H. L. D. Mahindapala
All Sri Lankans are descendants of migrants. We are a nation of
migrants. Even the Jaffnaites who claim to be descendants of Tamils who
arrived in pre-historic times filled the northern strip of land, which they
called their sacred homeland, with S. Indian migrants only in the 12th and
13th centuries. There were no significant Tamil settlements before. During the
Dutch and the early British periods the colonisers were known as Malabaris
since they came from Malabar, not Tamils. They had no links to the Demalas”
(Tamils) mentioned in the Mahavamsa. The Demalas” cited in
the Mahavamsa lived in the ancient and middle ages as
mercenaries, merchants, marauders and political adventurers. Tamil historian K.
Indrapala has labelled the two horse traders, Sena and Guttika as usurpers and
Elara as a political adventurer”. (p.46 — Journal of the Ceylon
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XIII, 1969). That stream of
Tamils dried out. They either integrated with the Sinhalese or went back to
India. Though the Tamil mercenaries poured in the seventh century it was in
tenth century that we get more definite literary or epigraphic evidence
regarding any Tamil settlement…..The Culavamsa too has another
vague reference to Tamils living scattered here and there at this time.” (Ibid
– 49). The stragglers who stayed behind did not organise themselves into
a political unit to establish a separate state or to carve an ethnic enclave of
their own. Left to themselves, without any military support from S. India, they
coexisted with the majority Sinhalese as peaceful citizens. Besides, they were
numerically insignificant, without any power to challenge the dominance of
the Sinhala-Buddhist majority.
What is of historical significance is that the first
Jaffna settlement was established not by indigenous Tamils but by the invading
forces of Kalinga Magha in 1215. The Malabaris migrated in waves in the 12th and
13th centuries and colonised Jaffna which was populated by the
numerically substantial Sinhala-Buddhist community. The Jaffna Tamils of today
are descendants of the Malabaris who migrated during this time from S. India.
They are not the Demalas” of ancient and middle ages who could lay claim to
political rights based on their historical connections to the Tamils of the
pre-Christian era. The Jaffna Tamils of today are descendants of Malabari
colonisers who invaded the Northern strip and colonised it mainly by
ethnically cleansing the peninsula. The insane fury” of the
occupying forces drove the Sinhala-Buddhists out of the Jaffna, after
they had massacred the Catholics first. Then they went for the Muslims.
The available evidence points to the fact that Jaffna Tamils of
today is filled with the descendants of the Dravidian invaders who colonised
Jaffna in 13th century. The ethnic cleansing of Jaffna after their
arrival is recorded in Yalpana Vaipava Malai, the
mini-history of history written during the Dutch period. History of Jaffna as a
separate political entity began with the influx of new Malabaris from S. India.
The numerical strength of Tamils increased after the new waves of Malabari
migration flooded Jaffna in the post-12th century. Modern Jaffnaites
owe everything to these colonisers and not to the early Tamils who did not
establish an settlement. In other words, Jaffna was created by the S. Indian
invaders and not by the descendants of the original Tamils who showed no signs
of settling down. In the late British period, after the Tamil revival led by
Arumuka Navalar and C.W. Thamotherampillai, the new English-speaking Vellala
elite dropped the Malabari connection and became Tamils, proud of their new
identity derived mainly from the purity of the Tamil language preserved in
Jaffna. These new Tamils of Jaffna, in fact, then turned against their
homeland. They resisted the S. Indian influences and pressured Mrs. Sirimavo
Bandaranaike to ban the import of cheap Indian magazine, literature and films
as it was polluting the pure Tamil culture of Jaffna
When Kalinga Magha invaded Jaffna with his colonising forces and
established his Malabari colony in Jaffna he opened the gates for mass
migration of Malabaris. Yalpana Vaipava Malai states that they came in
waves. They had no connection to the indigenous Tamils who lived in scattered
pockets. That line had petered out. Kalinga Magha’s invaders established a new
colony for the new settlers. Consequently, present day Jaffna is
saturated with the descendants of the Malabari colonisers and not those of the
historic Demalas” mentioned in the Mahavamsa.
