More on Vellalas

"The Vellalas being agricultural labourers brought by the Dutch did not have either the political power or the economic power. However, the culture in the Jaffna peninsula is Vellala dominant and it is a result of them being present in large numbers. Thus it is a case of absorbing whoever living in Jaffna into the Vellala culture and not the other way around."
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By Nalin de Silva

(August 05, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I am glad that Mr. Sivakumaran reads my articles and I am thankful to him for that. However, he has failed to understand me for a long time and it is certainly a welcome change that he is beginning to read me more attentively. For example I have always held that Dravidians, meaning those who speak a Dravidian language, and also non Dravidians have been assimilated into the Sinhala nation, but they are now Sinhala for all purposes as they have embraced the Sinhala culture.

Similarly Sinhala people who had been living in the Jaffna peninsula when the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka have been assimilated into the Thamil culture by the Vellalas who were brought to this country by the Dutch in large numbers. The farmers or the Sinhala govias have been absorbed into the Thamil community as those belonging to the koviar cast. There are other casts such as nalavar who descend from the Sinhala tree tappers living in Jaffna during the time the Portuguese were here. However, I would not claim that these people are Sinhala now anymore than calling those who have been absorbed into the Sinhala nation as Thamils, Malayalam Chinese, Burghers or any other.

There are few other points perhaps I have to mention at least for sake of clarity. I am sorry that I have not used the word Thamil and I will try my best not to use the word Tamil in future correspondence. It is time that we drop all the Anglicised versions such as Kandy and Galle and refer to them as Mahanuwara and Gaalla ( I am not quite sure how we should spell this word in English.) I must say that the Sinhala Buddhist culture in this country is not a significant culture but the significant culture. It does not mean that Thamil Hindu culture is not a significant culture but in Sri Lanka Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture. I am not saying that the Sinhala Buddhist culture is the dominant culture as in the case of Anglican Christian culture in the UK or USA but simply requesting the ethnic groups in Sri Lanka to recognise the fact that the Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture of the country. In fact I would say the problem in this country is the reluctance of the ethnic groups to recognise this fact and give the Sinhala Buddhist culture its due place. I am neither a historian nor a sociologist but I am prepared to debate on this matter with anybody. It is surprising that Thamils (and Sinhalas) who are prepared to live in the western countries without questioning the dominance of variants of Christian cultures make a big fuss when they are requested to accept that Sinhala Buddhist culture is the significant culture of the country.

It is not only in the other countries that we have to live under the dominance of Christian cultures. In Sri Lanka we are under the dominance of western Christian culture. We learn and teach what they have created especially within the last five centuries. This the worst form of tribalism practised in the name of humanity as if the tribe of the westerners is the whole of humanity. The moment a tribe presents its culture as the global culture, its knowledge as the knowledge that reflects, represents or what not, the so called objective reality, that particular tribe has reached the zenith of tribalism. The westerners practice the worst form of tribalism that has ever been seen on this planet and now they want to export their culture to the other planets if possible. Thank God or whoever or whatever for not creating some form of life that can be exploited by the westerners in the other planets of the solar system. I am looking forward to the day some Thamils would join me to create knowledge based on Thamil Hindu culture without being subservient to the western Judaic Christian culture. I can assure that by accepting Sinhala Buddhist culture as the significant culture of the country the Thamils whether Hindus or Christians or Catholics would not lose their identity and would not abandon their right to create knowledge in their culture, though now we all have to learn and teach knowledge created in the western Judaic Christian culture under the dominancy of that culture. Some may call western form of tribalism, colonialism, imperialism etc., but whatever it is called it is nothing but the worst form of tribalism in the final analysis. What is cruel about this tribalism is that it is practised in the name of universalism or humanitarianism and the so called anti tribal people are the worst followers of this tribalism disguised as rationalists.

The present problem is one involving Thamils and not other Dravidians and that is why I have said that "we are not concerned directly with the Dravidians other than the Tamils". I do not know how many members are there in the Association representing the Telugu speaking people but surely they are not asking for devolution of powers or for historical habitats of the Telugu people or had asked for a separate seat in the legislative assembly for the Telugu speaking people in Colombo or had come out with a fifty – fifty demand or formed an Illankai Telugu Arasu Kadchchi or some such Party or had a Vadukoddai resolution demanding a separate state or produced Chelvanayakams and Prabhakarans. Let us all help the Telugu speaking people to preserve their language and culture in Colombo and may they invite the Telugu speaking gypsies (Ahigunthakas) in Anuradhapura area for their meetings in the future if they are not already doing so. I will deal with some other comments made by Mr. Sivakumaran hopefully next week.

Now back to the Vellalas. I am not trying to discredit the Thamils in Jaffna but all these claims for historical habitats or habitations (so called Indo Lanka agreement is responsible for this nomenclature) rest on the history of the Thamils in the country. As I have said the problem is to find out whether there is a continuous history of the present day Thamils in Jaffna going back to the sixth century B.C. Even if the majority of the present day Jaffna population is not Vellala it is Vellala dominant. The Jaffna people who were living there prior to the importation of the Vellalas by the Dutch have been absorbed into the Vellala culture by the dominant Vellalas. This could happen because large numbers of Vellalas had been brought by the Dutch. As the Vellalas were originally agricultural labourers they could not have exerted such influence on the Jaffna population if they were not in the overwhelming majority of the population. To be dominant a group must have either the numbers or a very rich culture with respect to the other cultures or political and/or economic power. The Vellalas being agricultural labourers brought by the Dutch did not have either the political power or the economic power. However, the culture in the Jaffna peninsula is Vellala dominant and it is a result of them being present in large numbers. Thus it is a case of absorbing whoever living in Jaffna into the Vellala culture and not the other way around. If the Vellalas were absorbed into an already existing Thamil culture then we would have said that the Thamils in Jaffna has a continuous history going back to the time of the commencement of the Thamil culture present when the Vellalas were imported by the Dutch.

I am interested in the tobacco cultivation and not the tobacco trade since I am probing into the history of the Vellalas that is connected with the tobacco cultivation and not with the trade as such. The Vellalas are the dominant caste in Jaffna unlike in the other Hindu cultures from North India to South India where the Brahmin caste is the dominant caste. The Vellalas became the dominant caste by becoming farmers or promoting themselves as farmers, "relegating" the farmers already living in Jaffna, namely the Sinhala "govias" to a "lower" caste "koviar". There were no Brahmins in Jaffna to dominate for two reasons. Firstly there would not have been Brahmins even in the original Thamil population when Portuguese came to Sri Lanka implying that there were no settled Thamil population with Brahmins even then. Secondly the Dutch were not interested in importing Brahmins as they wanted only agricultural labourers and not "priests". On the other hand there had been Brahmins who had migrated to Sri Lanka and settled among the Sinhalas becoming Sinhala Buddhists in the process and being absorbed mainly to the salagama caste. What is found in Jaffna is a Vellala dominated Thamil culture that absorbed the Sinhalas and the Thamils and others such as Malayalam speaking people who were all dominated by the mass influx of the Vellalas. The present Jaffna population may consist of descendants of some Thamils living in the peninsula when the Portuguese arrived but it cannot be considered that they have a continuous history from that time. The continuous history of the present day Thamils in Jaffna, being the history of mainly the Vellalas, cannot go beyond the seventeenth century.

-Sri Lanka Guardian