{"id":52930,"date":"2016-03-14T15:29:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T21:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52930"},"modified":"2016-03-14T03:17:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T10:17:52","slug":"vellahlas-escaped-by-transiting-from-caste-to-class-armed-with-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/03\/14\/vellahlas-escaped-by-transiting-from-caste-to-class-armed-with-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Vellahlas escaped by transiting from\u00a0 caste to class armed with racism \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

In the\u00a0 two preceding articles I traced the crisis faced by the Vellahla ruling elite of Jaffna in the sixties. The low-castes staged organised threats for the first\u00a0 time challenging the supremacy of the Vellahlas. They not only threatened to enter the sacred domain of the Maviddipuram Temple \u2013 a domain reserved only for the upper-caste Vellahlas — but even stoned the statue of Arumuka Navalar, the demigod of the Vellahlas, which was taken in procession from Udippidy via Chavakachcheri to Jaffna. They could no longer r sustain their supremacy on the theology of antiquated Saivite casteism. In any case, their casteist ideology was no longer respectable nor valid in the middle of 20th century. Modernity creeping\u00a0 into the peninsula had undermined the ancien regime<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0 of Vellahlas though not comprehensively to deracinate Vellahlaism. However, the writing on the wall indicated that the old cadjan curtain thrown round Jaffna to keep the intrusive world out was crumbling. The Vellahlas had\u00a0 either to adjust\u00a0 or perish.\u00a0 A part of their crisis was in finding an escape route from out-of-date casteism without losing their position as the overlords of the peninsula. Managing the transition was a delicate process.<\/p>\n

The corrosive force that ruled Jaffna was Vellahlaism with its twin evils of casteism and racism. It was not easy for non-Vellahla others\u201d to break through or\u00a0 break\u00a0 into Jaffna society managed and directed by the\u00a0 Vellahlas exclusively. The Vellahlas had built cadjan curtains to prevent, if they could, the winds of modernity sweeping in to change the feudal casteist structures of the peninsula. Facing internal threat in the 50s and 60s they were putting up a rearguard\u00a0 resistance to ward off invasions of modernity.<\/p>\n

Neither Buddhism nor Marxism \u2013 the two\u00a0 biggest ideologies of the south \u2013 could get even a toehold\u00a0 in the north, even though attempts\u00a0 were made sporadically. For one thing, the Vellahlas were in the majority (50% \u2013 53% in 1960). For another, only the Vellahlas held the reins of power in the temples, land, public administration, professions, politics, social networks and in the strategic institutions that could push the buttons of power, influence and resources. Only the Vellahlas had the\u00a0 potential to give\u00a0 political leadership in the peninsular because\u00a0 they were the English-educated elite who were holding commanding position in\u00a0 every strategic sphere of influence-peddling and power-brokering. Nor could institutionalised Vellahlaism with its deep-rooted tentacles gripping every\u00a0 nook and corner of the socio-economic\u00a0 bases be\u00a0 eradicated in a hurry. Nevertheless, Maviddipuram and the protest against Navalar exposed the\u00a0 chinks in their armour. The problem facing the Vellahlas was\u00a0 to find\u00a0 an answer to their dying casteist culture without losing their hold\u00a0 on Jaffna.<\/p>\n

It was at\u00a0 this\u00a0 critical stage that the feudal Vellahla casteists realised like King\u00a0 Canute that\u00a0 they do not have\u00a0 the power\u00a0 to stop the rising waves of\u00a0 modernity sweeping across the neck of\u00a0 Jaffna. Despite rigid caste restrictions segments of a new Tamil class had risen, almost imperceptibly, from the\u00a0 low-castes and were competing with\u00a0 the Vellahlas as equals in the open market place where\u00a0 there were no caste barriers. The low-caste Tamils, equipped\u00a0 with the free education\u00a0 provided by the Sinhala governments\u201d, could now sit next\u00a0 to\u00a0 Vellahla upper caste in the\u00a0 public service without fear of being burnt\u00a0 by the Vellahla thugs. G.G. Ponnambalam, the caste-conscious\u00a0 leader\u00a0 of the All-Ceylon Tamil Congress, could not stand up in the courts of\u00a0 the Sinhala\u00a0 governments\u201d and refuse to argue\u00a0 his\u00a0 case with a low-caste Tamil lawyer. Slowly but surely,\u00a0 the creeping forces of modernity were pulling down the rigid caste barriers and the Vellahla had\u00a0 to either swim or sink.The writing was on the wall for the Vellahlas. Class was inexorably rising from the feudal ashes to replace caste.<\/p>\n

