{"id":179840,"date":"2017-07-14T00:03:12","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T18:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=179840"},"modified":"2017-07-17T19:37:15","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T14:07:15","slug":"caste-in-jaffna-mirage-by-k-daniel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/caste-in-jaffna-mirage-by-k-daniel\/","title":{"rendered":"Caste In Jaffna: Mirage By K. Daniel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charles\u00a0<\/span>Ponnuthurai Sarvan<\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Charles Sarvan<\/p><\/div>\n

Caste in Jaffna:\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Mirage<\/i><\/span><\/strong> by K. Daniel. Translated by Subramaniam Jebanesan; edited, introduced and annotated by Richard Fox Young. Kumaran Book House, Colombo, 2016.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

This novel depicts and indicts caste<\/a> among the Tamils of Sri Lanka as Daniel (1927-1986), an apostate or a \u201cconvert\u201d from (religious) Catholicism to (secular) Marxism, observed and experienced it. \u201cThis particular novel takes place in the village where I was born and grew up\u2026 All the characters who pass through it were people I saw with my own eyes. Some are still living. Each incident that occurs in the novel actually happened\u201d (p. xiv):\u00a0 <\/span>it\u2019s an instance of the novelist as witness and testifier.<\/span><\/p>\n

If racism<\/a> means the subordination and oppression by one group of another group or groups, then casteism can be seen as another manifestation of racism. I would suggest that <\/span>Tamils who don\u2019t protest Tamil casteism in Sri Lanka lose the moral right to protest Sinhalese racism. <\/i><\/span>One cannot claim from others what one denies to one\u2019s own. Some Tamils, both Hindu and Christian, may be upset by what I write but I hope, very much, that displeasure will lead to honest, detached, thought rather than to emotional, \u201cknee-jerk\u201d, denial and rejection.<\/span><\/p>\n

Caste is not simply an upper-class lower-class dichotomy for there are gradations, sub-divisions, particularly enforced on the latter. If one speaks of the Dalits, the so-called \u2018untouchables\u2019, then Daniel belonged to what I would ironically call the caste of the \u201cunseeables\u201d:<\/b> upper-caste people considered it a bad omen even to see a member of this caste, and would sometimes strike them for daring to appear in their sight (p. 304). Even their shadow was deemed polluting. They were the lowest of the low, the washer folk, the \u201cdhobis\u201d of the washer folk. Teased and bullied at his Catholic school by upper-caste pupils, Daniel dropped out. (The UK Observer<\/i> of 2 July 2017, reporting on the suicide of a Dalit student at a university in India, comments that for Dalit students university is a place of constant insult and abuse.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Caste in Jaffna: Mirage by K. Daniel. Translated by Subramaniam Jebanesan; edited, introduced and annotated by Richard Fox Young. Kumaran Book House, Colombo, 2016.<\/p><\/div>\n

The translator, Dr S. Jebanesan, was Bishop of Jaffna until his retirement. Richard Fox Young, a Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, provides a wealth of anthropological and historical information, drawing attention to detail that an uninitiated reader may miss. \u201cI doubt that Thampappillaiyan will keep quiet\u201d (p. 48) is glossed as: Until now Nanniyan had always referred to him as Thampappillaiyar. The minor change of the \u201car\u201d ending to \u201can\u201d signals in the original Tamil the casting aside of an undeserved respect (p. 249). On page 51, a woman refers to her husband as \u201cthat man\u201d and Young clarifies that in traditional Tamil society (and in Sinhalese society, I\u2019d add) a wife didn\u2019t mention the name of her husband. So too, it was customary and polite not to say, \u201cI\u2019ll go now\u201d but, \u201cI\u2019ll go now and come (return)\u201d. Shortened and contradictorily, on leaving one would simply say, \u201cI\u2019m coming\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>A boat shaped like a toddy cup would be understood by Jaffna readers because toddy was \u201cserved in cups made out of green Palmyra leaves shaped to resemble this very kind of boat. What that actually looks like, Daniel does not need to say\u201d to his original Tamil readers (p. 255).\u00a0<\/span>The characters in the novel refer to incidents and figures drawn from the Tamil <\/span>Makaparatam<\/i><\/span>, and Professor Young relates and clarifies significance. His contribution heightens understanding and interest, and enhances the value of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