The Malabari descendants and the Mahavamsa descendants
are two separate streams who migrated in two different periods. Unlike the
Demalas” in the Mahavamsa who came as invaders, marauders,
merchants, mercenaries, political adventurers usurpers etc., the
Malabaris came as colonisers or as slaves to the Dutch and Sudra Vellalas
domiciled in the Jaffna kingdom. There is no unbroken continuity of one
segueing into the other, or passing its heritage to the other. In any case,
there was nothing much in the history of the Mahavamsa Demalas to hand
over to the Malabaris. The Mahavamsa Demalas” who were
active participants in Sinhala-Buddhist history, either as adversaries or as
settlers, had not created anything of their own to be handed to the new
Dravidian settlers. The modern Jaffnaites, the direct descendants of Malabaris,
belong to the post-12th century colonisers with no connection
to the early Tamil settlers.
The Demalas” in the Mahavamsa came as
itinerant explorers. They went back home after their jobs or adventures were
over. They did not come en masse as permanent settlers.
The Malabaris, or the modern Jaffnaites, came in 12th and 13th centuries
solely with the idea of colonising and making the Northern strip their home.
The geographical proximity to India made it the natural and the easiest
location for the Malabari migrants to hop across. The short 20 km Palk Straits
makes it a breeze to cross over. In reality, Jaffna began to make a history of
their own only after the Malabaris settled down in the 12th and
13th centuries. K. Indrapala wrote his first thesis on the
history of the Tamils based on this historical reality. But he had to recant it
as it did not fit into the political agenda of Tamil separatists who needed a
history going beyond the 12 the century to the dawn of time” (Vadukoddai
Resolution) to boost their political claims.
The history of those who claim to be Tamils today began with the
Malabari waves of migration from S. India. It is this mass migration that makes
Jaffna the haven of the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest caste in the classical caste
hierarchy of India. The influx of Malabaris in the post 12th century
gave numerical and political strength to Jaffna to emerge as a formidable
political unit. Recruiting the poverty-stricken Malabaris was cheap for the
Vellala tobacco planters and the Dutch traders. Besides, the Sudra Malabaris
were not restrained by religious taboos. The other three higher castes –
Brahmins, Kshatriya and Vaisya – did not cross over because Hinduism tabooed
the crossing of seas. The elite of India adhered faithfully to their
religious code and stayed at home. It was the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest caste,
that came over to Jaffna. This explains the dominance of the Vellalas who form
the majority in peninsula. Their numerical strength went a long way to create
the new identity of Jaffna as a separate ethnic enclave. Consequently, the
casteist politics of the Malabaris, who were the Sudra Vellalas, came to be the
most powerful force in Jaffna. The story of how the lowest caste became the
highest in Jaffna is another saga.
The combination of linguistic and mono-ethnic politics with
traditional casteism steeped in Saivism was the standard Jaffna socio-political
recipe that produced Vellalaism – a unique political dish that was the staple
diet of the ruling Vellala elite. Vellalaism of the ruling elite was sold in
the Jaffna political market as the best diet for the survival and success of
the Tamils. In the political market it triumphed over all other ideological
products. Ideologies of liberalism, socialism, or any other ideology based on
humanism could not get even a toehold against the overwhelming forces of
Vellalaism which crushed rivals with ease.
In peninsular politics it was the Sudra Vellala interests,
decisions and actions that determined the political consequences which flowed
collectively to make the post-independent history ofJaffna. As the ruling
masters of Jaffna, it was the Sudra Vellalas who made history and subsequently
wrote it, describing it as the history of the Tamils. This was inevitable
because no other caste /community had the power or the space to play any
significant part in the decision-making process at the highest, or even the middle
level in Jaffna – both of which were dominated by the Sudra Vellalas. It is a
misnomer to label the politics of the North as Tamil politics when a sizeable
segment of the minority Tamils were ostracised and kept out of the political
process. The Jaffna political landscape was dominated and determined
exclusively by the Sudra Vellalas, leaving the non-Vellala Tamils out of the
picture. Which makes the politics of the North Vellala politics” and not
Tamil politics”. Some of the ostracised non-Vellalas were not even recognised
as Tamils. They had no rights or status in the Sudra Vellala political order.
