H. L. D. Mahindapala
In three simple
sentences Prof. S. Arasaratnam, the historian, has summed up the overarching
force that governed Jaffna. He stated: The Vellahlas (sic) were thus the key
caste in the Tamil social system. They dominated the villages and ran its
affairs. The numerous other castes served the Vellahlas.” ( p. 110 – Ceylon,
Prentice- Hall Inc. 1964). This defines the omnipresent, Vellalar-dominated
hierarchy that penetrated every nook and corner of the peninsula and dictated
its laws and customs (Tesawalamai) to the subservient
non-Vellalars. Even though Vellalars had no centralised political power during
colonial and post-colonial periods, their domineering role in every village,
apart from the power derived as influential subalterns to the colonial masters,
made casteist Vellalarism the overwhelming force
that dominated Jaffna during feudal, colonial and post-colonial times.
The only time Vellalarism lost its supremacy was to Prabhakaran. In the
Vadukoddai Resolution the ageing Vellalar leadership declared war and handed
over the gun to the non-Vellalar Tamil youth to wage war. The privileged
Vellalars who had the money, the qualifications and the English-speaking skills
went abroad in search of greener pastures, leaving the others” to fight their
war. The Vellalars who legitimised violence in the Vadukoddai Resolution were
hoping to ride into power on the backs of the non-Vellalar Tamil youth. It was
Prabhakaran that came out of the Vellalar gun. He was the first-born
child of the Vadukoddai Resolution. He took the gun and first slaughtered
the Fathers of the Vellalar Resolution which gave birth to him.
Prabhakaranism
was merely a variation of fascist Vellalarism without casteism. His
one-man regime was an ideological extension of Vellalarism run by the low-caste.
Centuries of Vellalar political culture had fertilised the Jaffna soil for the
rise of Pol Potist Prabhakaranism. He faithfully followed his predecessors in
power. Born and bred in the Vellalar culture of violence there were no
impediments for Prabhakaran to deny the Tamil people their dignity, equality
and justice. The Vellalars justified his unrestrained violence, violating every
code of the UN Charter, as a legitimate tool of Tamil nationalism”. The
depraved violence of Magha of Kalinga, the first Tamil king, Sankilli,
Vellalars and Prabhakaran reduced their own people to the level of sub-humans.
Tamil regimes were run on dehumanising Vellalar violence.
Of
all the forces that ruled Jaffna the Vellalars held power for the longest
period, mainly as subalterns during the colonial period. Consequently, they
emerged as the most influential and powerful caste in Jaffna. In particular,
Vellalarism reigned supreme, as a legalised force, from the time (1707) the
Dutch codified the Vellalar customs and laws. It was called Tesawalamai –
the laws and customs of the land. It was approved by 12 Vellalar mudliyars
before the Dutch officially made it the law of the land. The Vellalar mudliyars
endorsed the Tesawalamai because it enshrined their customs and
laws. It consolidated Vellalar power to rule the Tamils under their oppressive
laws, including slavery. The codified Vellalar laws and customs (Tesawalamai)
placed them at the peak of the caste hierarchy, enabling them to oppress and
suppress those below them with a fascist fist. It is, for instance, the force
that denied the oppressed Tamils of Jaffna their right to occupy a seat in the
bus. In Jaffna they had to travel seated on the floor boards. The Tamils found
their dignity, equality, and justice only when they travelled in the buses of
the Sinhala-Buddhist South.
The
first battle to regain and retain the threatened supremacy of the Vellalars was
led by Moddely Tambi, the Vellalar Cannecappul (clerk to the
Commander of Jaffna). He raised a force of Vellalars, including those
from the Vanni, against the Dutch for sacking him. Dutch politics of the
time was focused on balancing the rivalries of the castes which was a
politically explosive task. The Dutch didn’t stop at dismissing Moddely Tambi.
