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24 April 2023

Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

 

CASTE IN VADDUKODDAI

 

Is caste a current problem in Sri Lanka?

 

This question was raised through the UN also according to BBC report at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCKVCuPh8s4

 

The BBC report specifically focused on Vaddukoddai. Given my contribution to that area, I rejected it at first. Then I was reminded of its existence by a Facebook posting by Ms Rani Sinnathamby, daughter of our celebrated family elder Mr Karthigesan  (known as Communist Karthigesan). In that posting Ms Sinnathamby gave credit to the family of Yohananda Sabanathan – son of Mrs Saraswathi Sabanathan who is my husband’s sister. Rani stated that they had all gathered to celebrate the festival of Sangarathai Pathrakali Amman temple. Published also was a family photo taken at Rani’s daughter Sinothaya’s new home. After that event Rani said to us that ‘blood was thicker than water’.

 

In the chapter headed ‘UNTOUCHABILITY’ in my book Different Logics, I wrote as follows:

 

Thunaivi is an independent village of Toddy Tapper / Nalavar caste origin. In terms of hierarchical status, toddy tapping work ranked low and hence the Nalavar caste ranked low in the caste based hierarchy.  My father bought a temple at the cusp of Thunaivi and Sangarathai. Sangarathai is a farmer-caste village. My Aachi / grandmother took care of the temple. My parents inherited the tiny temple and I have inherited the temple from my parents. With the exception of Rani Karthigesan Sinnathamby, none of Param’s family come there due to caste based separation. Rani herself inherited the sense of  Commonness from her father who is remembered and celebrated as an English teacher at Jaffna Hindu College. He is known as Communist Karthigesan. We are now effectively low class citizens in Vaddukoddai, Northern Sri Lanka. But I feel that Mr Karthigesan lives with us in Thunaivi, as our Elder. Our living there has freed us from negative caste based karma which also mutated as Racism, after the expiry of  ‘correct by’ date.’

 

It was therefore upsetting when Rani stated that ‘blood was thicker than water’.  If that were true, I would have celebrated my side of the family and not Param’s side which Rani was part of. Param’s sister wrote to us that she did not have to account for funds collected from the estate of her brother – because my husband was her ‘blood brother’. This is our family parallel of the Rajapaksa family. This is also the source of caste based discrimination.

As per the article ‘UN report highlights caste-based discrimination in SL’ at https://www.ft.lk/article/533194/UN-report-highlights-caste-based-discrimination-in-SL  :

 

 

The report by the Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Rita Izsak-Ndiaye specifically mentions Sri Lanka in two paragraphs, which describe varying caste structures in Sinhala, Tamil and Up-Country Tamil communities and the types of social exclusion lower castes in each group face.

The report notes that despite differences in caste structure between ethnic groups, a commonality of experience exists between lower castes of all ethnic groups including “ the avoidance of inter-caste marriage and the link between lower castes and greater levels of poverty”. In an official address at the Human Rights Council Izsak-Ndiaye said that she decided to base this year’s report on caste following information she received regarding “incidents of discrimination in caste-based and analogous systems of inherited status”.

A scathing response by the Sri Lankan Government bashed the report claiming factual inaccuracies while stating that the term Dalit has“no relevance whatsoever in the context of Sri Lanka”……………..

 

Sri Lankan anti-caste activist and University of Peradeniya Professor Kalinga Tudor Silva told the Daily FT that neither the UN report nor the response by the Sri Lankan Government was reflective of the situation on the ground.

Noting the contention between the report and the Sri Lankan Government, Silva mediated: “In the contested two paragraphs in the UN report, caste is correctly identified as a continuing social problem in Sri Lanka as have also been reported by a number of researchers working on caste here. However, the use of the term Dalit which is typically used to identify the social outcastes in India is not used in Sri Lanka.”

“The continuing caste problems in Sri Lanka relate to dignity, social exclusion and continued social recognition of hereditary social distinctions rather than due to any explicit coercion from above to carry out hereditary caste occupations as stated in the relevant paragraphs in the UN report,” explained Silva.’

The blood connection is the lay person’s version of ‘hereditary social distinctions’ used by Professor Kalinga Tudor Silva.

 

As per my discovery, through life in Thunaivi, caste alone is harmless. It needs to be combined with breach of an accepted merit based system to cause real damage. In our family testamentary case – that system was/is Thesawalamai law which also include caste as merit in earlier versions. As I kept stating to our lawyer, seeking to ‘win’ – to me the Court Proceedings was Memorial Service in honour of the deceased. But our opponents – the sisters of the deceased lied in court that they did not get dowry. This resulted in the court ruling that the Estate was to be shared equally. This was in breach  of  Thesawalami law. But due to us continuously challenging the Court process, the Sri Lankan part of the Estate is yet to be distributed. The UK part that was distributed without an account, on the basis of blood relationship will cause conflict within the Vaddukoddai community in UK who seek current benefits from caste. The BBC report is such a trigger. At the family level two siblings who supported Mrs Sambanthan in court have passed away. We have opposed the substitution of their children on the basis that the High Court ruled that the succession is on ‘per-capita’ basis and not on ‘stirpes’ basis.

 

On Easter Sunday, we held a memorial service within the Development secretariat so this Brother Yoganathan’s soul would merge with the Universal Spirit of Truth.

 

Brother Moorthi was the only ‘relative’ to attend. Even though the Sabanathan family – the so-called Blood Relations were attending festival (according to Rani) of the Sangarathai Pathrakali Amman temple just a few hundred meters from our temple they were not at the Memorial Service.

 

This effectively divided the Vaddukoddai part of our family on caste basis. Would not have happened if the cultural law of gratitude had been followed or if the heritage law of Thesawalamai had not been breached by the sisters who double-dipped into the common wealth. This will happen to all those who did treat the junior-castes as lower castes. When a junior is cheated by a senior, the junior becomes an outsider and hence the armed rebellions in Northern and Southern Sri Lanka. Where the junior is ungrateful to the senior who has provided ‘service’ that has benefited the junior, the standard of ethics of the group that the junior belongs to goes down. That is the way of Natural Justice. So I wrote on Rani’s page of Facebook against the positing with Mrs Sabanathan and her son Yohanantha’s family as follows: - (note Sivam is my husband who has been  known as Param after he entered university)

 

• If not for me and my husband this family would not be in Australia today. But they cheated us of that higher status and have been separated by us due to their desire for money. Sivam and I have never been celebrated by you also Rani on Face Book. As you said recently we relate to each other differently. As my cousin Kathiravel Anna said to Sivam when Sivam said to him about my goodness, 'one should not say good or bad about one family member to another.' This is because one is free to form her/his opinion within the family. We never influenced you or anyone else for or against this family. But in action you and your branch of the family have shown that you prefer this group as family above us. Good to learn that we are less than this group’

The posting by Rani with the family photograph and the responses is now missing. I thanked Brother Yoganathan for the lesson learnt about how the caste virus returns to the true owners if it is not able to mutate as Racism if it is not cured within its birth electorate. When the Sri Lankan government addresses race based discrimination, it automatically addresses the original caste virus also. The Sri Lankan government has the right to apply the principles of res judicata to diffuse the UN allegations of casteism. Tamils who continue to effectively practice the caste system weaken their eligibility to use UN resources for race discrimination actions’. This ought to have been recognized by the fact that majority in the Tamil armed rebellion groups were of junior caste. Now all Tamils who accept their rule have the opportunity to practice reverse discrimination, facilitate the junior caste to become even. That is the internal measure available to us.