So how could it be Tamil politics” when the Tamils ostracised from Tamil
society had no part in the decision-making process of the Sudra Vellalas who ruled
Jaffna? From the Dutch period, when the Sudra Vellalas consolidated their power
under Thesawalamai as the overlords, Jaffna remained as
the land of the Sudra Vellalas, by the Sudra Vellalas, for the Sudra Vellalas.
Armed with the political power they wielded with force, if
necessary, the Vellalas succeeded in grabbing total power into their hands and
running Jaffna according to their norms. But the absence of a priest caste,
like the Brahmins, at the top left a huge gap in the Jaffna Hindu caste hierarchy.
The vacuum was filled by Arumuka Navalar, the dynamic Hindu revisionist, who
elevated the Sudra Vellalas, the lowest, to the highest level of Brahmins. His
revision of Saivism resulted ultimately in placing the Sudra Vellalas in the
highest rung of the caste hierarchy of Jaffna. In the absence of the Brahmins,
the lowest became the highest. When the lowest rose to the highest rung, the
power generated by religious authority elevated secular Sudra Vellalas to be
the equivalent of the Brahmins – a divine force anointed by Hinduism. Navalar’s
act of ritually anointing Vellalas as the equivalent of Brahmins inflated the
Sudra Vellala egos with an unwarranted sense of superiority. To be anointed as
the Brahmins of Jaffna was the highest social status achievable in the casteist
hierarchy. Later the Sudra Vellalas reciprocated by elevating Arumuka Navalar,
the Hindu/Tamil revivalist, to the level of an iconic religious guru of Jaffna.
He became a revered hero of the Vellalas, though the low castes rejected him.
When his statue was taken round Jaffna in 1968 by the high-caste Vellalas the
protesting low-castes stoned the statue and the Sinhala-Buddhist state” had to
send its Police to save the face of the Vellalas.
Vellala political power was reinforced with religious sanctity
when revised Saivism of Navalar elevated Vellalas to the peak of the casteist
hierarchy. Vellalaism rose above that of being an orthodoxy. It left the human
domain and rose to divine heights. Like Saivism the authority of Vellalaism after
Navalar could not be questioned. To question the authority of Vellalism was to
question the divinely ordained casteist hierarchy. In India Hinduism made
Brahmanism into a divinely ordained force. In the absence of the Brahminism in
Jaffna the revised Vellalaism of Navalar placed the Vellalas as the equals of
the Brahmins — a formidable force that could not be questioned. In
short, the religious act Arumuka Navalar, the revered Hindu
theologian/priest of the dominant Sudra Vellalas of Jaffna, turned into a
political act that empowered the Vellalas to rule Jaffna with divine authority.
Invigorated by their belief in caste superiority the Sudra Vellalas assumed
that they were the divinely ordained rulers of Jaffna. They came to believe
that they were not merely the secular heads under Thesawalamai but
also the religious heads under revised Saivism of Arumuka Navalar. Besides,
they owned the temples and they could use religion as a political force to keep
the low-castes in the place assigned by God at birth. Deluded by the arrogance
of caste superiority and political power they assumed that they were born to
rule. It was Navalar who white-washed the Sudra Vellalas with caste
purity, blessing them with the power to rule from the peak of the social hierarchy.
This made the Vellalas the most formidable force in peninsula politics.
The Vellala dominance of Tamil society is complete,” wrote
Prof. Ratnajeevan Hoole. (p. 45, Heritage Histories, A
Reassessment of Arumuga Navalar, a.k.a. Candar Arumuganavan, Prof. S.
Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, Thesam Publications, U.K.). Vellala laws, customs,
rituals, norms controlled every aspect of Jaffna society from the womb to the
tomb. Besides, they monopolised power in Jaffna because they were in control of
all the levers of politics, administration and religious institutions.
Land, temples, plum jobs in the administration, schools, professions were in
the hands of the Vellalas. It was their abuse of power from these commanding
heights that turned them into a fascist oppressive force. They took to the
pervasive Sankili cult of violence like duck to water and pursued power
ruthlessly. The power struggle of the Vellalas to retain their grip on Jaffna
made them the cruellest ruling caste/class, with power to determine the fate of
the oppressed Jaffnaites from birth to death. Their abuse of power, of course,
led to resistance. At the core of major political clashes, whether with the
low-castes in the colonial and feudal times, or colonial rulers (Modely Tambi’s
rebellion against the Dutch), or the post-colonial rulers in the South, the
clashes were essentially with the Vellalas. Their omnipresent power was
Ineluctable. Its overwhelming pressures forced even the Churches to succumb to
its demands. To preserve the superior status of the Vellalas, the Churches
allotted the front pews to the Vellalas and the rear pews to the low-castes.