The Vellahlas had\u00a0 no alternative but to accept the\u00a0 new realities. They had\u00a0 to\u00a0 adjust to survive. It was time to take the inevitable step :<\/strong> they sloughed their casteist skins like snakes and morphed into a new class. This shift from\u00a0 caste to class was a feature\u00a0 highlighted by Prof. K. Sivathamby of Jaffna University.\u00a0 Historian, Dr. G. C. Mendis too had said: The British by their reforms brought into existence a new class between these two groups, the\u00a0 present middle class.\u201d ( p.130 \u2013 Ceylon Today and Yesterday, Main Currents of Ceylon History<\/strong><\/em>, Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd). He argued that communalism\u00a0 that\u00a0 raised\u00a0 its ugly\u00a0 head\u00a0 in\u00a0 the thirties was a contest between the two middle-classes of the\u00a0 Sinhalese and Tamils for\u00a0 limited jobs in the public\u00a0 service \u2013 the only growth industry of\u00a0 the time.<\/p>\n

In contrast, the Sinhala south had transited from feudal casteism to a seminal market\u00a0 economy, within a liberal\/democratic framework, in the early 20th century. In the south the new class that emerged from the old castes were in command of politics. The transition from the old caste to the new class was gradual and smooth. This demonstrates that the ruling classes never die : they merely change\u00a0 their appearance by wearing new clothes. The\u00a0 new Sinhala class came from the plantocracy, plumbago mines, arrack renting, transport and other nascent\u00a0 industries. This class rose from a range of castes. Though it was theorised that the socio-economic changes in the south elevated only one caste \u2013 i.e, the Karawa caste \u2013 what occurred in reality was the rise of the new Sinhala class drawn from a cross-section of castes, as stated by academic Kumari Jayawardena.<\/p>\n

But there were no similar ground-breaking shifts either in the economy or the socio-political structures of Jaffna. All the key agencies for change remained in the hands of the ruling Vellahla elite. Jaffna was the\u00a0 last to\u00a0 change, most reluctantly, from\u00a0 feudalism to modernity. The Vellahlas, in fact, moved to keep\u00a0 Jaffna as a closed society preventing internal and external forces from invading their exclusive domain. The Vellahlas were jealously guarding their power, privileges, properties, positions, perks derived from feudal and colonial traditions.<\/p>\n

The crisis in Jaffna was the crisis faced by the Vellahlas. They had to decide whether they were going\u00a0 to remain in the dying\u00a0 caste system or resurrect as a new\u00a0 force with a new image, if they were to retain their\u00a0 leadership with all the privileges that\u00a0 go with it.\u00a0 The evolving and intermeshing north-south forces too pushed the new Vellahla class to drop the oppressive characteristics of\u00a0 feudal overlordism and\u00a0 reluctantly accept the changes imposed on them by emerging socio-economic forces. Rather late in the day, they accepted the inevitable and yielded to the overwhelming forces pushing\u00a0 them into the 20th century as a political\u00a0 class. And\u00a0 in the new class structure the rigid caste distinctions gave way to a rather frosty co-existence with the\u00a0 new rich low-castes. It was a case of the Vellahlas kissing the hands they could\u00a0 not cut. The upwardly mobile low-castes had reached their dream of being equal\u00a0 with the Vellahlas thanks\u00a0 to\u00a0 the free education provided by the so-called discriminating Sinhala\u00a0 governments\u201d.<\/p>\n

