Over a long period, many erudite scholars and critics have engaged with the issue of the extent to which caste remained a relevant factor in understanding social development in Sri Lanka. One could sum up broadly the overwhelming view among such writers as being that while caste influences still remain in some way or the other, the predominant factor relating to changes in Sri Lanka is not caste but class. 

The starting point of this article is that while purely on theoretical considerations about the new economic relationships that were introduced in Sri Lanka, particularly since the occupation of the coastal areas by the Dutch, and then, particularly during the period of British rule, this assessment about class becoming a more important factor than caste may seem possible, yet, in actual fact, caste still plays a far more predominant role in all the affairs of Sri Lanka than the class factor. To clarify the differences of views it may be useful to re-state what in most previous writings was considered as caste. The general approach to caste has been the classification of people into various caste groupings which were mostly named in terms of occupations. For example, the following two tables give the classification of caste amongst the Sinhala community and the Tamil community :-

Of the Sinhala community

*In the 1824 census, Hinna, Hunu and Oli being numerically small castes were classed with ‘others’ to form 2.7%

Trying to describe caste in terms of caste groupings as shown above does not reveal the principles on which the entire caste system was based. These principles were universal and apply to all the affairs of society. They also apply to all different caste groupings whether some castes were considered superior or others inferior. Both of these groups were held together by a set of common universal principles. The universal principles on which the caste system is based are what need to be discussed in understanding caste as a worldview that applies to everything and everyone who lived in caste based societies. 

It is also necessary to understand these universal principles because when such principles have been the foundation of a social order for a very long period of time, that worldview also enters into the minds and psyches of the people of such a society. Over a long period of repetitious behaviours, these principles go on to create the deep seated attitudes that govern not only the external behaviour of the people but also their interior make-up. It is this aspect of the interior make up of a caste based society that has not been studied to this author’s knowledge in Sri Lanka. Thus, the justification of this paper is to initiate an approach to the study of the influence of caste in Sri Lanka, which is relevant not only to understanding the long period of caste history but also the present and for quite some time, even what is likely to happen in the future. 

The interiorisation of caste principles

Caste is rooted in two main premises or principles. The first of these principles is the prohibition against social mobility. The second principle is disproportionate and unequal punishments. Both of these principles are based on the apriori notion of the validity of inequality over equality. From around 8th Century Anno Domini to the arrival of Western influences, the principle against social mobility remained sacrosanct in Sri Lanka. It took the form of fixing the social position of a person on the basis of his or her birth. That the social position to which one was born into in terms of the occupation of the patriarch was an unalterable principle. Thus, the whole idea of individual talent, individual achievements, and the acquisition of special knowledge or skills, all had to be confined to and limited to the operation of this principle of the inalterability of the status or position. 

That principle was by extension applied also to relationships. All blood relationships had to be kept within the caste fixed boundaries. Thus, interchanges which affect not only the psychological make-up of the people but also genetically, were entrenched in terms of these caste based limitations. 

Perhaps the most important lasting impact of these limitations was the psychological and social habits that got formed under this system and which got embedded due to long years of the repeated practice of habits, repeated affirmations of threats, and repeated reminders of the social boundaries, thus becoming part of the psyche of the Sri Lankan people as a whole. Such psychological rooting does not get removed purely due to certain changes that may occur in social relationships due to commercial and other considerations unless a large-scale assault on such past psychological habits has been made over a long period of time, which are of superior vitality. Because the Western influences and the beginning of mercantile, commercial and other limited capital developments that have taken place in Sri Lanka remained of a superficial nature, they lacked the vitality of an economic, social and cultural revolution that would be able to fundamentally alter the nature of the attitudes formed on the basis of the practices rooted in the prohibition against social mobility.

The second most important universal principle on which the caste system and the social organisation based on caste is founded is the uneven and disproportionate use of punishment.

This principle simply means that if a person belongs to a caste group graded as “inferior” in law, the punishment meted out to him or her for a transgression which may even seem small can be the highest punishment, meaning, death itself. And, this punishment can not only be meted out to the particular transgressor but also to his or her clan or the caste group. On the other hand, if a person is graded “superior” within the caste hierarchy, even the gravest crime can go unpunished or the person may be exposed only for some types of ritual purifications as punishment. Besides, while those who were considered superior had the unlimited right to punish those considered inferior, the inferiors did not have any such right to make any such claims of having being wronged by their “superiors”. This, in short, is the principle on which the entire criminology was based during the period that the Sri Lankan society was organised in terms of caste. 

In the application of the principle of uneven and disproportionate punishment, those considered superior had the absolute right to lay down all the rules that were to be observed by those who were considered inferiors. This went on to the issues about what work they do, what exchanges they could engage in and to what extent the superiors could exploit labour and services, and the right to determine as they wished what reward or punishment that the inferiors deserved. The superior right of property extended to everything and this included the inhabitants of the houses of the so called inferiors. Absolute obedience was the price to be paid if one was to escape from extraordinary punishments. The superiors could determine even the manner in which the so called inferiors had to dress. For example, it was a widespread habit that the males and in some places even women were not allowed to wear anything above their waists.  

Prohibition against education, which followed from the principle of prohibition against social mobility, was enforced through the application of the principle of uneven and disproportionate punishment. Education was seen as an attempt by those who were considered inferiors to acquire habits through which they may equal or even surpass their superiors. 

(The writer is the Asian Human Rights Commission’s Policy and Programmes Director)

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.