Hindus and Buddhists call for deeper understanding of the swastika

"I realised pretty quickly that it wasn't what I thought it was and that it had a different meaning," she said.

Ayya Yeshe, who now lives at the Bodhicitta Dakini monastery in Golden Valley, eventually became a Buddhist nun and lived in India for 17 years.

She said when you live in India, you get used to things that you can't completely make sense of and you learn to have an open mind until you understand what it is.

While the swastika in the West is most commonly associated with the Nazi Party, in Buddhism and Hinduism it is a millenia-old symbol of good luck and prosperity.

In line with other Australian states, the Tasmanian Government has now moved to ban the Nazi symbol along with the Nazi salute.

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The Police Offences Amendment (Nazi Symbol Prohibition) Bill states that a person must not by "a public act and without reasonable excuse, display a Nazi symbol if the person knows, or reasonably ought to know, that the symbol is a Nazi symbol."

The bill acknowledges the importance of the swastika to Hindu, Buddhist and Jain groups and provides religious exemptions.

However, some faith groups are calling for greater public awareness and education in the lead up to the bill being passed.

What does the swastika mean for Buddhists and Hindus?

Ayya Yeshe said in Buddhism, the swastika represents auspiciousness, good health and prosperity and is sometimes part of the decoration in monasteries.

It can also symbolise the Buddha's footsteps and is often depicted alongside the Buddha' feet.

As a Western Buddhist, Ayya Yeshe says that the symbol is not a big part of her own religious practice, but it can be a familiar and auspicious symbol for Asian Buddhists.

"For them, it would be weird to be told that this symbol of auspiciousness and goodwill has been misused for the complete opposite of that - which is intolerance, bigotry and hate."

She's sometimes had to tell newly arrived Buddhist friends to be cautious about displaying the swastika on their doors.

"Personally as a white Buddhist, I would steer clear of using any kind of swastika just because of the connotation, how easy it is for people to misunderstand," she said.

"I'm really sure that the average person who walks past my monastery would not know the difference between a Buddhist and a Nazi swastika and therefore I just wouldn't use the image."

The importance of public understanding

The bill, which has been tabled in the Tasmanian Parliament, provides a maximum penalty of $3620 or a maximum term of imprisonment of 3 months.

In order to avoid incorrect arrests, Ayya Yeshe said that police and the general public need to be educated on the difference between a Buddhist or Hindu swastika and the Nazi symbol.

Context is very important and part of multiculturalism is learning and tolerating differences, she said.

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Personally, Ayya Yeshe supports the ban with religious exemptions in order to curb the rise of far-right elements.

But she also says that her Asian Buddhist friends don't have the same history and association of the symbol with Nazism and should not "have to pay the price" for that legacy.

Others calling for greater public awareness are the Hindu Society of Tasmania.

The society's president Karunakara DT said that he was pleased that there were exemptions in the legislation for religious uses of the swastika, but hoped that there would be sufficient public education on the differences between the use of the symbol in religious and other contexts.

The symbol is present at Hindu temples and can sometimes be drawn on people's front doors. As a symbol of prosperity, it's used at the start of a religious event to ensure its success.

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"We don't support the use of this symbol for any other reasons like creating public hate speech," Mr DT said.

A symbol of peace turned into a symbol of hate

Dr Diana Cousens, a Tibetologist said the Nazis appropriated the swastika after it was adopted by a strange, esoteric society called the Order of the New Templars.

The order was associated with Aryan supremacy and anti-semitism and used the swastika on their flag in 1907.

The Nazi ideology was a grab bag of different beliefs and images and ideas, she said.

"Like a bowerbird they just took a lot of different things from different places and put them together with one of the overarching ideas being their idea of [the] Aryan superior race," Dr Cousens said.

"The Nazi Party did a lot of very bad things and stealing the swastika is also one of them."

Dr Cousens is also the vice president of the Buddhist Council of Victoria and was part of the consultation process between faith groups and the Victorian government ahead of the ban in Victoria.

It was an 18-month long process to find a "middle way" to protect the Jewish community, tackle far right elements and also protect the use of the swastika in Hinduism and Buddhism, she said.

Some of the ways that governments can facilitate a better understanding of different meanings of the symbol is to set up a working party with different representatives to talk about their concerns, Dr Cousens said.

Additionally, her organisation has received funding from the Victorian Government to produce education materials about the swastika's history for the public.

Census data shows that from 2016 to 2021, the Hindu population of Tasmania increased from 0.5 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

This was an increase from 2550 to 9720 people. Most were Nepalese and Indian migrants and their children.

In 2021, 1 per cent of Tasmania's population identified as Buddhist.

Ayya Yeshe said while those populations remain smaller than other parts of the country, it may indicate a greater need for awareness particularly in remote areas.

Reclaiming the name

Some also say that reclaiming the name is part of understanding the symbol's deeper history.

A submission made to the Justice Department by the Faith Communities Network of Tasmania and Religions for Peace Tasmania Branch recommended that the "Nazi symbol in the legislation and in every referral to it be called the Hakenkreuz, as the Germans themselves called it, and that the spiritual symbol be referred to as the swastika, which is its original name."

Terry Sussmilch, who drafted the submission, said that the Nazis' adoption of the swastika had subverted both the symbol and the name.

"It's really important that if we're going to distinguish the symbol, we need to distinguish the name as well," she said.

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A Justice Department spokesperson said the department had written to many religious and community groups providing the draft bill and offering briefings and seeking comment.

"Tasmania Police undergo regular training on new legislation, which would include training on the swastika's cultural and religious significance as part of this bill," the spokesperson said.

"The Department of Justice will prepare information to assist with community understanding of the new prohibition of Nazi symbols and gestures."

Dr Cousens said that religious groups who use the swastika were also supporters of the Jewish community and those who were persecuted by the Nazis.

"We are not on-board with any element of the Nazi ideology," she said.

"We deplore everything to do with the Nazis.

"It's important to know that the swastika is not the property of the Nazis and it has a deeper history."

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