Driven by vicious Vellahlaism the Saivite Jaffna Tamil leadership wrote the darkest chapter in Sri Lankan\u00a0 history dipped in the blood, sweat and tears of the oppressed Tamils. However, in the new phase they had to broaden their political agenda to make the Vellahlas look humane and acceptable as a class. They needed new clothes tailored to make them fit the part they were expected to play in the new times. The new verti-clad Tamil nationalists\u201d had. out of sheer political necessity, to reinvent themselves as a force for all Tamils. They could no longer be the exclusive\u00a0 Vellahlas standing up only for the Vellahlas as they were in feudal\u00a0 and colonial periods. They had to make concessions and one of them was to to drop\u00a0 their antiquated casteism.<\/p>\n

However, in their agenda it\u00a0 was only a temporary move adopted for political expediency. Latest research indicate\u00a0 that the Vellahlas are\u00a0 hoping to regroup, reclaim and reassert their traditional power. Both in the Tamil diaspora and in Jaffna the Vellahlas continue to dominate the political agenda. The unwritten clause in the Vadukoddai Resolution was for the Vellahlas to capture Eelam and reinforce the power they have been hankering for from feudal and colonial\u00a0 times. Though they are acting as a class they have not given up their old caste loyalties. Those loyalties, eddying round dreams of Eelam, continue to bind them together. They need to stand together as a class because\u00a0 it provides the overarching ideology to hold the fragmented groups together. Revised Saivism\u00a0 of Arumuka\u00a0 Navalar, which was viable in feudal times, was no longer valid to claim leadership of the new class rising in\u00a0 the 20th century. Under casteism, authorised by Navalar, they had the power to exclude, and even eliminate the low-castes. In the class system\u00a0 they were\u00a0 forced to include the others\u201d, whether\u00a0 they liked\u00a0 it\u00a0 or\u00a0 not.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 problem facing the Vellahlas was not only to change\u00a0 but also to\u00a0 change without losing\u00a0 their grip on power. Whether under the caste system or\u00a0 in the new class system their\u00a0 primary objective was\u00a0 to retain their leadership. To retain its\u00a0 leadership role the new class had to consolidate its\u00a0 power\u00a0 base with a non-casteist ideology that would include all layers\u00a0 of society. For a brief while in the early thirties the Tamil youth of Jaffna openly rejected both casteism and communalism and campaigned for an overarching nationalism consisting of all communities. Moved by Gandhism they had unequivocally rejected communalism, including communal representation. In their day they were a\u00a0 powerful movement and G. G. Ponnambalam had no\u00a0 place in\u00a0 Jaffna. But this proved to be a passing utopian phase. The over-powering Vellahlaism defeated the idealism of the English-educated Tamil youth.\u00a0 Ponnambalam bounced back into the leadership by espousing the corrosive force of racism which was as destructive as Vellahla casteism. (See The Dance of the Turkey Cock \u2013 The Jaffna Boycott of 1931<\/strong><\/em> \u2013 Jane Russell, pp.47 \u2013 67, The Ceylon Journal of Historical and Social Studies<\/strong><\/em>, Vol 8, No 1, January \u2013 June 1978). The rise of Ponnambalam demonstrates\u00a0 the inherent power of Vellahlalaism as an overdetermining political force.<\/p>\n

Under Ponnambalam\u2019s aggressive anti-Sinhala-Buddhist political agenda, racism replaced casteism as the new ideology to hold the fragmented Tamil groups together. It was also the time when the Vellahalas were transiting into a class. In this phase, the Vellahlas were forced to abandon their old casteists rigidities and turn\u00a0 into flexible classists without giving up their traditional Vellahla status in the peninsular hierarchy. In fact, the\u00a0 necessities of waging a battle against an\u00a0 external enemy made them reconcile with the local enemy, only up to a politically expedient point. For instance, they were quite happy to go along with the\u00a0 low-caste Tamil youth waging the Vadukoddai war launched\u00a0 officially by the Vellahla elite. The Vellahla elite who stayed behind were hoping\u00a0 to ride on the backs of the Tamil youth for them to come into power though their strategy misfired under the\u00a0 first born child\u00a0 of the Vadukoddai Resolution, Velupillai Prabhakaran. The Vellahla elite who went abroad sent their children to universities while financing the war waged by the low-caste Tamil youth in Jaffna. As in the feudal and colonial times, the Vellahala elite were making use of the low-castes to do their dirty work.<\/p>\n

