The Buddhist Monk-Military Alliance Taking Over Myanmar
(ANALYSIS) The military in Myanmar has been increasingly abducting young men on the street or during household inspections to boost the number of military conscripts.
The regime has been targeting men and boys across all segments of society — including the urban poor, displaced populations, and ethnic and religious minorities.
Among those affected are also the Rohingya, who, despite being officially barred from military service due to their lack of citizenship, are being targeted.
Myanmar has enacted a mandatory conscription law last year requiring men aged 18 to 35 and women aged 18 to 27 to serve a minimum of two years, as part of the regime's effort to maintain control over the conflict-ridden country.
Since the law passed, young people have reportedly been fleeing the country, and residents say authorities now seem willing to conscript even middle-aged individuals to meet their quotas.
The law exempts members of a religious order (such as monks, nuns, and reverends) along with housewives and people with permanent disabilities, but the religious leaders, who have been well-connected to the government, are backing the recruitment drive. Using religion as a means to retain power is a longstanding tactic throughout history.
Some monks revolted, but their leaders did not
On the first day of the coup in February 2021, three prominent monks — Myawaddy Mingyi Sayadaw, Ashin Sobhita, and Shwe Nya War Sayadaw — were arrested alongside Aung San Suu Kyi and senior figures from the political party-National League for Democracy (NLD) — all known for their criticism of the military. However, the initial wave of peaceful street protests quickly gave way under a brutal crackdown marked by widespread violence, mass arrests, and torture.
Myanmar's top religious body, the governing Buddhist council or State Sangha, has said little publicly about the coup. One senior monk in the Sangha, Sitagu Sayadaw, has openly supported the military, and even traveled with Military Leader Min Aung Hlaing on an arms-buying trip to Russia.
Following the coup in 2021, the military has been presented as a sole defender of Buddhism. Hlaing has tried to rationalize the takeover by accusing former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of failing to uphold the nation’s core pillars of “race and religion.”
The monk-military alliance
In Myanmar, the Buddhist-Bama institutional framework — Bama being the dominant ethnic group — has played a central role in sustaining the ideological dominance of the ruling powers. Here, both religion and ethnicity have been weaponized as tools for demographic control and political governance.
When the military struggles to gain public support, it often turns to Buddhist monks to advance its agenda and legitimize its rule. Buddhist monks are often employed by the military when they are unable to attract their citizens to their interests.
On Jan. 4, 2023, during celebrations marking Myanmar’s Independence Day, the ruling military junta awarded Ashin Wirathu — a Buddhist monk known for his nationalist extremism — the prestigious title of “Thiri Pyanchi,” citing his “outstanding work for the good of the Union of Myanmar.” Aung Kyaw Moe, an advisor to the then National Unity Government’s Ministry of Human Rights, condemned the move on Twitter, saying the award had "lost all credibility by being handed to criminals."
Wirathu was sentenced to 25 years in prison for inciting a violent anti-Muslim riot in Mandalay, but was released in 2012. In 2018, Facebook banned him from its platform for repeatedly promoting hate speech against Muslims.
Several monks receive gifts from the military, who encourage them to propagate an Islamophobic agenda that once led to the killing of 70 Muslims in a riot in 2013.
Many ultranationalist monks have been documented participating in military parades and carrying weapons — evidence confirmed through open-source research by Myanmar Witness, a U.K.-based group that monitors developments in the country. The group also identified footage showing militia training conducted at the monastery of the influential monk Wirathu in Kantbalu, central Myanmar.
But that wasn’t always the case. Monks played a key role in the 1988 uprising that propelled Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi into the spotlight. Nearly two decades later, in 2007, they again protested in massive numbers during the anti-government demonstrations known as the Saffron Revolution.
The current association of monks and the military is different. They are not only supporting forced conscriptions by the military, but they are also building militias in their own territories.
One ultra-nationalist monk, U Warthawa, has played a key role in establishing and legitimizing pro-junta militias under the Pyu Saw Htee banner — an ultra-nationalist group made up of local backers of the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party and trained by former military personnel. They aim to confront the volunteer People's Defense Forces that have emerged across the state to resist the military junta. Images showing monks in saffron robes being trained to handle rifles made rounds on social media.
If anyone refuses to join the militia, they receive threats that their homes will be burnt down. Still, people have reportedly run away to escape the forced recruitment by Warthawa’s gun-toting monks.
The monks, perhaps, have become the obedient majority, far from being monastic revolutionaries of the pro-democracy movement in the late 1980s.
Sonia Sarkar is a journalist based in India. She writes on conflict, religion, politics, health and gender rights from Southeast Asia. Her work has appeared in a range of international publications, including the South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia and Al Jazeera.