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Sri Lanka: Caste System
When the Portuguese began to trade
extensively with South Asia, they quickly noticed a fundamental difference
between South Asian societies and those of other world areas. In India and
Sri Lanka, societies are broken up into a large number of groups who do not
intermarry, who are ranked in relation to each other, and whose interactions
are governed by a multitude of ritualized behaviors. The Portuguese called
these groups casta, from which the English term caste is derived. In South
Asia, they are described by the term jati, or birth. According to
traditional culture, every person is born into a particular group that
defines his or her unchangeable position within society.
One of the most basic concepts underlying caste is purity. On one level this
idea translates into a concern for personal hygiene, but the concept
ultimately refers to a psychic or spiritual purity that lies beyond the
physical body. A religious interpretation associated with Indian thought
asserts that personal salvation or enlightenment is the ultimate goal of
life, and that the individual goes through many lives and experiences before
attaining sufficient knowledge to transcend the material world. Those beings
who have gone farther on this road to enlightenment have purified their
consciousness and regulate their lives in order to prevent more gross
experiences from interfering with their progress toward salvation. Those
groups of people whose life-styles are the purest are farthest along on the
spiritual road and are most deserving of respect. These ideas about purity
offer a rationale for dividing society into a large number of groups, ranked
according to the purity of their lifestyles or occupations. The persons in
each group must be careful to preserve the relative purity of their own
group and to avoid close contact with persons of lower purity; otherwise,
they may sully or "pollute" themselves or the members of purer groups.
The idea of psychic purity blends with a series of traditional notions about
pure or polluting substances and about behaviors and rituals, resulting in a
rich system that explains caste segregation and modes of caste interaction.
It is possible for people to transmit their qualities to others by touching
them or by giving them objects. In extreme cases, even the shadow of a very
low-caste individual can pollute an individual of the highest, priestly
castes. If the physical contact is intimate or if people have manipulated
certain objects for a long time, the intensity of the transmitted qualities
increases. Simple objects such as tools, for example, may change hands
between persons of different caste without problem. Food, however, which
actually enters and becomes part of a person's body, is a more serious
matter. Cooked food, involving processing and longer periods of contact, is
more problematic than uncooked food. There is thus a series of prohibitions
on the sharing of food between members of different castes. Members of
higher castes may avoid taking food from members of lower castes, although
lower-caste persons may not mind taking food from members of the higher
orders. The most intimate contact is sexual because it involves the joining
of two bodies and the transmission of the very substances that determine
caste for life. Sexual contact between persons of different castes is
discouraged, and intercaste marriage is rare. When intercaste sexual affairs
do occur, they are almost always between men of higher caste and women of
lower caste, for it is less polluting to send forth substances than to
receive them. In the distant past, women who had sexual contact with men of
lower caste were killed, and they would still be ostracized today in some
villages. When polluting contacts occur between members of different castes,
personal purity may be restored by performing cleansing rituals. In general,
these concepts of purity prevent partaking of meals together and
intermarriage between different castes, regulate intercaste relations
through a wide variety of ritual behaviors, and preserve deep-seated social
cleavages throughout Sri Lanka.
There has been a strong tendency to link the position of different castes in
the social hierarchy to their occupations. Groups who wash clothes or who
process waste, thus coming in contact with undesirable substances from many
persons, are typically given low status. In both Hindu and Buddhist thought,
the destruction of life is very ignoble, because it extinguishes other
beings struggling for consciousness and salvation. This idea has
rationalized views of fishermen or leather workers, who kill animals, as low
and impure groups. In many cases, however, the labeling of an occupational
group as a caste with a particular status has depended on historical
developments rather than theories of purity. As the village farming economy
spread over time, many tribal societies probably changed from hunters and
gatherers to low-status service castes, ranked below the landowning farmers.
Many poor agricultural laborers in Sri Lanka remain members of low castes as
well. Other immigrant groups came to Sri Lanka, fit into particular
occupational niches, and became known as castes with ranks linked to their
primary occupations. Castes with members who accumulated wealth and power
have tended to rise gradually in their relative positions, and it is not
uncommon for members of rising caste groups to adopt vegetarianism or
patronize religious institutions in an attempt to raise their public ritual
status.
Caste among the Sinhalese
The dominant caste among the
Sinhalese population is the Goyigama. Although the government keeps no
official statistics on caste, it appears that the Goyigama comprise at least
half the Sinhalese population. The traditional occupation of this caste is
agriculture, and most members are still peasant farmers in villages almost
everywhere in Sri Lanka. In traditional Sinhalese society, they monopolized
the highest positions at royal courts and among the landowning elite. In the
democratic society of the twentieth century, their members still dominate
the political scene. In most villages they might be no richer than their
non-Goyigama neighbors, but the richest landlord groups tend to be Goyigama,
while the poorest agricultural laborers tend to include few Goyigama.
In the Central Highlands, some traditions of the Kingdom of Kandy survived
after its collapse in 1818, preserved in unique forms of the caste system
until the postindependence period. The most important feature of the old
system was rajakariya, or the "king's work," which linked each caste to a
specific occupation and demanded services for the court and religious
institutions. The connection of caste and job is still stronger in the
Central Highlands, and at events such as the Kandy Perahera, an annual
festival honoring gods and the Buddha, the various castes still perform
traditional functions. The Goyigama in the highlands differ from those of
the low country because they preserve divisions within the caste that derive
from the official ranking of noble and commoner families in the old kingdom.
Honorific titles hearkening back to ancestral homes, manors (vasagama), or
noble houses (gedara) still marked the pedigrees of the old aristocracy in
the 1980s, and marriages between members of these families and common
Goyigama were rare. In the low country, these subcastes within the Goyigama
have faded away, and high status is marked by European titles and degrees
rather than the older, feudal titles.