The concessions made to the low-castes were partly generated by the Vellahla needs to combat\u00a0 the Sinhalese. The Vellahla leadership was reaching out in all direction, to the trousered Tamils\u201d of Batticoloa and\u00a0 to the estate workers in the hill country. The flexibility of the Vellahlas came\u00a0 from the need to garner additional reinforcements to wage their racist war against\u00a0 the Sinhala governments\u201d. In particular, the Vellahlas could not operate their new front against\u00a0 the Sinhala governments\u201d\u00a0 with a divided peninsula.<\/p>\n

Besides, they realised that the enemy of their power derived from feudal and colonial times was not the internal low-castes but\u00a0 the external Sinhala governments. S. W. R. D Bandaranaike had passed the critical Prevention of Social Disabilities Act (1957) which legally struck at the very foundations of Vellahla casteism. He was the very first political leader to take on the might of the Vellahlas by ramming the citadel of Vellahla casteism with his new Act. This\u00a0 confirmed all the fears of the Vellahla casteists that the Sinhala governments\u201d were a threat to their privileged status. They also realised that the Saivite casteist theology was not\u00a0 going\u00a0 to take them anywhere\u00a0 in combating the new\u00a0 national front opened up by the Vellahla decision-makers. Casteism worked only within the borders of the\u00a0 peninsula. But to take on the new Sinhala governments\u201d after their British patrons\u00a0 had left,\u00a0 they\u00a0 needed a new ideology and\u00a0 new reinforcements. Casteism had to go. It was too narrow and outdated.<\/p>\n

Racism, on the other hand, resonated as a force not only to paper over the widening internal cracks but also to form a collective front against\u00a0 the external enemy in the south. It was the glue\u00a0 to hold the fragmented Jaffna together. And with some sophisticated theorising it was even recast into a respectable minority vs. majority issue and marketed world-wide. The new class that came out of the old oppressive Vellahla caste began to pose as liberal champions of minority rights. Simultaneously, the issue was packaged in fashionable theories and language that flowed with modern intellectual currents.<\/p>\n

It was easy to market the idea of a minority battling a\u00a0 majority as a righteous issue. The Tamil lobby packaged it neatly without revealing the\u00a0 dark side of their history in which the Tamil Minority\u201d \u2013 their euphemism for the low-castes \u2013 was oppressed by the Vellahla majority with an iron\u00a0 fist. They never told the world that they had stripped every vestige of\u00a0 human dignity, liberty and security of\u00a0 their own people which reduced the low-castes to subhuman slaves. The Tesawalamai<\/strong><\/em> Code recognised four categories of slaves : <\/strong>Koviyars, Chandars, Pallas and Nallavars. (p. 76 \u2013 <\/strong>The Laws and Customs of the Tamils of Jaffna<\/strong><\/em>, <\/strong>Dr. H. W. Tambiah, Womens\u2019 Education and Research Centre.)<\/p>\n

Jane Rusell states that the pallas<\/strong><\/em>, landless labourers were, however, treated much like helots or serfs by the vellahlas<\/strong><\/em> who formed the powerful landowning class. Their position after the abolition of slavery (by the British in 1844) was not much improved. As (H.W.) Tambiah observed : Although slavery was abolished legally, many of the depressed classes remained as de facto slaves of their (vellahla<\/strong><\/em>) masters for economic reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even by the mid-20th century the status of the pallas<\/strong><\/em>, for example, was hardly any better than a century before. Tambiah quotes from\u00a0 the Manual of Madura District published in 1868 to describe the position of the pallas<\/strong><\/em> in 1951 : They are numerous but abject and despised race. Their principal occupation is ploughing the land\u00a0 of the more fortunate Tamils, and though normally free, they are usually slaves in almost very sense of the word. The outcasts or parayas<\/strong><\/em> had a deplorable social status. Among this group there was a caste unique to Jaffna, the turumbas<\/strong><\/em>, or washermen to the parayas<\/strong><\/em>. They were not allowed to be seen in the daylight and could only travel by night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Tamil churches, Hindu temples, schools, administrative and public\u00a0 institutions treated these marginalised outcasts as subhumans unfit\u00a0 for their exalted company. This is the dark side of Jaffna which the embarrassed Jaffna Tamils sweep under their mats. Jaffna Tamils have thrived essentially on the myths they have created to either to sanitise and glorify their own image or to demonise the other\u201d, particularly the Sinhala-Buddhists. For instance, the new caste\/class took to\u00a0 virulent mono-ethnic extremism as a panacea to all Tamil problems without\u00a0 acknowledging that\u00a0 Tamil dignity, liberty and security were best\u00a0 served when they co-existed peacefully with the other communities than under any of the Tamils leaders \u2013 from Sankili to Prabhakaran.<\/p>\n