Sudra Vellala politics centred on the fear of them losing their
power over the low-caste minority in Jaffna in feudal and colonial times first,
and then losing power to the Sinhalese majority in the South in the
post-independent era. It is the excessive and aggressive power of
the Sudra Vellalas that was under threat, not that of the Tamils, or the
Tamil-speaking people. All demands that were put forward as that of the Tamils
were framed and pursued intransigently to its bitter end by the Vellalas –
political strategy that has boomeranged on them. Their relentless pursuit of
the politics defined in the Vadukoddai Resolution – the ultimate political
manifesto of the Sudra Vellalas — ended in Nandikadal. It is their
aggressive and excessive demands that bedevilled North-South relations.
Historian Dr. G. C. Mendis wrote : The real problem arose not because the
Sinhalese were not prepared to compromise, but were not prepared to concede as
much as the Tamils demanded.” (p.12 – Journal of the Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society, Vol XI, 1967.) A typical example of Vellala
extremism is G. G. Ponnambalam’s 50-50” demand. The demand of 50% power by a
minority of 11% is tantamount to insane extremism. Despite that the Sinhalese
offered 45 % to the Tamils which was rejected by Ponnambalam who refused to
budge from his 50-50 demand. This validates the argument that it is the
disproportionate and excessive Tamil demands that exacerbated the North-South
relations.
Later Tamil political judgments realised the mistake of not
taking the offer of 45%. Nevertheless, it is the Sinhala-Buddhists who are
blamed for not giving into the Tamils demands.
The Vellalas disguised their sectarian mono-ethnic extremism as
an ethnic issue affecting the entire Tamil-speaking community. But the issues
of the Vellalas were not relevant either to ostracised Tamils of Jaffna or to
the regional Tamils. This is why the pan-Tamil movement of S. J. V.
Chelvanayakam, the father of the separatist movement, failed to take off.
Besides, the Sudra Vellala contempt for the rest of the Tamil-speaking
communities – the low-castes, the Batticoloa Tamils, and the Indian Tamils – is
well documented. Overall, the dominant Vellala politics lacked the binding
force to hold all the non-Vellala Tamil communities together. They were hoping
to hang on to their grip on Tamil leadership by claiming to be the founding
fathers of the Tamil nation. They even traced the origins of their mythical
history to the dawn of time” in the Vadkoddai Resolution. This
historical positioning was to claim a superiority over the non-Vellala Tamils
who, as latter-day migrants, would be reduced to a lower status. Fabricated history
was used extensively and intensively by the Vellalas to boost their imagined
political status and power. History was essential for them to be make their
aggressive and excessive demands. The arbitrary and unwarranted elevation
of the Sudra Vellalas to the level of Brahmins gave them a false sense of
superiority. The disproportionate share of government jobs gained with British
patronage gave them the illusion of being intellectual geniuses. Their minds
were saturated with concoctions of fabricated political myths. The Vellala
arrogance and their sense of superiority came out of myths fabricated by their
politically perverted imagination.
