Caste Is Alive & Well In Jaffna: Nayanmarkattu Hospital Perspective

By Samson Gnanaharan Ponnuthurai –

Background: Caste in Jaffna

Caste is integral to the social fabric of Jaffna society. Vellalas at the apex and in control of narratives deny it because its very existence shames Hindu society. Others below Vellalas and educated enough to fight caste join the Vellalas in denying its existence today because they hope one day to pass off as Vellalas and have no interest in identifying their caste and diminishing their status in society. So, the caste system is protected, intact and in good health.

The purpose of this article is to gain insight into caste examining the caste battles in Nayanmarkattu which is east of King Changiliyan’s palace, a part of a neighbourhood where every street was reserved for a caste. The main Vellala Street was Chemmany Road running East-West through our home and hospital. The name Chemmany, derives from red sand, chem-munn, where the King  killed and spilt the blood of his son and nephew for converting to Christianity. Our house and our hospital at the centre of this story, are on Chemmany Road.

True, today the nexus between caste and profession is gone as many of diminished caste enter the university and the professions. Where those of higher caste go west, it is to countries like the US and Canada where they buy houses and settle down, tying up their salaries in mortgages. When the lower castes move west, it is to countries like Germany, France and Switzerland where instead of investing in houses in their new homes they do in the community they abandoned. They save and send their money to smuggle in relations and invest in land in Jaffna where they build concrete houses, usurping properties reserved for Vellalas.

Nayanmarkattu Ayurvedic Hospital: The First Encroachment

There is evidence that the Nayanmarkattu Ayurvedic Hospital is the oldest hospital in this island. It has been in existence from the time of our kings. The Jaffna kings have backed and supported this hospital. The physicians, my ancestors, were the physicians of the kings. An appellate court judgement says, “One of the Tamil Rulers of Jaffna, King Pararajasekaram, was so much interested in the development of the Indigenous System of Medicine that he constituted a Vaidya-Sangam. This Sangam had as its members very eminent medical men, from both South India and Ceylon.”

According to the same judgement, the founder of the Nayamarkattu hospital was Mr. Vettivelpillai in 1838. He was succeeded by Mailvagana Pandit to 1875 who erected the hospital in stone.

A landmark was when Sivasubramania Pandit, my great-grandfather took over in 1911 with land donated by his brother Mailvagana Pandit for himself and his heirs and was appointed the Trustee and Hospital Superintendent. 

Sivasubramania Pandit took the hospital to great heights  as both physician and surgeon and was recognized a Vaidyapathi and subsequently as Vaidyaboopathi by the Tamil Vaidya Sangam of Madras. The court noted in admiration his knowledge of both Eastern and Western Systems of Medicine.

In 1911 the two brothers Subramaniam Pandit and his brother Mailvagana Pandit converted this 4 acre land on Chemmany Road into a trust property. Their sole intention was that this hospital should provide free medicine for the poor community. 

Those were different times with different mores. My Greatgrandfather’s Trust deed dated 1915 specified that only Vellalar can be in the administration of the Hospital and that Pallar could only be labourers at the hospital. Members of  other castes like Paraiyahs, Nalavahs and Karaiyahs were prohibited any form of work at the hospital.  The Trust deed also said the administrator ought to be a person who was twice-born, effectively one who had undergone the Saivite rite of theetchai; effectively a Vellala.

According to the trust deed, the Nallur Kovil Mudalali, the Sattanathar Kovil Mudalai, the Sivan Kovil Mudalali and the Veerakali Kovil Mudalali are some of the trustees. Dr. Ramanathan was a trustee of these Temples.  The Sivan Kovil and its adjoining lands belong to the hospital trust.

Dr. V.S. Ramanathan (13 Nov. 1904 – 28 Oct. 1948) who was educated at St. John’s College Jaffna died prematurely at the age of 45, unfortunately of cirrhosis from his prematurely at the age of 45, unfortunately of cirrhosis from his habit of drinking at Bastian Restaurant with his Johnian classmates. He had married my grandmother, Dr. Kamala Ramanathan (DoB 12 Dec. 1907) while studying in India. She was a Christian, a matter that would play a significant role in this Saga.