One\u00a0 of the greatest achievements\u00a0 of\u00a0 the Sinhala\u00a0 governments\u201d has been\u00a0 the rescue of the Tamils from Pol Potist tyranny of Prabhakaran and the restoration\u00a0 of basic freedoms and democracy to the Tamils. What\u00a0 dignity, liberty, security and respect did Sampanthan and Sumanthiram get from their dear leader\u201d Prabhakaran?\u00a0 The Sinhala governments\u201d gave them not\u00a0 only security when\u00a0 they were threatened by the Pol Potist forces of Prabhakaran but also their right to criticise the Sinhala governments\u201d. In contrast, what was their plight under their dear leader\u201d Prabhakaran? What political rights did they enjoy under their Tamil liberator\u201d? Did they even have the right to nominate a candidate of their choice without the consent of their dear leader\u201d?\u00a0 It is undoubtedly the incurable tendency of\u00a0 the Tamils to believe\u00a0 in their self-destructive mythology, denying the grim realities imposed on them by their oppressive leaders, that bedevil politics for all stake holders. Demonising the Sinhala-Buddhists is their way of white-washing\u00a0 their dirty politics.<\/p>\n

The overwhelming theme of their mythology has been to present the Sinhalese as the bogey man \u2013 the goni billa\u201d coming to take their rights and their children away. This was their tactic to divert attention from the systemic failures of Vellahalism and its inhuman cruelties. Without revealing these dehumanising undercurrents the criminal oppressors of the Tamils cried out loud, claiming\u00a0 to be the victims of discrimination\u201d of the Sinhala governments\u201d. The other popular myth is that Jaffna Tamils (read : Vellahlas) were not given their dues. This issue will be dealt later. Even Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister, repeats the Tamil slogan that they must be given their dignity. Isn\u2019t it Mangala Samaraweera\u2019s duty to inform Modi that the dignity of the Tamils denied to the Tamils by the Tamil Pol Pot was restored on the banks of Nandikadal? Over 25,000 Sinhala soldiers sacrificed their lives to rescue the Tamils from the Pol Potist gulag. Tamils live in peace, knowing\u00a0 that their children will come\u00a0 home from school, because the Sinhala soldiers died to protect them too. The Tamils, no doubt, were among the main beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by Sinhala soldiers of the Sinhala governments\u201d that is generally accused of genocide\u201d and discrimination\u201d.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, I do not know\u00a0 of a single Tamil who had thanked the soldiers for delivering\u00a0 them from the tyranny of Tamil Boko Harams. Instead they keep on chanting the same old litany of complaints of discrimination\u201d, genocide\u201d, etc., brushing aside\u00a0 the\u00a0 fact the no other party has yet to beat\u00a0 the\u00a0 oppression, persecution,humiliation and the killing\u00a0 of Tamils by Tamils. Not surprisingly, this simplified anti-Sinhala-Buddhist message worked well to gain political mileage. Initially, the local Marxists and the Westernised locals too accepted\u00a0 it in toto<\/strong><\/em>. The new Tamil class, dressed in the Emperor\u2019s clothes of human rights, won the plaudits of being champions\u00a0 of\u00a0 the underclass. The\u00a0 new class\u00a0 was indeed\u00a0 triumphant because they marketed their mythology with great\u00a0 finesse.<\/p>\n