What is valid, however, is that they had acquired, especially
through the learning of the English language in the missionary schools of
Jaffna, a higher degree of knowledge, experience and power to be in the
forefront of Tamil political movement. Even the colonial masters recognised the
Vellalas as the leading political force and they were consulted and
accommodated as far as possible to keep the natives quiet. For instance, when
the Dutch codified the laws and customs of Jaffna they consulted the 12 Vellala
mudliyars and it was with their advice and consent that Thesawalamai came
into force as the law of Jaffna – an act that legalised Tamil
slavery. Besides, after the riots of Modeli Tamby – the Vellala rebel who
rioted against the Dutch for not giving the job of canakepulle in
the Dutch administration to a Vellala – the Dutch tilted the proportion
of government jobs in favour of the Vellalas, playing down the claims of their
rivals, the Madapallis. With legalised slavery the Vellalas had all the powers
and privileges of feudal casteism to rule Jaffna with an iron-fist, suppressing
and oppressing the low-caste Tamils. The powerless low-castes were
ostracised and kept aloof, outside Tamil society, as the virtual enemies of the
Vellalas. Before the Vellalas turned against the South, the Vellalas were
engaged in a low-intensity battles with the low-castes who were sporadically resisting
Vellala oppression. The low-castes did not have the organised power to
challenge the Vellalas. The fascist Vellalas, however, used all the power they
had to keep the low-castes in their caste-assigned place. The Vellalas,”
wrote Prof. S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole, dominate intellectual life. They control
what is taught in schools. ….. The Vellala dominance of Tamil society is
complete. ….. When Vellalas dominate intellectual life, it is natural for them
to twist history. It is the human condition to not accept anything negative
about ourselves….” P. 45-46, Heritage Histories, A Reassessment
of Arumuga Navalar, a.k.a. Candar Arumuganavan, Thesam Publications, UK.)
It is the politics of the Sudra Vellalas that over-determined
the overall politics of the peninsula. They used the power they derived from
their dominance of Jaffna to determine the North-South relations. Their
power, intransigence and arrogance spilled over from the North into the South
and ruined all possibilities of peaceful co-existence. With their
intellectual prowess and command of the English language they defined the
Tamil demands which, incidentally, came down to the basic interests of the
Vellalas. What was presented to the world as demands of the Tamils was
nothing but the demands of the Vellalas. The Vadukoddai Resolution which
declared war against the nation in urging the Tamil youth to take up arms until
they achieved Eelam was purely a Vellala demand. The upper-caste Tamils were
expecting the low-caste Tamil to pull out their political chestnuts from the
fire. The Vellalas were hoping to ride into power on the backs of the
low-castes. So, they backed the Vadukoddai War” (a.k.a. Eelam War”) to the
hilt. Weaponising the Tamil youth was the last card they played to win power
for themselves. The ageing Vellala leadership lacked the ability to engage in a
physical battles. They either sat comfortably in the Parliamentary seats in the
Sinhala-Buddhist South or migrated overseas and financed their war, hoping to
come back to rule Jaffna once again according to their agenda. But their grand
dream ended in Nandikadal.
With the decline of casteist Vellalaism as a legitimate ideology
to sustain their grip on power, Hinduism and the Tamil language became the most
formidable forces of Jaffna. Prof. S. Pathmanathan says that the Hindu
tradition, along with the Tamil language, forms the basis of the Tamil
identity.” (Quoted by Prof Ratnajeeevan H. Hoole in p. 28 of Nethra Ibid).
In the same page Prof. Ratnajeeevan Hoole says that the belief of the
many Tamils (is that) unless one is a Saivite, he is not a Tamil and
unless one is a Vellala, he is nothing.” The Vellalas continued to exploit both
Hinduism and language to maintain their dominant place in politics. These
two forces were hijacked by the Vellalas when they realised that casteism, the
divinely ordained order, was losing its power to sustain them in power. It is
these two factors that bonded all layers of the fragmented Tamil communities
together. The Sudra Vellalas were able to bring the non-Vellalas under their
political wing by weaving the new Tamil identity under the cover of these two
ideologies. But power did not slip out of the Vellalas until the arrival of
Prabhakaran. The first time that power slipped out of the Vellalas since they
took command of Jaffna from feudal times was when they asked the Tamil youth to
take up arms in the Vadukoddai Resolution of May 14, 1976. The armed youth not only
took up arms they also took command of Jaffna with the gun. And they turned
their guns first on the Vellala fathers who legitimised their violence and gave
them guns. Other than brutal violence and the ideology of Vellalaism the
Vellalas had not offered the Tamils any other liberal, democratic, socialist
alternatives to the Tamil electorate. They succeeded in surviving as a caste
elite under Hinduism in feudal and colonial times. They added linguistic
politics to casteist Hinduism in the post-colonial period. But modernity
undermined casteism as a political force. So they clung on to linguistic
politics desperately.
