| PERSPECTIVE
Caste of the Tiger
Eelam and the Dalit question
As the tiger begins to change its stripes, it must grapple
with the shifting terrain of the jungle. The Sri Lankan Dalit
movement has been subjugated by the larger cause of Tamil
nationalism all these years. It is time for its revival.
by Ravikumar
“In 1981, the UNP leaders,
who shout themselves hoarse about democracy, summoned their
military thugs and burnt down the Jaffna library, the biggest
library in Southeast Asia. About the same time, caste fanatics
in a small village, Ezhudumattuval, near Jaffna, threatened
Dalit children at a school, seized their books and notebooks
and set them afire.
“Why did Tamil society choose to condemn one incident
and remain silent on the other?”
– Dominic Jeeva, Dalit author from Eelam
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
chief V Prabakaran’s two-and-half-hour press conference
on 10 April this year is regarded as a turning point in the
ongoing peace initiatives in Sri Lanka. Prominent among the
issues raised at the press meet were those concerning Muslims
and Estate Tamils (also called Hill-Country Tamils, Tamils
of Indian Descent or New Tamils, since a majority came over
from India as plantation workers). Responding to these queries,
Prabakaran and LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingam said they had
invited leaders of these two groups for talks on issues concerning
their future and, as expected, an agreement has now been arrived
at. However, the press conference was disturbingly silent
on the question of Dalit-untouchables who constitute nearly
15 percent of the Tamil population in Eelam. No one saw fit
to raise the matter and the Eelam leadership too chose not
to dwell on it. The silence of the assembled press corps is
understandable. But the reticence of the Tamil leadership
is deliberate neglect. A problem that has been awaiting a
resolution for decades was simply glossed over as if it did
not even exist.
The primary reason for this neglect is that
contemporary Sri Lanka lacks an energetic Dalit organisation
that can exert the necessary social pressure to ensure that
the issue gets the prominence it deserves. This current absence
of Dalit political leadership is conspicuous in an otherwise
forceful history of assertion. In fact, Dalit political consciousness
among Sri Lankan Tamils predates the mobilisation of their
counterparts in Tamil Nadu. The militant struggle against
untouchability by Sri Lankan Dalits gives them the distinction
of being among the earliest to wage war against casteism.
But over the years the Sri Lankan Dalit movement has lost
its organisational drive, and so while the Muslims and the
Estate Tamils have ensured that their issues remain prominent
on the Eelam agenda, the most oppressed of the Tamils do not
evoke even a passing mention from the Jaffna Tamils, who lead
the armed separatist
struggle.
The Jaffna public library
after being ravaged by fire in 1984 |
Roots of violence
It is customary for Tamil nationalists to regard the Jaffna
Tamils as role models, particularly because of their ‘achievements’
in the armed struggle. But Eelam and the Jaffna Tamils have
an unsavoury tradition that does no credit to their claim
to special status. They have produced casteist, chauvinist
scholars such as Arumuga Navalar of the early 19th century,
who, echoing Manu, the preceptor of the varna system, declared
that the parai (Dalit drum), the woman and the panchama (Dalit)
are “all born to get beaten”. Navalar is just
one among a large company of Jaffna Tamils who stoked casteism
and helped it take strong roots in the island. The history
of caste Hindu atrocities on Dalits is long and shameful.
The significant moments in the Dalit struggle for self-respect
and upper caste reprisals merit recapitulation if only to
demonstrate why this problem will not be easily resolved.
Those who celebrate the greatness of the Tamil
armed struggle are of course careful to avoid mention of when
Jaffna’s earliest episodes of armed violence took place
and against whom these were directed. Violence began to inform
the Tamil landscape as early as 1944 when some caste Hindus
gunned down a Dalit as he tried to cremate the body of an
old woman of his community at the Villoonri cremation ground
in Jaffna. This anti-Dalit violence was to continue sporadically
over the years. Thus, it can be said that the culture of armed
struggle began in Sri Lanka in the form of attacks on untouchables.
However, Eelam’s panegyrics to itself and its armed
revolution cannot accommodate such uncomfortable facts.