When\u00a0 the Jaffna leadership was forced to abandon\u00a0 casteism\u00a0 they fell back on concocted myths of the superiority of the Tamil culture in the heartland of the Tamils \u2013 namely, Jaffna. But as pointed out by Prof.S. Arasaratnam, the Tamil historian, Jaffna Tamils did not produce anything original of their own. They were merely basking in the reflected glory of their original and only homeland in Tamil Nadu.\u00a0 It was inevitable that Jaffna Tamils had to rely on myths because historical and political realities did not substantiate their imagined greatness. They were sandwiched between two great cultures : <\/strong>1. of S.. India in the north and 2. Sinhala-Buddhists of\u00a0 the south. And not being able to match either one of them they created a mythology to make themselves feel great. Their myths filled the vacuum in their imagined lives because at the end of their journey in history they discovered, to their utter dismay, that they were left with hardly anything to be proud of as great contributors to the culture of humanity. According to their own hero-worshipping cult they have only two great icons : 1. Hindu Sankili, the killer\u00a0 of 600 Tamil Catholics in 1544 and 2. Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil killer who killed the most amount of Tamils than all the others put together! O, I forgot the third great factor : <\/strong>Vellahla theology which whipped their own people into total submission as slaves.<\/p>\n

Any political movement working genuinely for the rights of the Tamils should have first taken a positive and aggressive action to eliminate the inhuman treatment of Tamils by the Tamils. But\u00a0 the Jaffna leadership went along with the vicious status quo because (1) they came from the same caste and (2) they did not want to upset the apple cart fearing\u00a0 the political repercussions at election time. Take, for instance, the myth that S. J. V. Chelvanayakam worked for the Tamils. If he was the Father\u00a0 of the Tamils\u201d, as propagated by his followers, then the first issue that he should have taken up was the plight of his own people suffering under the cruel Vellahlaism. But he didn\u2019t. Instead he led a racist movement targeting\u00a0 the Sinhala governments\u201d saying that they were not fit to rule the Tamils (meaning the Vellahla upper caste). He never paused to consider whether the Tamils were fit to rule the Tamils considering the roles played by Sankili and Prabhakaran \u2013 the most competent killers of Tamils.<\/p>\n

Chelvanayakam, at best, was espousing\u00a0 the demands of the new class and not\u00a0 the Tamil people at the grass roots. He was, of course, feebly paying lip service to the elimination of the caste system but never took any meaningful steps to dismantle the caste system. Resistance to Maviddipuram and the attempts to revive Navalarism are indicative of the reluctance of the dying caste to give in. The big\u00a0 issues like the language etc., were raked up and highlighted mainly for the benefit of the English-educated Saivite Jaffna elite in the public services and\u00a0 professions. It was not an issue with the Tamil masses and traders who transacted their daily business with their Sinhalese neighbours \/ consumers without any language difficulties. What is more, even after the Sinhala Only Act of 1956 the Sinhala masses continue to be disadvantaged as the Tamils who are not competent in English \u2013 the language of the elite that runs the legislature, judiciary and the executive to this day.<\/p>\n

Not\u00a0 having any progressive or liberal ideology the new Tamil class went into battle waving their racist flags. The Tamil leadership had to prove to their peninsular constituency that in the absence of the traditional casteist\u00a0 theology they do have a valid\u00a0 alternative that could make them look like worthy leaders. In this new game they were acting like the leeches :<\/strong> ready to suck the blood of the new racist veins having the sucked the sagging old casteist tits dry. Racism\u00a0 had been gathering momentum ever since Ponnambalam raised it as his political cry. Furthermore, when he went before the Soulbury Commission and lectured to them for ten hours he was canvassing mainly on the demands of the new rising class of traders, professionals and public servants who were transiting from their old caste into the new class. For instance he opposed the cooperative\u00a0 movement that served the people of all communities\u00a0 saying\u00a0 it was aimed at hitting the Tamil traders. His cry for 50 \u2013 50\u201d and the cry of\u00a0 discrimination\u201d in the public administration were to satisfy the expanding\u00a0 demands of the new class looking around for more power and territory. The craze for clerkship and power in the administration was ingrained in the Vellahla politics. The origins\u00a0 of this craze will be revealed in the next article with documentary evidence from the Dutch administration.\u00a0 Clearly, Tamil racism and the Tamil new class went together like a horse and carriage, galloping all the way to Nandikadal.<\/p>\n