The vacancy created by the sacking of a Vellalar was filled by appointing a
member of the rival caste, Madapally. In his Memoirs the Dutch
Commander of Jaffna, Zwaardecoon, says that he sacked Moddely Tambi to reduce
the power of the Vellalars who were dominating the public service. Holding
strategic positions in the public service was a politically sensitive issue
with the Vellalars who guarded their key jobs in the administration – a means
of maintaining their supremacy — with all their might. The Vellalars were ready
to move heaven and earth” (Zwaardecoon) to maintain their supremacy. Moddely
Tambi led the riot against the Dutch to regain their position, prestige and
power. The Dutch, however, were out to cut down the power of the Vellalars who
were dominating the administration. Zwaardeecoon says in his Memoirs that he
was given the orders by the Governor to make the necessary changes,
that so many thousands of people should no longer suffer by the oppression of
the Bellales, who are very proud and despise all other castes, and who had
become so powerful that they were able not only to worry and harass the poor
people, but also prevent them from submitting their complaints to the
authorities.” He added: The Bellales, (Vellalars) seeing that they would be
shut out from these profitable offices and that they would lose influence they
possessed so far, and being the largest in number and the wealthiest of the
people, moved heaven and earth to put a stop the carrying into effect of this
plan so prejudicial to their interests. …….Moddely Tambi was the principal
instrument. He was the man who first appeared as a rebel, he had been injured
by a long imprisonment and that this induced him to take revenge…… They also
probably understood that it was my intention to diminish the influence of the
Bellala caste, and were thus induced to take this course to promote the welfare
of their caste. I think that it was also out of their conspiracies that the
riots arose from which the Commandement suffered during my absence in the months
of May, June and July. (Memoirs of Zwaardecoon – pp. 24 –
26.)
In his statement
(quoted above), Prof. S. Arasaratnam confirms what the Dutch Commandeur
of Jaffna Zwaardcoon wrote in his Memoirs: both confirm that the
Vellalars were the most powerful force in Jaffna. Zwaardeecoon, of course, was more detailed. He argues with facts about the fascist oppression of
the Vellalars who oppressed thousands of people” and their commitment to
fight for profitable offices” to prevent the loss of influence they
possessed”. He depicts them as a power-hungry malevolent force. The
Vellalars policed the villages to keep the Panchamars (the five
low-castes) within caste boundaries. Whenever the Vellalars failed to win
consent they used ruthless physical force. Sporadic mini-battles were fought in
the villages to enforce Vellalar rituals which were imposed to keep the
rebellious Panchamars in their immutable place. The post-Moddely
Tambi Vellalar violence was on a mini scale at the village level. The most
determined battle was fought at Maviddipuram Temple in 1968 when they were
organised to challenge the Vellalars head-on for the first time. They had the
backing of the Communist Party (Peking Wing) led by N. Shanmugathasan.
When the Panchamars staged a non-violent protest demanding their
right to worship in the Maviddipuram holy shrine of the Hindus the Vellalars
responded by bashing their heads with bottles filled with sand. At the time,
Rajavarothiam Sampanthan was a Vellalar MP of the Federal Party. He and
the other Vellalar MPS did not lift a finger to oppose the oppression,
suppression and persecution of the Panchamar Tamils. Prof. C.
Sunderalingam, a caste fanatic, marched up and down in the pathway to the
entrance of the Temple with a walking stick, threatening to hammer any Panchamar
daring to cross the Vellalar boundaries. Sampanthan did not take S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam, the leader of his Party, to the American Ambassador or the
Indian High Commissioner to complain about Vellalarism – the dehumanising
force that denied dignity, equality and justice to his fellow-Tamils.
Vellalarism
survived on systemic violence unleashed from time to time to retain their
supremacy in Jaffna during feudal and colonial periods. Prabhakaran was the
first who was able to turn tables on the Vellalars. When the Vellalars were on
top they did not hesitate to suppress or massacres the rebellious Panchamars.
When Prabhakaran was on top he did not hesitate to slaughter the Vellalar
leaders. For the first time the arrogant Vellalars were forced to crawl on
their fours before low-caste Prabhakaran. Both, of course, shared one thing in
common: both were fervent adherents of the old tradition of Tamils killing
Tamils.
