Country: Sri Lanka

Group: Nalavar

Date Finalized: 04/03/2023

Team: Evelyn Anello (lead), Madison Chester, Nichole Dahlen, David Hammerle, Lacey Hurst

Content Warning: gangs, physical violence, murder, ethnic discrimination

Approximate Time Period: 1940-present

              The Nalavar caste is part of the Panchamar, or Untouchables, a group of castes including the Pallar, Vannar, Ampattar, Nalavar, and Parayar castes (Silva et al., 2020). Higher ranking castes historically discriminate against Panchamar castes in Sri Lanka, resulting in several caste conflicts throughout the 20th century (Silva et al., 2009).

The Nalavar have been victims of lethal violence, including targeted, state-sponsored, politically-motivated killings; targeted violence and threats; and mass killings that uniquely affected a large number of Nalavar. In the 1940s and 1950s, Vellalars employed government-sponsored gangs to assault minority Tamils (mostly Pallar and Nalavar). These raids involved poisoning wells, burning houses (Balasooriya, 1970), and beating or murdering minority Tamils (Pfaffenberger, 1990). In 1968, minority Tamils held nonviolent protests outside a Brahman-owned temple in Maviddapuram. The protest turned violent when majority Hindus attacked the protesters with improvised weapons, spurring outbreaks of violence, sometimes lethal, throughout the peninsula (Pfaffenberger, 1990). The Sri Lankan Civil War between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) came to a head when, in response to a successful LTTE attack on Sinhalese government soldiers, the Sri Lankan Army massacred hundreds of Tamil civilians in an incident known as the Jaffna Massacre or Black July (Swamy, 1989). The Nalavar meet the criteria of being victims of discriminatory lethal violence.

Data Quality: Data quality for lethal violence against the Nalavar is rated a 2/3. Despite the presence of detailed, high-quality academic sources, the majority of evidence is provided by a single scholar (Pfaffenberger).

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.  Pfaffenberger, B. (1990). The political construction of Defensive Nationalism: The 1968 temple-entry crisis in northern Sri Lanka. The Journal of Asian Studies, 49(1), 78–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/2058434
  3. Swamy, M. R. N. “Chronicle of a Separatist Movement: 1983 Massacre, Anti-Tamil Riots Internationalized a Conflict.” India Abroad (1987-1989) Aug 04 1989, New York edition ed.: 13. ProQuest. 20 Mar. 2023 .
  4. 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. Kumaran Book House.
  5. Silva, K.T., Haniffa, F., Bastin, R. (2020). Ethnicity and Violence in Sri Lanka: An Ethnohistorical Narrative. The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. P. 1-23.