In the circumstances, it is not surprising
that Dalits in Sri Lanka were forced to form political organisations
much earlier than Tamil Nadu Dalits. In fact, they were pioneers
in political mobilisation even among Sri Lankan Tamils. Tamil
nationalism acquired a real political edge only in the 1940s
with the formation of the Tamilar Congress in 1944 and the
Tamilarasu Party in 1949. Dalit mobilisation preceded this
by a quarter century, with the formation of the Forum for
Depressed Class Tamil Labourers in July 1927. The forum launched
an agitation for “equality in seating, equality in eating”
in 1928 in protest against caste discrimination in schools
where Dalit children were forbidden from learning or dining
with other children. Two years of sustained struggle resulted
in an administrative order that in grant-aided schools low-caste
children should be allowed to sit on benches instead of on
the floor or outside on the ground. In retaliation, caste
Hindu Tamils burnt down 13 schools that implemented the new
regulations. And by way of political follow-up, the elite
of the Vellala community from Urelu, Vasavilan and Punalakkattavan
petitioned the government in 1930 to rescind the equal-seating
directive.
The next major effort to thwart Dalit rights
took place in 1931, when the then British government of Sri
Lanka set up the Donoughmore Commission to look into the changes
to be introduced in the country’s constitution. The
commission recommended the introduction of universal adult
franchise in Sri Lanka. As a result, the Dalits gained voting
rights. Unable to tolerate this development, caste Tamils,
headed by prominent leaders like S Natesan, launched an agitation.
They were ready to give up their own voting rights to prevent
Dalits from getting theirs. To demonstrate their social power,
they went one step further and imposed several new restrictions
on Dalits. According to the new draconian strictures: “Untouchable
women should not cover their torso and (must) remain half-naked.
They should not wear jewels, not use an umbrella, nor use
the caste thread in marriages. Their children should not bear
the names used by dominant castes. They should not cremate,
but bury the dead bodies. They should not use footwear; should
not get water from public wells; should not sit in buses;
nor send their children to schools”. These restrictions
were even harsher than the restrictions imposed in the 1930s
on Dalits of Tiruchi, Ramanatha-puram district in Tamil Nadu
by the dominant Kallar, Maravar and Thevar communities.
Sri Lankan political parties, including caste
Tamil leaders, advanced several reasons to oppose universal
franchise. They argued that the extension of voting rights
to all would increase corruption; that only landowners are
patriotic so voting rights should be restricted to them; that
voting rights would be misused by the illiterate and that
women should not get involved in politics and hence should
not be given the right to vote. However, the Donoughmore Commission
stood firm, and Dalits attained voting rights in 1931. Suffrage
gave them some political leverage and was a boost to their
struggle, as is evident from some of the limited changes that
came about in the economic sphere. For instance, S Natesan,
who was at the forefront of the opposition to voting rights
for untouchables, under compulsion of seeking Dalit votes,
had to introduce measures such as the legalisation of the
tree tax (mara-vari scheme) in 1936. This helped the Dalits
involved in the toddy business gain economic independence
from upper caste Tamils. This and other successes stimulated
further attempts at forging Dalit political unity for agitational
ends. The Conference of Oppressed Tamils in Northern Sri Lanka
was organised in August 1943. One of the outcomes of this
conference was the formation of the Northern Sri Lankan Minority
Tamils Mahasabha. In order to unite Dalits all over Sri Lanka,
the Northern Sri Lanka Minority Tamils Mahasabha was renamed
the All-Sri Lankan Minority Tamils Mahasabha and its demands
were enlarged to include protection for arrack production,
improving educational opportunities for untouchables, reservation
for untouchables in teacher training and representation for
untouchables in the legislature.
Meanwhile, the agenda to suppress Dalits was
being continuously pursued in the constitutional sphere. Sri
Lankan political parties, dissatisfied with the recommendations
of the Donoughmore Commission, demanded a new constitution
for Sri Lanka. In 1942, these parties asked that the British
send a mission to Sri Lanka to initiate the process of writing
a new constitution for the country. In response to such pressures,
London dispatched a commission to Sri Lanka to elicit the
views of the various communities on the proposed new constitution.
An upper-caste Tamil having
his head shaved, circa 1900. |
Competitive politics
The Commission, headed by Lord Soulbury, conducted its deliberations
from December 1944 to April 1945, and held discussions with
representatives of various communities. The Minority Tamils
Mahasabha decided to submit a separate memorandum to the commission.