The
Sinhala state” which is accused of discrimination” had ruled Jaffna directly
only for 72 years, leaving aside the 17 years of Sapumal Kumaraya. Of the 72
years, roughly half of it was run by Prabhakaran. Any comparison of the two
cultures in the two states will confirm that the Tamil regimes, starting from
King Magha to Prabhakaran, have been torturing, persecuting, oppressing and
massacring Tamils for centuries. Besides, it was only in the ‘Sinhala state”
that the Tamils of Jaffna enjoyed dignity, equality and justice. The Sinhala
state” never denied them the right to be human, or to go to school, or to
sit in a chair with the other children, or to walk in sunlight, or to enter a restaurant
and share a common table, or to dine together, or to have the same rights as
the Sinhalese in burying their dead, or for the women to cover the upper part
of their body with a jacket, etc., etc. In fact, the Sinhala state” raised the
dignity of the Tamil identity to the highest global level as never done before.
For instance, there are 193 flags flying at the UN. Of these, only the flag of
the Sinhala state” has given the Tamils a place. When the world salutes the
flag of the Sinhala state” they also salute the Tamils and the Muslims. No
other state, not even India, the original homeland of the Tamils, has given
such a dignified place to the Tamils. No other king/leader of Tamils has ever
raised the dignity/honour of the Tamils to such dizzy heights.
Instead of
giving the Tamil their dignity, Tamil leaders policed their society to keep the
Tamil out of their society as unwanted pariah dogs. Social distancing and
segregation were codes imposed by the Vellalars to maintain their
supremacy. Any invasion into their defined boundaries was considered a
pollution of their purity – a notion borrowed from the Indian caste system to
exclude the other” and maintain their purity, exclusivity and supremacy. In
the post-Independent era the Vellalars opened their most violent front against
the Sinhala-Buddhists of the South when they realised that their supremacy was
threatened by (a) the loss of British patronage and (b) the establishment of
majoritarian rule based on democratic principles. In the 17th century
Moddely Tambi fought for Vellalar supremacy on casteist line because ideology
of Vellalarism was a dominant force accepted by the Dutch. They could use
casteism as an argument to prevent administrative power slipping out of their
hands and going into the hands of a rival caste, Madapallys. In the 20th
century the Vellalars have lost the legitimacy to fight for Vellalar supremacy
like Moddely Tambi on anachronistic ideologies of casteism. Nowadays, they
fight to retain their feudal power under modern Western theories. Vellalar
supremacist fight under cover of minority rights, discrimination, racism,
majoritarianism and human rights. The outdated feudal language and the logic of
Moddely Tambi, the Father of Vellalarism, are no longer valid. The Vellalars
have adopted the new lingo of NGOs to justify and retain their supremacy
inherited from feudal times. The caste power has also changed into class power.
According to latest reports, the new Vellalar class/caste maintains its caste
boundaries on a low key, without some of its earlier rigours. In other
words, Vellalarism continues to be a force in Jaffna signalling the Panchamars
clearly that they are still outside the inner circle of the Vellalars
Jaffna was
a domain ruled not by the Tamils but by the Vellalars who happen to be Tamils.
The Vellalars have been the dominant caste that possessed the power to impose
their will on casteist principles. There was no space for any other caste to
make inroads into the central decision-making process of Jaffna. Ever
since Moddely Tambi’s revolt no other caste has been able to dislodge the
Vellalars from the strategic places. They dominated the commanding heights of
politics, administration, professions, civil and religious institutions. Even
today key appointments to schools and University of Jaffna continue to be
reserved for the Vellalars. This enables the Vellalars to manipulate and manage
major decisions that shape the contours of Jaffna society. Politics, religion,
customs and laws (Tesawalamai) continue to be defined primarily
by the Vellalars. No ideology – liberalism, socialism, pluralism, humanism
etc.,– ever gained even a toehold in Jaffna. Only one ideology triumphed – Vellalarism.
