Country: Sri Lanka
Group: Nalavar
Date Finalized: April 21, 2023
Team: David Hammerle (lead), Nichole Dahlen, Lacey Hurst, Evelyn Annelo, Madison Chester
Content Warning: ethnic discrimination, slavery, physical violence, murder
Approximate Time Period: 1700s – 2000s
The Nalavar are one caste in the ethnic group known as the Tamils. The Nalavar are traditionally “toddy tappers” and tree climbers. They make up 9% of the population of the Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka (Silva, 2009). They are a part of the untouchable castes, also known as the Panchamar. The Panchamar constitute roughly 18% of the population of the Jaffna peninsula (Silva, 2009). Half of the Panchamar on the peninsula are Nalavar. On the Jaffna Peninsula, the plantation system exploits many people for their labor using caste discrimination (IMADR Asia Committee, 2008). Vellalars, a dominant land-owning caste, enslaved the Nalavars and Pallars, forcing them to work their fields, tend their cattle, and collect produce from trees. In return, the Vellalars provided the Nalavars with meals, clothes, and separate housing (Wickramasinghe & Schrikker, 2019).
The Dutch occupied Sri Lanka from 1658 to 1796. In 1707, the Dutch codified Thesawalamai (traditional Tamil customs of land) into law, which legally defined castes such as the Nalavars as slaves. The Dutch entitled themselves to ownership over one of every five or six children born from marriages of Nalavars and/or Pallars (Wickramasinghe & Schrikker 2019).
In 1796, the British took control of Sri Lanka from the Dutch. The British continued to enslave the Nalavar until they abolished official slavery in Sri Lanka in 1844. However, the Vellalars continued to enslave the Nalavars after that (Wickramasinghe & Schrikker, 2019).
In the 1950s, the Vellalars still threatened many Minority Tamils, including the Nalavar, with expulsion if they didn’t submit to working for the Vellalars. Vellalars used gangs of thugs to victimize Minority Tamils that tried to raise their social position including burning down huts and poisoning wells (Balasooriya, n.d.).
Today, the Nalavar are not just toddy tappers, they often have other jobs (Yann Picand, n.d.). Family that have migrated to other countries facilitated some of this by sending money home (Madavan, 2011). Some Nalavar have become more upwardly mobile by converting to Christianity (Kuganathan, 2014).
Data Quality: We give this a data quality of 3/3 because there are plentiful scholarly sources supporting forced labor of Nalavar in Sri Lanka.
Sources
1. Balasooriya, A. (1970, January 1). [PDF] search for common grounds : Tamil caste system as “a spoiler” in post-conflict peacebuilding in northern Sri Lanka: Semantic scholar. [PDF] Search for Common Grounds : Tamil Caste System as “A Spoiler” in Post-conflict Peacebuilding in Northern Sri Lanka | Semantic Scholar. Retrieved February 22, 2023, from https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Search-for-Common-Grounds-%3A-Tamil-Caste-System-as-Balasooriya/1eff9d155974e83832ffe2cc7ac393530f5cb35e
2. IMADR Asia Committee, Human Development Organisation and the International Dalit Solidarity Network. (2008, May). Caste-based discrimination in Sri Lanka: Patterns of inequality, discrimination and social marginalisation of affected communities in contemporary Sri Lanka [Review of Caste-based discrimination in Sri Lanka: Patterns of inequality, discrimination and social marginalisation of affected communities in contemporary Sri Lanka]. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/lib-docs/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session2/LK/IDSN_LKA_UPR_S2_2008_TheInternationalDalit_SolidarityNetwork_Etal_JOINT.pdf
3. Kuganathan, P. (2014). Social Stratification in Jaffna: A survey of recent research on Caste. Sociology Compass, 8(1), 78–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12101
4. Madavan, D. (2011, March 2). Socio-religious desegregation in an immediate postwar town. Carnets de géographes. Retrieved February 22, 2023, from https://journals.openedition.org/cdg/2711?lang=en
5. Silva, K. T., Sivapragasam, P. P., & Thanges, P. (2009). Casteless or caste-blind?: Dynamics of concealed caste discrimination, social exclusion, and protest in Sri Lanka. International Dalit Solidarity Network.
6. Wickramasinghe, N., & Schrikker, A. (2019). The ambivalence of freedom: Slaves in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Journal of Asian Studies, 78(3), 497–519. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021911819000159
7. Yann Picand, D. D. (n.d.). Nalavar. Nalavar : definition of Nalavar and synonyms of Nalavar (English). Retrieved February 22, 2023, from http://dictionary.sensagent.com/Nalavar/en-en/