After the early death of my grandfather, my grandmother tried to run the hospital. Ramanathan’s step cousin  (Mylvaganam’s son through his mistress, Ehambaram by name),  was living on hospital premises. Ehambaram and his brother issued death threats to my grandmother. I have a copy of her complaint to the police about this and requesting that her late husband’s gun licence be transferred to her.  On 23 Feb. 1952 while her children including my mother were at school, my grandmother was found murdered. With her untimely tragic death of my grandmother Dr. Kamala Ramanathan, the hospital went into the hands of unqualified people. They looted the hospital as well as the house of my grandparents Dr. and Dr. Mrs. Ramanathan.

The looting of our house reminds me of what people say even today of the dispossessed castes  looting King Changiliyans palace after he was defeated by the Portuguese. It s said that most of those living on the king’s lands today have no deed even to this day. However, the owners without deeds are so important in society that they ensure that the lands go to the government and nothing is done to excavate the palace grounds which surely are a repository of our rich heritage.

The people who encroached on land after the death of Dr. & Dr. Mrs. Ramanathan successfully filed a case claiming the hospital but the appeal was dismissed by our Supreme Court in 1978 saying this is a private trust property as distinct from a public trust issue. The family says the case was argued by Arunachalam Mahadeva at one stage. Since Sir Aunachalam Mahadeva died in 1946, the lawyer was perhaps his son.

Resurgence of Caste: Low Caste Assertion

During and after the war, taking over lands belonging to others is common in the North because owners had gone abroad. Many lawyers are helping with such fraud. It is interesting to note that the Pallas of Nayanmarkattu became immensely powerful because during the LTTE era when the dreaded Pottu Amman, the Head of Prabhakaran’s intelligence Unit, was a Nayanmarkattu Pallan. 

Even today Pottu Amman’s people have threatened a man of their tribe who drives a trishaw for a Vellala of Nayanmarkattu. His trishaw was stoned and damaged. Finally the army forced the St. James’ Church rowdies who had earlier scratched my new motor bike to repair the damaged trishaw. Similarly, when a Palla started an affair with a Paraiyah girl,  there was a stone throwing battle between the castes in 2004 as to which caste was higher. At St. James’ Church Nallur, when a dominant Paraiyah caste Warden (elected Elder) filmed a girl of the church while she bathed in 2011, the parish initially refused to discipline the Warden and was finally forced to. The church rowdies vote en mass at the AGM to defeat those who ask for discipline.  On the day of the AGM, those who rarely come to church, come and are able to outvote qualified others in favour of illiterate low-caste candidates. A person caught cooking up bills at the YMCA and was terminated, likewise became a St. James’ warden. Caste is alive and well, especially in church.

Resurgence of Palla Power: Second Attempt at Takeover

I am writing this article based on today’s (30 July 2023)  opening of the Bharathy Community Centre next door to me on land belonging to a trust established by my family but illegally taken over in defiance of court orders. As the lower castes, now in majority especially at Christian institutions,  take over Vellala rights seeking upward mobility, they seek the help of others for endorsement. 

Jaffna Vellalas will not help. So they seek the assistance of other in-between castes such as the Karaiya (fishing caste) whose status is ambivalent as they are ritually inferior but not financially dependent on the Vellalas and ofen equally powerful. The other group prepared to help are politicians who are desperate for votes, especially lower caste votes. The best for this purpose are people from the Karaiya i.e. coastal or fishing caste.  

The people dominating our area are the Pallas, who are labourers working for Vellalas. They are now powerful as many of them smuggled themselves abroad to countries especially those in Europe and sent home large sums of money to buy land once owned exclusively by Vellalas and have built concrete houses. The tension is evident in a Vellala selling her land next to her to another Vellala at a reduced price telling the buyer that a Palla from France is offering big money and it should not be sold to him.