There are still major differences between the caste structures of the
highlands and those of the low country, although some service groups are
common to both. The southwest coast is home to three major castes whose
ancestors may have immigrated but who have become important actors in the
Sinhalese social system: the Karava (fishermen), the Durava (toddy tappers--see
Glossary), and the Salagama (cinnamon peelers). Originally of marginal or
low status, these groups exploited their traditional occupations and their
coastal positions to accumulate wealth and influence during the colonial
period. By the late twentieth century, members of these castes had moved to
all parts of the country, occupied high business and academic positions, and
were generally accorded a caste rank equal to or slightly below the Goyigama.
The highland interior is home
to the Vahumpura, or traditional makers of jaggery (a sugar made from palm
sap), who have spread throughout the country in a wide variety of
occupations, especially agriculture. In the Kandy District of the highlands
live the Batgam (or Padu), a low caste of agricultural laborers, and the
Kinnara, who were traditionally segregated from other groups because of
their menial status. Living in all areas are service groups, such as the
Hena (Rada), traditional washermen who still dominate the laundry trade; the
Berava, traditional temple drummers who work as cultivators in many
villages; and the Navandanna (Acari), traditional artisans. In rural
environments, the village blacksmith or washerman may still belong to the
old occupational caste groups, but accelerating social mobility and the
growing obsolescence of the old services are slowly eroding the link between
caste and occupation.
Caste among the Tamils
The caste system of the Sri
Lankan Tamils resembles the system of the Sinhalese, but the individual
Tamil castes differ from the Sinhalese castes. The dominant Tamil caste,
constituting well over 50 percent of the Tamil population, are the Vellala.
Like the Goyigama, members are primarily cultivators. In the past, the
Vellala formed the elite in the Jaffna kingdom and were the larger
landlords; during the colonial period, they took advantage of new avenues
for mobility and made up a large section of the educated, administrative
middle class. In the 1980s, the Vellala still comprised a large portion of
the Tamil urban middle class, although many well-off families retained
interests in agricultural land. Below the Vellala, but still high in the
Tamil caste system, are the Karaiya (see Glossary), whose original
occupation was fishing. Like the Sinhalese Karava, they branched out into
commercial ventures, raising their economic and ritual position during the
nineteenth century. The Chetti, a group of merchant castes, also have a high
ritual position. In the middle of the caste hierarchy is a group of
numerically small artisan castes, and at the bottom of the system are more
numerous laboring castes, including the Palla, associated with agricultural
work.
The caste system of the Tamils is more closely tied to religious bases than
the caste system of the Sinhalese. Caste among the Sri Lankan Tamils derives
from the Brahman-dominated system of southern India. The Brahmans, a
priestly caste, trace their origins to the dawn of Indian civilization (ca.
1500 B.C.), and occupy positions of the highest respect and purity because
they typically preserve sacred texts and enact sacred rituals. Many
conservative Brahmans view the caste system and their high position within
it as divinely ordained human institutions (see Hinduism , this ch.).
Because they control avenues to salvation by officiating at temples and
performing rituals in homes, their viewpoint has a large following among
traditionally minded Hindus. The standards of purity set forth by the
Brahmanical view are so high that some caste groups, such as the Paraiyar
(whose name came into English as "pariah"), have been "untouchable," barred
from participation in the social functions or religious rituals of other
Hindus. Untouchability also has been an excuse for extreme exploitation of
lower-caste workers.
Although Brahmans in Sri Lanka have always been a very small minority, the
conservative Brahmanical world-view has remained strong among the Vellala
and other high castes. Major changes have occurred, however, in the
twentieth century. Ideas of equality among all people, officially promoted
by the government, have combined with higher levels of education among the
Tamil elites to soften the old prejudices against the lowest castes.
Organizations of low-caste workers have engaged in successful militant
struggles to open up employment, education, and Hindu temples for all
groups, including former untouchables.
The Indian Tamils are predominantly members of low castes from southern
India, whose traditional occupations were agricultural labor and service for
middle and high castes. Their low ritual status has reinforced their
isolation from the Sinhalese and from the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Caste Interactions in Daily Life
The divisions between the
castes are reaffirmed on a daily basis, especially in rural areas, by many
forms of language and etiquette. Each caste uses different personal names
and many use slightly different forms of speech, so it is often possible for
people to determine someone's caste as soon as the person begins speaking.
Persons of lower rank behave politely by addressing their superiors with
honorable formulas and by removing their headgear. A standard furnishing in
upper caste rural houses is a low stool (kolamba), provided so that members
of lower castes may take a lower seat while visiting. Villages are divided
into separate streets or neighborhoods according to caste, and the lowest
orders may live in separate hamlets. In times past, low-caste persons of
both sexes were prohibited from covering their upper bodies, riding in cars,
or building large homes. These most offensive forms of discrimination were
eliminated by the twentieth century after extensive agitation.
Outside the home, most social interactions take place without reference to
caste. In villages, business offices, and factories, members of different
groups work together, talking and joking freely, without feeling
uncomfortable about their caste inequalities. The modern urban environment
makes excessive concern about caste niceties impossible; all kinds of people
squeeze onto buses with few worries about intimate personal contact.
Employment, health, and educational opportunities are officially open to
all, without prejudice based on caste. In urban slums, the general breakdown
of social organization among the destitute allows a wide range of intercaste
relationships. Despite the near invisibility of caste in public life,
castebased factions exist in all modern institutions, including political
parties, and when it comes to marriage--the true test of adherence to ritual
purity--the overwhelming majority of unions occur between members of the
same caste. |