Dutch and the Vellalas
Mr. Sivakumaran expresses uncertainty on the validity of the following statement by me that appeared in the Midweek Review article on June 24, 2009. “Tamils in Sri Lanka do not have a continuous history going back to a date before the 17th century.” He further states “During the Dutch period in the island’s history there was the tobacco trade between Malabar and Sri Lanka. What was termed “Malabar” by foreigners was the southernmost regions in the then Tamil Nadu which included the present southern districts of Kerala. Perhaps people from such regions speaking Tamil and Malayalam came in great number in the 17th century and they became either Tamilians or Sinhalas depending on what region they settled in. But Thamilians and other Dravidians had lived in Lanka even before the 7th century as could be seen from the Tamil Bhakthi literature.’
It is clear that Mr. Sivakumaran is telling a half truth. We are not concerned directly with the Dravidians other than the Tamils as no other Dravidian group has asked for a separate state or even Federalism in this country and at present there is no substantial number of members of such groups living in Sri Lanka. (It has to be mentioned that I use Dravidian to denote a group of people who spoke a Dravidian language and even the word Tamil is used with a similar meaning before the British occupied this part of the world.) Whether Dravidians other than Tamils lived in Sri Lanka before the 7th century is not relevant directly though I would argue that in the earlier times as Sri Lanka had connections with Chera or Kerala more Malayalam speaking people would have lived in Sri Lanka. However, it is clear that even if it was the case there has been no continuous existence of these groups as we do not now have any descendants from these groups. There is no Malayalam community that lives in Sri Lanka that claims a continuous existence (history) since the 7th century or even prior to that.
This is where Mr. Sivakumaran’s argument goes against what he tries to establish. He claims that there were Tamils and other Dravidians living in Sri Lanka at least from the seventh century. I would add further that there were more Malayalam speaking people than Tamils at that time. Even if it was not the case, if Malayalam speaking people have no continuous existence since then up to the present what special quality was there for the Tamils alone of all the Dravidian groups to have a continuous history from the seventh century to the present?
I am concerned with continuous existence or history of Tamils up to the present and not the presence of Tamils or any other Dravidian group in Sri Lanka at various periods in the history of the country. In any event I am grateful to Mr. Sivakumaran for not asking for my credentials to delve into history as there are some third rate sociologists who claim to speak for the Sinhala nationalists insist that I am not familiar with their “jargon” to write on some sociological problems including sociology of knowledge. Though my formal education in history ended after the J.S.C. or the fourth form I have continued to read history Marxian versions as well as liberal versions and in spite of lack of general theories in history, except historical materialism of Marx, I do not find much difference in history and physics or mathematics. I look for contradictions and consistency in stories (so called theories) and I always prefer a consistent story to one with contradictions whether in physics or history.
Some historians including Prof. (Mrs.) Kiribamune and Prof. Indrapala before he became a prisoner of the LTTE (he is free to come out with better consistent stories now) had expressed the view that permanent Tamil settlements cannot be found in Sri Lanka before the twelfth century. Even if there were permanent Tamil settlements after that one has to establish that there is continuity of these settlements and the present Tamil populations in Jaffna and Batticaloa. My argument is that the present Jaffna Tamils could claim a continuous history only from the seventeenth century. How many elite families in Jaffna would be able to trace their origins to a date before the seventeenth century? According to a friend of mine Mr. Mahadeva has said that the history of their family does not go beyond two hundred and fifty years. The significant word in this regard is continuous and not any history. Mr. Sivakumaran says there was the tobacco trade between Malabar and Sri Lanka during the Dutch period. It is not the trade with which we are concerned here but the tobacco cultivation. The Dutch wanted human resources for their tobacco cultivation and they were brought from eastern Coramandel coast of South India where the population was mainly Tamil speaking. Those who were brought by the Dutch were the Vellalas and the latter were taken to Natal in South Africa. The Dutch thus have left Sri Lanka and South Africa with the Roman Dutch Law and the Vellalas. It has to be mentioned that in Natal Vellalas are called agricultural labourers identifying them with the work for which they were brought by the Dutch. The Vellalas in Jaffna were nothing but agricultural labourers brought by the Dutch for the tobacco cultivation.
It is true that Dravidians and also non Dravidians have migrated to Sri Lanka over a long period intermittently and become Sinhala in the process. It is true even in the case of some kings and it has be emphasised most of them were Cheras Pandyans and Kalingas who cannot be identified as Dravidians. The important fact here is that these kings reined as Sinhala kings and not as Chera, Pandya or Kalinga kings. Sinhalisation was not different from other assimilations that have taken place in the other parts of the world which takes place when migration is not in large numbers at a time, and when the migrants do not concentrate in specific areas. On the other hand one has to contemplate why the reverse migration from Sri Lanka to Bharath did not take place to the same order of magnitude.
The Vellalas were brought by the Dutch in large numbers and as they did not come voluntarily they wanted to go back to their homeland after the harvest each season and in 1707 the Dutch had to codify the Thesavalamai Law, which was a law found among the Muslims in South India, according to late Mr. Gamini Iriyagolle, in order to prevent the Vellalas going back to India. However, even that failed and it was left to the British to reintroduce the Thesavalamai and take other measures to retain the Vellalas in Jaffna. Naturally the Vellalas cannot have a continuous history going back to a date beyond the seventeenth century and the question one has to answer is whether there were any Tamil speaking people in Jaffna before the seventeenth century. Even if the answer is yes it is clear from population statistics it would have been much less than the number of Vellalas who were brought by the Dutch in the seventeenth century. The casts such as koviar and nalavar among the Tamils consist of descendants of govias and toddy tappers among the Sinhalas who lived in Jaffna when the Portuguese came to Sri Lanka.
What I am trying to say is that the great majority of Tamils in Jaffna are descendants of the people who were brought as agricultural labourers and as such the Tamils in general do not have a continuous history going back to a date beyond the seventeenth century. Then the question may be asked as to what was the population of Jaffna peninsula before the Portuguese came during the time of the Arya Chakravarthi kings. The Arya Chakravarthins were pirates who happened to rule Jaffna as a vassal state of the Sinhala kings. The Arya Chakravarti kings had to get permission from the Sinhala king to use the title king annually. Now there arise two questions. Were the Arya Chakravarthins Dravidians or not? Who constituted the population in the Arya Chakravarthi kingdom?
In any event Arya Chakravarthi kingdom was not a nation state nor a tribal state. It was a Vansa state in the sense that almost all the kingdoms in Bharat were Vansa states. The kings belonged to a certain vansa and it was not necessary that the people belonged to the same vansa as the kings. Tamil speaking people had been ruled by Pallavas who cannot be identified with the Tamils nor the Tamil speaking people who were ruled by the Pallavas could be identified with the Vansa of the kings. Whether the Arya Chakravarthins were Tamil speaking or not it cannot be deduced that the majority of the people living in Jaffna at that time were Tamil speaking. (To be continued)
Professor Nalin de Silva
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