It is an ideology based on the claim that only the pure” Vellalars are
entitled to wield power in Jaffna. The other” is excluded and thrown out as
outcastes. In the absence of the Brahmins in Jaffna, the Sudra Vellalars
elevated themselves to be the lords and masters of Jaffna on spurious
claims of purity.
The Sudra
Vellalars, however, are the least qualified to claim the purity of the Brahmins
who are supposed to have come from the head of Brahma. The low-caste
Sudras came from the feet of Brahma, according to the classical Indian caste
tradition. Vellalarism has survived on fictitious claims of purity. Take the
case of the pure” Vellalars who have no qualms about sleeping with low-caste
concubines, or drinking toddy in low-caste taverns. Obviously, principles of
purity and superiority are raised only to grab and retain power. Vellalarism
operates on a political network systematised to consolidate power in the
hands of a dominant endogamous caste. The ideology of purity is enforced to
segregate the powerless low-castes from the Sudra Vellalars, the self-appointed
high caste. This system was devised by the Vellalars to maintain an iron-fisted
hierarchy structured on division of labour and rigid rituals. The rituals are
designed specifically to control those below them with the sole intention of
forcing the non-Vellalars to serve the power, needs and the demands of the
hierarchy. It strips human beings of their basic rights, even to walk in
the sun, and reduce them to subhuman factotums. If, for instance, a Vellalar
met a Turumban, the lowest caste forbidden to walk in
daylight, he would be hammered mercilessly for polluting the purity of the eyes
of the Vellalar. Vellalarism maintained its supremacy by denying equality,
justice, and dignity of the non-Vellalars. Dehumanising their fellow-human
beings is the most demeaning obscenity of the Vellala supremacists. It
ostracises fellow-human beings and throws them down the hierarchy to make those
at the top feel superior. Vellalarism is caste fascism of the most oppressive
kind.
The
architecture of overarching Vellalarism is layered to reinforce and preserve
its supremacist base and its superstructure. It seeks to control every aspect
of social life, from the womb to the tomb, to prevent any deviation that would
threaten its power. Each defined hierarchical layer is fenced with ritualistic
boundaries drawn to elevate Vellalar supremacy in every sphere at every level
while, simultaneously, circumscribing the living space of the Panchamar
to shrink them into subhuman non-entities. Any transgression of the
boundaries is suppressed with brutal violence to protect and maintain the
supremacy of the Vellalar hierarchy. Vellalars wield power ruthlessly to
prevent any threat to its supremacy and exclusivity, both of which are based on
self-serving definitions of purity and pollution. Its legitimacy and authority
are derived from its definitions of purity – fictitious principles introduced
arbitrarily to elevate them above the rest. Maintaining the supremacy of
the hierarchy is the primary mission of its political agenda. It resists any
external, legal, political or social incursions into its domain. Whenever it is
unable to wield political power directly, it inveigles its way into centres of
reigning power (Portuguese, Dutch, British, or Sri Lankan) in order to keep
lines of communication open to influence decision-making in its favour. If that
fails, it does not hesitate to mobilise its forces to combat any force that
threatens its supremacy. Its relentless violence is perpetrated perpetually to
pursue its casteist political agenda. Its casteist boundaries limits the living
space of the other” to exclude them as unwanted outcasts of the elitist
circles at the top. In contemporary times when the ideology of casteist
Vellalarism has lost its legitimacy the Tamil intellectuals either borrow
modern theories to justify the antiquated casteist hierarchy, or divert
attention from its horripilating history to demonise the Sinhala-Buddhists.
Vellalarism was, in short, inhuman violence to discipline and control the Tamil
slaves as subhuman factotums.