Therefore when the Pallas of Nayanmarkattu made their second attempt at taking over our land declared as my family’s by the Supreme Court, it was to marginalized leaders that they turned. Two persons are acknowledged by the Palla leadership as helping them take over the trust land breaking the law. They are C.V.K. Sivagnanam (former Municipal Commissioner from the LTTE times) whose claimed status of good caste as a Kaikula is not accepted by Vellalas. He is a strange bedfellow of former Mayor Emmanuel Arnold. Sivagnanam according to Federal Party Sources objected to Arnold being Mayor because he is a Karaiya Catholic and for the same reason he also objected to Cyril a Member of the Jaffna Municipal who is a close in-law of Arnold’s. Another person is said to be former Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran. 

The foundation stone of this newly constructed library building on our land building was laid by former mayor E. Arnold on 21.01.2019. Former MP Saravanabavan granted 2 million rupees under GAMBERILIYA scheme for this illigal construction. I believe he was surely targeting the vote base for the elections even though he lost. Even in his speech at the opening ceremony on 30.07.223, Mr. Sarvanaabavan concluded , that if he is elected to parliament again he would do many wonders for the Palla people. That sounded like desperation for re-election from a Vellala.

Given these sorry circumstances, those billed for the opening of the new library building with foreign money were Governor Ms. P.S.M. Charles from Batticaloa as Chief Guest. She I am afraid is unaware of all dimensions of the social fabric of Jaffna. Then there was former Mayor Emmanuel Arnold hoping to fare better at the next elections, the Ven. Parimala Selvan (the Anglican Archdeacon of Jaffna) who is a priest at St. James’ and as a Karaiya is trying hard to muster favour with the lower castes even trying to rename Chemmany Road as Nayanmarkattu Road. There was also Municipal Commissioner Jeyaseelan now resettled in Vadadamarachy with little known identity. But that does not escape the people of Nallur because in the days of government blackout his home was in Sellar Veethy a Pallar Domain in Nallur from where he came to study at St. James’ Church which provided lanterns to the local children  without lights. Besides them, everyone on stage was a member of the local Pallar community. 

Mrs. P.S.M Charles who was expected as Chief Guest after being alerted to the fact that this newly constructed building is an illegal construction and she was being used to legitimize the illegal construction, stayed away from attending this opening ceremony. I believe she also instructed the Commissioner too not to attend even though he was eager to help his Pallar Community. 

From the day this new construction began, I kept writing to the mayor, the Commissioner, the director of UDA, the GA , and the District Secretary requesting information under the RTI Act, to figure out how permission was granted to this illegal construction. The Municipality & the UDA are utterly corrupted. The people who are holding office are politically appointed. When a poor man wants to construct a building on his own land, many questions ared and finally his request is turned down, because you need to bribe the people at the municipality to obtain approval. But here the land belongs to a public trust  and yet the approval was easily granted. 

The officer who is in charge of the community centres at the municipality, who was also one of the special guests in today’s function, Mrs.Malarmagal Thayaparan, said in her speech, that she is in charge of the lands of the community centre and if anyone encroaches on a land for more than 10 years the said land belongs to that person. She does not seem to know the law. May be she too is a politically appointed person.

It was also interesting to listen, the Archdeacon of Jaffna (Colombo Diocese of the Church of Ceylon) shouting “Ohm Shanthi, Ohm Shanthi” in his speech. I wonder what kind of theology he was taught by the Anglican Church, and I feel sorry for the students for whom he is teaching theology in Pilimatalawa. When God visits heart attacks on church leaders, is it for the sin of appointing blasphemous leaders like this Archdeacon?

Worst was one official Mr. Umashankar who in his speech promised to get rid of anyone complaining against the building. It was a shameless and lawless public threat not to complain of the building or else!

Reversal of Caste Hierarchy

How did the entire government machinery save Goversor Charles collapse in the face of Palla attempts to make their illegal construction lawful? Why did the UDA give permits to this illegal construction when it is so strict with legitimate buildings> Did anyobe pressure the UDA? Was it their compatriot Why did failed politicians come forward to make the building look legal? Why did the Anglican church also fall in line to make it legal?

Is caste coming back with a reversal of hierarchy?

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