But the Tamilar Congress Party and its president, GG Ponnambalam,
insisted that a separate submission would affect the unified
Tamil cause. To decide the issue, the Minority Tamils Mahasabha
organised a meeting in Jaffna, to which Ponnambalam was also
invited. The Mahasabha made it clear that if the Congress
memorandum included issues of Dalit welfare, particularly
those concerning education, professional rights and eradication
of untouchability, it was ready to give up its plan to submit
a separate memorandum. With Ponnambalam rejecting this demand,
the Mahasabha was forced to go along with its original plan
to submit a separate memorandum.
In the hostile climate that prevailed, with the Tamilar Congress
and caste Tamils assuming a threatening attitude, the Dalit
leadership was forced to smuggle members of the Soulbury Commission
to their villages in order to show them the wretched conditions
of living. But all this was of no consequence, since the caste
Hindu sentiment prevailed and the welfare of Dalits found
no place in the newly drafted constitution. Instead the ‘unified
Tamil’ cause found safeguards in the ‘Soulbury
Constitution’, which proscribed any legislation that
would affect a community or religion. This constitution was
in force till 1972, when it was redrafted. Ironically, the
constitution that caste Hindu Tamils believed would safeguard
their interests exclusively, to the detriment of the Dalits,
was later to pave the way for their own marginalisation, as
Sinhala chauvinism rode roughshod over the clauses designed
to protect minority rights.
As recommended by the Soulbury Commission,
elections were held in 1947 in which the United National Party
(UNP) and the Tamilar Congress were the main contenders. The
third force was constituted of the left, represented primarily
by the breakaway factions of the sole pre-war left party –
the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSP). One faction of the LSP set
up the Sri Lankan Communist Party in 1943. When M Karthikeyan
introduced this party to the Jaffna Tamils, a large number
of Dalits joined it. Dalit writers like Daniel, Dominic Jeeva,
ML Subramaniam, and K Pasupathi were part of this group. Though
they joined the communist party, they continued their work
with the Minority Tamils Mahasabha, with which they had been
associated in the past.
As political consciousness among the Dalits
evolved, two trends emerged within the Minority Tamils Mahasabha.
Some accepted the communist ideology while others were content
with agitating for small privileges. On the electoral strategy,
there was unanimity of opinion that they should not vote for
the Tamilar Congress, which had not only actively campaigned
against the inclusion of Dalit rights in the Soulbury constitution
but had also failed to nominate Dalit candidates in the election.
There was however a difference of opinion between the moderates
and others on whether they should vote for the UNP or the
left parties. The majority of the Minority Tamils Mahasabha
campaigned for the UNP, which had appointed a Dalit to the
senate. The UNP programme was more pro-Dalit than that of
the Tamilar Congress. The UNP campaigned against untouchability,
announced several schemes for Dalit welfare and promised to
nominate a Dalit member to the assembly. For many moderate
Dalits, these assurances were sufficient ground for supporting
the UNP.
In contrast to the stand taken by the Tamilar
Congress, the Tamilarasu party, which first raised the slogan
of Tamil ‘right to self-determination’, initially
embarked on a policy of Dalit accommodation. The Tamilarasu
decided to take Tamil nationalism beyond Jaffna and unite
Tamils from all the areas, focusing on the racist attitude
of the Sinhala government. As a Tamil nationalist party it
was forced by the presence of independent-minded Dalit political
organisations to address the problem of untouchability and
casteism, at least nominally. The Tamilarasu included ‘abolition
of untouchability’ as one of its resolutions at the
party’s fifth conference held in July 1957. The accommodationist
compulsions of an inclusive nationalism are evident in Tamilarasu
leader Thanthai Selva’s speech at the time of the party’s
founding: “If we want to qualify ourselves to win, we
have to eradicate the evils in society and purify it. Among
the Tamils, there are untouchables. They think they are oppressed
by others. Ethically speaking, if we do harm to others, someone
will do the same to us. If Tamils want to attain liberation,
they must give the same to those who are deprived of their
rights in our society”.
The promises and resolutions however, did
not add up to much in real terms. The Tamilarasu did not make
any effort to implement them in their parliamentary programme.