After Maviddipuram the Vellahlas could no longer wage their internal war against the low-castes. Though the subcutaneous hostility remained in their consciousness and in the hidden layers of their social system they had to tone down their casteist aggressiveness fearing not\u00a0 only the fragmentation of Jaffna but also the possibility of the leadership of Jaffna slipping into the hands of\u00a0 the Leftists, or even the\u00a0 Sinhala parties in the south. Besides, they had to mobilise\u00a0 all their internal resources to fight the external enemy\u201d. The new Tamil caste \/ class could not wage wars on two fronts simultaneously : 1. the internal\u00a0 caste enemy and\u00a0 2. the\u00a0 external\u00a0 communal\u00a0 enemy. They had to unite the internal forces to fight\u00a0 the\u00a0 external enemy\u201d. Since they could not unite the fragmented Jaffna society on casteist lines they switched to anti-Sinhala-Buddhist\u00a0 racism as a common, unifying ideological force to hold the internal dynamics together.<\/p>\n

Racism, of\u00a0 course, created its own set of demands :<\/strong> mainly a greater share of power and territory. Extreme racism also\u00a0 generated fanciful theoretical\u00a0 concoctions, historical fictions and geographic distortions. It was, therefore, not surprising\u00a0 to find Vellahlas increasing their demands for a greater\u00a0 share\u00a0 of political power and territory from 50 \u201350 to federalism and finally to a separate state. To justify this grab for power they changed their\u00a0 political vocabulary too : <\/strong>overnight racism\u00a0<\/strong>became nationalism\u201d. However, their attempt to rope in the Tamil-speaking peoples in the Muslim and the estate communities failed. The grab for power remained exclusively as a demand of the Vellahla caste\/class. A critical examination of all the Vellahla demands will reveal\u00a0 that the demands for\u00a0 power\u00a0 and rights were designed to reinforce the privileges of the Vellahla elite and the not\u00a0 the Tamil people in the layers beneath them. Mono-ethnic extremism, dressed up as human \/ minority \/ cultural \/ constitutional rights, became the badge of the new Vellahla class. They took to mono-ethnic extremism with the same kind of fanaticism with which they waged their war against the low-castes. As in the case of anti-low-caste politics their anti-Sinhala-Buddhist politics turned into a destructive force that dragged the nation \u2013 and the Tamils in particular — downhill for 33 years (from Vadukoddai in May 1976 \u2013 Nandikadal in May 2009).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 Vellahla casteist\u00a0 dug their own grave by passing the Vadukoddai Resolution\u00a0 which officially declared war against the democratically elected state. The rise of Prabhakaran in the wake of the Vadukoddai Resolution gave the finishing touches to the decline and fall of Vellahla casteism in\u00a0 its feudal\u00a0 form. Nothing\u00a0 less than an explosive force could uproot Vellahlaism which had dug deep roots into\u00a0 the dominant Saivite caste culture of\u00a0 Jaffna. It can be\u00a0 argued that Prabhakaranism\u00a0 was as much a revolt against the Sinhala south as it was against\u00a0 the Vellahla north. The Jaffna ruling elite will remember that the Prabhakaran\u2019s boys\u201d first trained the guns on the Vellahla Fathers of the Vadukoddai Resolution before they ran berserk killing more Tamils than all the other forces put\u00a0 together.<\/p>\n

Conclusion :<\/strong> both as a caste and later as a class, the Vellahlas knew how\u00a0 best to deport their own people to other countries or to eliminate those who remained within\u00a0 their\u00a0 domain. Of course, they didn\u2019t do it themselves. They as usual kept\u00a0 their purity\u201d untouched by getting their low-caste agents, like Prabhakaran, to do their dirty work.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To be continued<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala In the\u00a0 two preceding articles I traced the crisis faced by the Vellahla ruling elite of Jaffna in the sixties. The low-castes staged organised threats for the first\u00a0 time challenging the supremacy of the Vellahlas. They not only threatened to enter the sacred domain of the Maviddipuram Temple \u2013 a domain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}