As the force of casteism declined in the 20th century
the Vellalas turned to language for political survival. Tamil language became
the most exploitable issue in national politics because the Vellalas
found it to be the most unifying force of Tamils that can cut across
caste divisions. It even appealed to the Westernised Sinhalese and the
English-speaking elite in Muslim and Burgher communities. But it was the
Vellala leaders who, in the absence of any progressive political
programme, went all out to exploit the language issue. It was also an
issue confined mainly to the elitist Vellalas in the professions. It was not an
issue that affected the Tamil traders because those running shops communicated
without any difficulties with the Sinhala customers. It was not an issue that
affected Tamils who had settled in the South to live in Sinhalese
neighbourhoods. As neighbours the Muslims and the Tamils communicated with the
Sinhalese without any linguistic problems. It was not an issue at the highest
elitist level because they communicated with each other mainly in English, with
Sinhalese thrown in. So, language was not really a divisive issue that
threw communities apart. It was really a class issue that brought the elite of
all communities together against the use of Sinhalese.
The dead hand of history lies heavily on the present and there
is no way of escaping it unless you are prepared to renounce the past. The
politics of the past comes down in many forms. It is the distorted history that
wreaks havoc on the present. The Tamils became the victims of their distorted
history. It is their fake history that led them all the way to Nandikadal. Their
inflated arrogance blinded them to the grim realities of history. The alien
Malabris who became Tamils of Jaffna believed that they were even superior to
the Brahmins. The Jaffnaites thirst for history is to cover up their Malabari
origins. So, they skip the Malabari invasion, which does not give them any
historical legitimacy, and leap to the dawn of time” to claim nebulous
historical legitimacy. The manufacture of history became a huge industry in the
post-independent era because the Jaffnaites were desperately in need of some
sort of history, or anything that sounds like history, to legitimise their
bogus claims.
C.V. Wigneswaran has suggested the formation
of a Commission to probe and write a true history of this Country.” His idea
of a true history” is one that confirms his beliefs of Tamil superiority.
According to his gospel history was made by the Tamils and the
Sinhala-Buddhists had hijacked it by Sinhalacising the names of the kings and
places to glorify their past. For instance, he says, the Sinhalese had
rechristened Devanampiya Theesan as Devanampiya Tissa. This is what Tamils did
to Bata Kotte. They changed it into Vadukoddai. In his history he changes
Dutugemunu to Dushta Kaamini, a Tamil Buddhist. He is hoping that a new
commission will write history according to his version. The Tamils have two
universities and not a single has produced a history of Jaffna – a project that
should have been prioritised by any one of them since history is at the heart
of the burning politics of the day. They, however, cannot produce a
history because they do not know how to hide the demonic Sankili cult in Tamil
history. Besides, an objective history will not substantiate their claim for a
separate state. The only way out for the Tamil separatists is to rewrite a
history that would fit into their political agenda. This is why
Wigneswaran wants a commission to produce his version of history.
It is time that the Tamil intellectuals realised that history is
unforgiving. They cannot liberate their Tamil people by distorting reality. For
instance, the history they wrote in Vadukoddai on May 14, 1976 did not redeem
them because it was fake. It ended in Nandikadal. The time has come for them to
write a new history of Jaffna acknowledging the truth. They can begin by asking
a fundamental question vital for the peaceful coexistence of all communities:
Why did Jaffna fail to produce a democratic, liberal and humane society that
blessed all Tamils with dignity, justice and equality? Also, there is another
simple question that Wigneswaran has to answer to sustain his thesis of Tamil
superiority: If the Tamils came first and if Tamil language was here before
Sinhalese why did Tamil language go down and why did Tamil history decline
making Sinhalese the superior force in history? Those who triumph in history
are superior to those who lose or come second. All of Sri Lankan history prove
that the Sinhala-Buddhists triumphed all the way. For instance, the
Sinhala-Buddhist triumphed in building a tolerant, liberal democratic society
though with infirmities. They even fought the longest war within a democratic
framework. The Tamils of Jaffna never in their history built a democratic ,
liberal and tolerant society. On the contrary, their war was fought under the
ruthless leadership of a Tamil Pol Pot who killed more Tamils than the others.
It is the inability of Tamils to read and understand history
that led them to Nandikadal. The hard lesson to be learnt from Nandikadal is
that those who fail to read and understand history will end up in more
Nandkadals.
