'Buddhism under threat': How a model and a former monk are campaigning together for Thailand’s election at a market outside Bangkok panuw
PATHUM THANI, Thailand - A clothing and cosmetics model and a former monk are campaigning together for Thailand’s election at a market outside Bangkok. The message: Buddhism is under threat.
The emergence of the Pandin Dharma Party to contest the March 24 election points to the rise of a fringe of Thai society that is at odds with the royalist-military establishment over religion and expresses growing antipathy to Islam. The government’s National Office of Buddhism declined to comment on the allegations or the rise of Buddhist nationalism - saying it was a matter of national security.
Thai Buddhism itself is divided into two fraternities: the Mahanikaya of the masses and the more conservative Thammayut, bound to the establishment and more influential since its founding by a 19th century king.
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