Meanwhile, developments in the larger Sri Lankan polity were
to have adverse consequences for both upper caste Tamils and
Dalits. This was particularly the case with the government’s
chauvinist Sinhala Only Act of 1956, which deprived all Tamils
of their fundamental rights. Despite such openly discriminatory
developments, the communist party continued to support the
UNP and since by now the communists dominated the Minority
Tamils Mahasabha, many Dalit leaders had no option but to
join Tamilarasu. A new organisation, the Minority Tamils United
Front was formed with the support of the Tamilarasu party.
The hustle and bustle of
Jaffna’s streets conceal the divisions within Tamil
society. |
Tea and temples
In order to consolidate its support among the Dalits, the
Tamilarasu pushed for the introduction of the Prevention of
Social Disabilities Act in April 1957. This act treated caste-based
discrimination in public places as a crime but imposed a fine
of ‘not more than SLR 100’ and a jail term of
six months for perpetrators of such crimes. Just how lightly
the problem of untouchability was taken is evident from a
comparison with the situation that obtained in Tamil Nadu
in the 1930s. Raobahadur ‘Rettaimalai’ Seenivasan
(a Tamil Dalit leader who attended the Round Table Conference
with BR Ambedkar) says in his autobiography that a fine of
INR 100 was imposed on those who prevented untouchables from
using public wells, ponds and the market. In 27 years the
real value of the rupee had declined, but there obviously
was very little change in the legal attitude to untouchability.
In the interest of condign punishment, if nothing else the
depreciation of the currency could have been factored into
punitive fines.
With such weak protective laws to help them
survive with dignity, Dalits had to increasingly address their
own social issues through direct action to force poltical
parties to heed their plight. In October 1958, the Minority
Tamils Mahasabha gave a call for a “teashop entry movement”.
The Mahasabha delivered an ultimatum demanding that teashops
should begin admitting Dalits before 13 December, failing
which they would agitate in front of the offending establishments.
This movement put pressure on the Tamilarasu Party, which
responded by announcing an “annihilation of untouchability
week” from 24 November. The party, keen to prevent the
division of its Tamil base, initiated a dialogue with the
teashop owners in Jaffna. As a result, two teashops run by
non-Tamil south Indians admitted untouchables. Others soon
followed suit. It is a singular irony of Sri Lankan politics
that Dalits attained the right to vote in 1931, but had to
struggle for another 27 years before they could drink tea
in public with dignity. But though teashop doors had opened,
school gates remained remained shut.
It was only through the efforts of the Communist
Party leader Pon Kandaiah that 15 schools for the children
of the Dalit community were opened. Competitive politics involving
the communist and the Tamilarasu parties, in the context of
organised Dalit activity, was clearly a determining factor
in securing some limited policy gains. Changes in the nature
of competitive politics were to have adverse consequences
for the Dalits. This is most clearly evident from the developments
in the aftermath of the split in the Communist Party in 1964
and the subsequent participation of Tamilarasu in the UNP-led
government in 1965.
As part of its constituency building, N Shanmugathasan’s
communist party led the popular temple-entry movements, apart
from launching agitations to seize untilled lands and access
water from public wells. Newspapers almost daily carried stories
about Dalit agitation – among others, the burning of
Kandasamy temple chariot in April 1968 and the riots that
took place during the staging of the play Kandan Karunai in
June 1969. In response, Tamilarasu, the Tamil nationalist
party, strongly criticised this agitation. The Tamilarasu
leadership had become concentrated in the hands of a Colombo-based
group with representatives from the dominant communities in
Jaffna. The political resolutions of the party were drafted
in accordance with the interests of the dominant caste of
Jaffna, the Vellalas.
By the 1970s, Sri Lankan politics had taken
a turn for the worse, acquiring an increasingly ethnic character,
as the politics of Sinhala-Tamil accommodation began giving
way to conflict. Tamil nationalism intensified in response
to the continuous Sinhala racist policies. The Tamilarasu,
having compromised itself by participating in the government,
began to lose its base among Tamils. The major racist attack
of 1983 opened a new trend in the country’s politics,
particularly Tamil politics. While Sinhala politics continued
to be competitive, Tamil politics became the monopoly of a
nationalism that subsumed every other division within society
in the interest of an overarching unity that refused to admit
intra-ethnic differences.