The maltreatment of the dalits<\/a> ranges from the gross to the casual. In the name of religion and ancient time-honoured practice, power and privilege are preserved on the one side; exploitation and suffering perpetuated on the other. One could reformulate the title of Bloke Modisane\u2019s autobiography, <\/span>Blame Me On History<\/i><\/span>, to read, self-exculpatingly: \u201cBlame fate or the gods \u2013 not us\u201d. Truly, the gods have their uses! The key in vellalar<\/a> (upper caste, land owning) control is economic: they own the land; can give or withhold work. The pitiful dalit huts are built on upper-caste land. \u201cThe Palmyra tree we make our living from, belongs to them\u2026 the well belongs to them. We live off their soil\u201d (p. 48). Everybody who is somebody belongs to their caste (ibid). \u201cWe\u2019re like animals caught in a trap\u201d (p.50). Resistance can lead to an entire village being burnt down. Rape and murder are not investigated because the police and the law are with the upper castes. In the novel, provoked beyond endurance, a dalit kills a vellalar. Seizing the opportunity, evidence is fabricated and three dalits charged with the murder. Often the poor go without food. What is most painful to adults is helplessly to see and hear their little children crying in hunger. A Sinhalese word, learnt by a dalit while incarcerated, is most apt. It consists of \u201cbada\u201d (stomach) and \u201cgini\u201d (fire): extreme hunger, close to starvation, is a self-consuming \u201cfire in the stomach\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n

I cite from Professor Young\u2019s explanatory notes (pp. 269-70):<\/b> Dalits were forbidden to enter or live near temples, to draw water from wells owned by the higher castes, to enter cafes, keep their women in seclusion, wear shoes, sit on bus seats, attend school. The list of prohibitions\u00a0<\/span>is\u00a0<\/span>very long indeed. \u201cDalits were customarily prohibited from enhancing the external appearance of their dwellings in ways that the higher castes reserved to themselves\u201d (p. 271). Various semiotic signs immediately established caste identity and, with it, status. For example, low-caste women were not allowed to wear the traditional \u201csari\u201d nor clothes white in colour. (In a Middle-East country where I once taught, housemaids were not allowed to wear the <\/span>abhaya<\/i><\/span>, thus immediately and visually distinguishing them from their female employers.) <\/span><\/p>\n

Names play a major role in this semiotic symbolism. Converting to Christianity, \u201cCinni\u201d becomes \u201cTireci\u201d, that is, \u201cTeresa\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe names you heard along our streets would really surprise you. People\u2019s baptismal names\u2026 were one thing; the names we used in the street were quite another\u201d: quoted by Professor Young, p. 237.\u00a0 <\/span>Lines from Nadine Gordimer\u2019s short story, \u2018Good Climate, Friendly Inhabitants\u2019, come to mind: \u201cHere I\u2019m Jack because Mpanza Makiwane is not a name, and there I\u2019m Mpanza Makiwane because Jack is not a name, but I\u2019m the one who knows who I am wherever I am.\u201d On a personal note, none of my relations has ever called me Charles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Claims to inherent group-superiority, be it on grounds of \u2018race\u2019 (Sinhalese-Tamil), caste (vellalar-dalit), colour (white-black) or sex (male-female) are invariably contradictory, hollow and hypocritical. The dalits build wells for the vellalars but, thereafter, dare not draw water from them. The low-caste nalavar tapped toddy and were therefore deemed to be impure but much of that toddy was consumed by vellalars. The dalits were permitted to sponsor one day of a religious festival but were not allowed to enter temple precincts. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that many dalits turned to Christianity, not necessarily through religious conviction but as an escape from casteism. Being a pre-Vatican 11 novel, prayers are not in the vernacular: they are learned by rote, without comprehension. There\u2019s segregation on caste lines during prayers and church attendance. A little dalit boy is \u201cthrashed\u201d by a catechist for stepping into a pond normally reserved for the upper castes (p. 204). Dalits who have converted to Christianity mercilessly exploit their fellow dalits \u2013 with the knowledge of church leaders. There are several mirages in <\/span>Mirage<\/i><\/span>,\u00a0 <\/span>and Christianity (the church is named \u2018Our Lady of Refuge\u2019) proving to be a mirage and a disillusionment to Daniel, he turned to Marxism. However, Thomas More in <\/span>Utopia<\/i><\/span> (1516) comments that there cannot be a perfect system until there are perfect people to administer it. Similarly, it\u2019s finally not the religion nor the ideology but the human interpretation and expression of it. Daniel turned to Marxism but, as Bookchin observes in his <\/span>The Ecology of Freedom<\/i><\/span>, <\/i>hierarchy can exist in an (alleged) classless society. To alter words from the novel, whatever the god(s) or ideology, the poor end up in the same place (p. 7). However, the novel is not defeatist; rather, it\u2019s more in the spirit of the revolutionary rallying cry: \u201c<\/span>A luta continua!<\/i><\/span>\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Being scrupulously just, and perhaps to save the work from pessimism, Daniel introduces a vellalar who breaks from his group, prompted by principle and compassion: even in that devilish group, there are a few good people (p. 190). Professor Young draws attention (p. 273) to Vituran in the <\/span>Makaparatam<\/i><\/span> who had the moral courage to change sides and oppose his own. I am reminded of Adrian Wijemanne, branded as a traitor to the \u2018race\u2019 by Sinhalese racists incapable of understanding his unswerving and courageous commitment to principle; his placing of justice and humanity above \u2018race\u2019. Similarly, rather than examine their own values, thinking and attitudes, whites in America and in apartheid South Africa branded fellow whites who spoke out for equal rights as \u201cNigger lovers\u201d. I have written elsewhere that had the Sinhalese been oppressed by the Tamils, Adrian Wijemanne, a gentleman in every sense of the word, would have fought with equal courage, clarity and eloquence. <\/span><\/p>\n

