened to bar Mrs. Bandaranaike and her ministers from Ceylon's temples unless they resigned. Mrs. Bandaranaike backed down, withdrew the toddy-tapping plan, even though it had already been approved by both houses of Parliament.
The next clash came over the Prime Minister's scheme to nationalize the country's largest newspaper group. Oddly enough, the Buddhists gave her the idea in their complaints that the papers gave favored treatment to Catholic news and neglected Buddhist news. But when she tried to follow through, the Buddhists, fearing control of the press would work to the advantage of the nation's leftists rather than their own, dug in their sandaled heels, finally forced a no-confidence vote in Parliament, which the Prime Minister lost.
> BURMA. The most glaring failure of Buddhism in Asian politics began when, as in Ceylon, the Buddhist clergy sparked resistance to British rule. With independence won, Premier U Nu attempted a socialist forced-march into the modern world. Instead he ended up at the brink of national chaos, and General Ne Win and the army took over. The army restored order but wore the carefree Burmese raw with its zeal, and in the 1960 elections, U Nu hit the comeback trail. He promised to make Buddhism the state religion, used saffron color for his party's ballots. He won easily and plunged Burma into a great Buddhist revival, but neglected the nation's affairs.