Caste and the Tiger
The rise of armed struggle after 1983 and the consequent fall
of democratic movements became a major hurdle in the way of
an independent Dalit movement. Since nationalism could not
concede even the slightest hint of an inner contradiction,
writers who continuously focussed on the problem of ‘panchamars’
were dubbed enemies of the Tamil nation. The Tamil national
liberation movement suppressed the voice of the Dalits. The
discrimination that followed from Sinhala majoritarianism
in education and employment largely affected caste Tamils.
But the ethnic conflict drew Dalits into the circle of violence.
As the conflict heightened, well-to-do caste Tamils fled to
foreign lands, but Dalits who lacked the resources to follow
suit remained in Eelam, and consequently were recruited into
the armed struggle. This trend intensified in the 1990s and
today the majority of LTTE cadres happen to be Dalit.
The increased participation of Dalits and
women in the armed struggle had the paradoxical effect of
loosening some of the more rigid strictures of Hindu society
that are incompatible with the flexibility required by armed
combat. But this did not lead to Dalit issues being addressed
in any formal or concrete sense. The changes that have taken
place are merely pragmatic adaptations dictated by necessity.
Even so, caste Tamils, who see themselves as the sole representatives
of all Tamils, are uncomfortable with this new state of affairs
since they fear that the rigid rules of subordination will
be permanently breached. As if to reinforce the orthodoxy,
while limited social change has been taking place in the Lankan
Tamil homeland, émigré caste Tamils have reinforced
caste distinctions in their adopted countries.
Clearly, migration to foreign lands has not
mitigated the effects of caste; caste feelings remain strong
and there is little reason to believe that the pragmatic concessions
that the Tamil society in the home country has made in conditions
of war will last when and if peace arrives. Hence, it is important
to ask whether the (interim) government that will be formed
after the peace initiatives will address the problems of the
Dalits. Dalits have played a crucial role in the powerful
struggle that forced the Sinhala government to negotiate,
but it is increasingly looking like the LTTE will abandon
the Dalits when there is no longer any need for their services.
Caste Tamils in Eelam could well give vent to their caste
feelings once the climate of fear is dispelled. To avoid such
a situation, the Dalits need to procure some assurances.
The details of the LTTE’s understanding
with the Estate Tamils and Muslims are not very clear. Yet,
the concessions that the latter have managed to extract over
the last two decades is instructive at least as a modular
specimen to be imitated. On 21 April 1988 an agreement, based
on talks held in Madras on 15, 16 and 19 April 1988, was reached
between the leaders of Muslim United Front and the Tigers.
The 18-point agreement, signed by Kittu alias Sadasivam Krishnakumar
for the Tigers and MIM Moheedin for the Muslim United Front,
recognised the cultural and social distinctness of the Muslims
and provided constitutional safeguards to them. 33 percent
of the population in the eastern territory is Muslim and the
figure is 18 percent for the northeast. Hence, the agreement
stated that not less than 30 percent of state assembly seats
should be given to them, besides giving them an unspecified
representation in the ministry. Based on the percentage of
Muslims living in each district in the northeast, proportional
reservation would be given to them in jobs in the public sector.
It was also agreed that an Islamic university would be started
with special educational facilities. The chief ministership
of the northeastern province would rotate between Muslims
and ‘others’.
Such an agreement is important for the Dalits.
A similar agreement could now be chalked out to provide education,
jobs and land to the Dalits. The demands made in the resolutions
of the Minority Tamils Mahasabha and the plan of action put
forth in the movements for eradication of untouchability (by
the communists in the 1960s) should also be taken into account
in such an agreement. If the future is to be insured against
social conflict, the Tigers will have to come forward unilaterally
to provide a solution to the Dalit problem. The current absence
of a Dalit movement is no indication that there will not be
one in future. The long war has paved the way for change,
and the long negotiation for peace has forced on the LTTE
many unprecedented changes in their policy. This newfound
flexibility can be the basis for a long-term vision to secure
genuine democracy. And that can happen only when the problems
of the most oppressed are substantially addressed. This is
the primary duty of a democratic dispensation and to fulfil
that the Tiger must lose its caste.
(Translated from Tamil by
R Azhagarasan)
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