Justice is indivisible and Daniel\u2019s attack on casteism is part of the universal struggle against injustice and exploitation, be it on grounds of caste, skin-colour, \u2018race\u2019, sex or religion: as it has been observed, the human species doesn\u2019t stand much inspection. Leaning on Paulo Freire\u2019s <\/span>Pedagogy Of The Oppressed,<\/i><\/span> to the degree that an individual is deprived of freedom, to that degree she or he is made less than human.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Marxist Daniel would have rejected \u201cArt for art\u2019s sake\u201d; that the Arts should be autotelic, separate from any didactic or moral function. Art, he maintains, is subordinate to, and must serve, humanity. But some readers may wonder why the novel, published in 1986, makes no mention of the horrific anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983<\/a>. Why didn\u2019t Daniel even refer to other factors such as the denial of equal (human and civic) rights to Tamils?\u00a0 <\/span>The omission attests to Daniel\u2019s artistic judgement and control; to his sensitivity to and mastery of the novel as a literary form. The text now retains its focus and, therefore, its force. This is not the place, nor does space permit me to deal with the novel as a literary text but to cite one example, Chapter 32 describes the staging by the folk of a play, \u2018The Golden Rosary\u2019, and Daniel evokes it in vivid detail; capturing and communicating something of the atmosphere; the effort and the excitement. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no doubt that those Sinhalese incurably infected with ugly racism will gleefully grab this novel as a bludgeon with which to beat the Tamils, pretending to a moral outrage and a compassion of which they are completely devoid. To change the metaphor, casteism among Tamils can be used as a red herring to divert attention away from racist acts. Racists can come before their victims clothed in the garment of solicitous saviours. There is also the implication: \u201cIf Tamils can do this to fellow Tamils, why can\u2019t we?\u201d Shabby hypocrisy is revealed when one looks at the end of the <\/span>Eelam<\/i><\/span><\/a> War. I quote from a report: \u201cUntil the final months of the war, the death toll for more than 25 years of conflict on both sides was estimated to be about 70,000. But during the final phase, when thousands of civilians were hemmed in to a tiny strip of land on the north-eastern coast, thousands of Tamil civilians were killed.\u00a0<\/span>Some estimates are as high as 75,000; a government reckoning at about 9,000.\u201d Whatever the number, many among the thousands killed; many among the thousands traumatised, maimed for life in body or mind (or both), must have been dalits: \u201cout of the frying pot and into the fire\u201d is a very cruel expression. I think Sinhalese racists, for all their opportunistic outrage at Tamil casteism, now see the dalits as Tamil – and treat them as such. For their part, having been disappointed with Christianity, will some dalits now turn to (dominant) Buddhism?<\/span><\/p>\n

Not falsely and meanly to withhold credit where credit is due, it must be acknowledged that the Tamil Tigers eradicated casteism in areas under their control \u2013 as they also did the discrimination and maltreatment of women. I don\u2019t know whether eradication also meant a mental extirpation: in other words, I don\u2019t know whether casteism has returned and, if so, to what degree.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, I thank Suseenthiran Nadarajah of Belin for lending me a copy of this book. His kindness, and that of his wife, to me over several years has not been a mirage.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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