Country: Sri Lanka

Group: Pallar

Date: March 20, 2023

Name: Ash Pessaran (lead), Anthony Un, Stefania Becerra Lavado, Juawairiah Afridi, Noelle Collings, Hannah Lux

Content Warnings: Murder, Physical Violence

Approximate Time Period: 1968-Present

The Pallar, also known as the Mallar or Pallan, are a rural group in the Indian state of Sri Lanka. There are around 71,000 Pallar people living in Sri Lanka. The Vellalars are a dominant caste within the Tamil Caste System in Sri Lanka and they mandated underprivileged castes such as the Pallars to live in palmyra groves and wastelands (Kuganathan, 2014; Pfaffenberger, 1990).

There is some evidence of lethal violence against the Pallar people in Sri Lanka. In 1968, during a series of nonviolent protests against temple-entry laws, Hindus used lethal violence against lower castes such as the Pallar in order to stop the protests (Pfaffenberger, 1990). Some of these cases resulted in deaths (Pfaffenberger, 1990).  Numerous Pallar fought with the Tamil Tigers in the Sri Lankan civil war as Tamil-speaking Hindus. Several people died, and Tamil Tigers destroyed a majority of their property. The Pallar are gradually reestablishing their life. The Pallan still mostly work in agriculture. Some own tiny parcels of land, while others labor on property others own (Pfaffenberger, 1990). A large population of low-caste Tamils live in displacement camps, indicating the vulnerability of low-caste Tamils to incidences of social disruption (Silva et al., 2009).

Data Quality: This data is rated a ⅔ for some credible information supporting evidence of lethal violence discrimination against this ethnic group, however there was a low variety of sources.

Sources

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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.