METRO
Residents of Thon Buri's Wat Kanlaya community are unhappy about Phra Dharma Jadi's aggressive plan to develop their local temple. Such disputes are becoming more common as temple property becomes desirable for commercial or tourism purposes and people face eviction from their homes, writes Anchalee Kongrut
Enraged residents of the Wat Kanlaya community launched a campaign to oust the abbot. |
The scene at Wat Kanlaya, a temple famous for its gigantic Buddha statue, resembled an anti-government protest on June 29. Clad in white t-shirts which read "Stop the abbot who destroyed the stupa," protesters shouted "Where is your compassion? Where is your morality?"
More than 100 residents of the Wat Kanlaya community in Thon Buri walked to the residence of the abbot and, through loudspeakers, told Phra Dharma Jadi to move elsewhere. The residents are unhappy about his aggressive plan to develop the temple.
Located on the banks of the Chao Phraya river, the temple is part of a government landscape development plan designed to tap tourism.
To realise the plan, the temple needs to clear the old community which has leased temple land for many decades.
The abbot has appointed a lawyer to take to court 54 tenants who refuse to move out.
A boy wearing a protest headband looks at rubble in the compound of Wat Kanlaya. He joined a campaign calling for the transfer of the abbot, who some residents accuse of supporting the development of a park which involves destroying ancient sites and evicting a riverside community from the neighbourhood. |
Over 70 vintage houses in Soi Charoen Krung 52, or Soi Wanglee, were demolished on Dec 31 last year to clear the way for development. |
Under the plan, ancient monuments such as stupas which belonged to the Pravitra and Talabhat families, and a bell tower, would be demolished.
Tensions reached a head last month when the contractor bulldozed the stupa containing the ashes of Pravitra family members.
It also stores the remains of a consort and son of King Rama V. Enraged members of the Pravitra family have pressured the abbot to rebuild the stupa.
The row between the community and the abbot at Wat Kanlaya is not the only such case of residents being at odds with their local temple.
As temple property becomes desirable for commercial or tourism purposes, some temples have started developing land, forcing out communities which in some cases have been there for decades.
A similar feud has erupted over a development plan undertaken by Wat Yannawa, an old temple with a ship-like stupa near the Taksin bridge in Sathon.
The abbot has cleared tenants and demolished almost 77 vintage buildings in Soi Charoen Krung 52, despite pleas from conservationists and the Association of Siamese Architects.
Only one vintage building was spared, the old Prasittibhol Dance Bar, one of the first nightclubs in Thailand.
The bar was built when Soi Wanglee was an important port in Bangkok during the reign of King Rama IV.
Pathomreuk Keduthat, a lecturer on anthropology at Thammasat University, said those cases raised questions about the authority and accountability of abbots.
The abbots from Wat Yannawa and Wat Kanlaya rarely, if ever, speak to the media.
Wat Yannawa abbot Phra Prom Vajirayarn does not grant media requests for interviews, and Phra Dharma Jadi is similarly reluctant. As the row with residents heated up, he was recently forced to assign a representative to answer questions.
"It is time to ask what is the role of the abbots - to act as developers, or moral preachers," said Mr Pathomreuk, who has helped many communities facing eviction problems.
"Temples are indeed national properties but many abbots act as if the temples belong to them," he said.
The cause of the problem is more than the need to develop temple land.
"Not all abbots behave like these two. Abbots who depend on communities will have compassion towards their communities," said Mano Mettanando Laohavanich, a scholar on Buddhism.
In the past, abbots were recruited from among local senior monks. But the 1962 Ecclesiastical Act, drafted when Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat used monks to combat communists, established a promotion system for monks under the Sangha Council.
Monks can get promoted like state officials or military officers. And the council acts as a governing body which sends representatives to control temples.
The law gives omnipotent power to abbots, as in "Abbot is King in the temple", said Mr Mano.
Although temples are national properties, the abbots have the power to clear any structures on temple grounds except national heritage items listed by the Fine Arts Department.
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