The
Vellalar intellectuals who have been crying from the roof tops of the UN and
UNHRC in Geneva are reluctant to raise their voices in sympathy with the untold
suffering of the Panchamars persecuted by the Tamil
priviligentsia. It is because the Tamil diaspora too is run by the guilty
Vellalars who justified Tamil oppression of Tamils, including abduction of
Tamil children to fight in the futile Vadukoddai War, in the name of Tamil
nationalism”. The Vellalars constructed Tamil nationalism” as their last
refuge. They could no longer hang to casteist supremacy based on outdated
ideology of purity and pollution. Besides, with internal forces of Panchamar’s
challenging their supremacy they could not present a united front against the
Sinhalese of the South. Tamil nationalism” and the language issue were constructed
by the Vellalars as a last resort to unite the fragmented peninsula on caste
fault lines. Its early manifestations of 50-50” and federalism” were
political constructions created by the Vellalar leadership who fought
only for the protection and preservation of Vellalar supremacy. The last
mission of Sir. Ponnambalam Ramanathan to London was to convince the British
masters that casteism should be preserved for the stability, law and order of
the colony. G. G. Ponnambalam did not raise 50-50” in the name of Tamil
nationalism”. Like his predecessor, Moddely Tambi, his mission too was to
prevent the erosion of Vellalar power. His cry of 50% share of power was
aimed at retaining Vellalar supremacy in the administration and the
legislature.
He did not
ask for separatism or federalism. In fact, he said: Federalism is bad for
Ceylon and worse for the Tamils.” His primary aim was to gain and preserve the
disproportionate share of power to maintain the supremacy of the Vellalars.
Through British patronage they had already gained a disproportionate share of
power in the British administration. Ponnambalam made the next move
to grab a disproportionate share of power in the legislature. That is the
meaning of 11% of Jaffna Tamils demanding 50% of power in the centre. Under the
colonial and the independent regimes their political agenda was driven to
acquire as much power as possible in the centre to preserve their supremacy.
The Moddely Tambi syndrome never let Jaffna Tamil politics. In the post-Moddely
Tambi period only enhanced variations of his grab for power was played out on
an aggressive scale. However, his casteist ideology had run out of time in the
20th century. It was of no use to his successors. They craftily took
to fashionable Western theories as their old casteist ideology based on the
Vellalar purity and pollution was no longer viable.
Vellalar
thrust for power climaxed in the Vadukoddai Resolution of 1976. By that time
Vellalarism had transformed into Tamil nationalism” – the last phase of
Vellalar casteism. Tamil nationalism” was manufactured by the Vellalars
for the Vellalars to retain their supremacist status. They declared war in the
Vadukoddai Resolution to ride into power on the backs of the low-caste youth.
It was the last gambit of the Vellalars. As usual they took to violence when
they failed to get the consent of the majority to legitimise their supremacy.
They abandoned the democratic mainstream and openly decided to go for
militarism. In the penultimate sentence of the Vadukoddai Resolution the
Vellalar leadership urged the Tamil youth to take up gun and never cease firing
until they achieved Eelam. The next step was logical: the Vellalars
weaponised Jaffna, mobilised the necessary military forces, internationalised
it, financed it from abroad, legitimised it with Western theories, lobbied for
it globally, propagandized Tamil Pol Potism as a liberating force” and, most
of all, demonised the Sinhala-Buddhists as their bogey. Like the way the
high-caste Vellalars slept with low-caste concubines, disregarding principles
of purity, they were quAite happy to go to bed with Pol Potist Prabhakaran as
long as he was fornicating with violence to produce their Eelam baby.
The
critical role played by Western theories to cover up and legitimise
Vellalar fascism as Tamil nationalism” needs a special study. In fact, there
are many Ph. Ds awaiting the exploration of the hidden history of Jaffna. In
particular, Jaffna University should confer an honorary doctorate on Selvy
Thiruchandran for her brilliant study of Vellalar hypocrisy, obscenities,
violence, oppression and fascism in here book, Caste and its Multiple
Manifestations. Of course, Jaffna university will not have the courage
to do it. At least one of the other universities must honour her for the
intellectual courage with which she has handled this tabooed subject. Despite
the censorship imposed by the Jaffna University there are a few Tamil
intellectuals who have begun to talk about the horrors of Vellalar casteism.
It’s only a trickle right now. It is time for the Tamil intellectuals to turn
it into a flood.
