Sri Lankan Mudaliyars
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Traditionally the ‘Mudali’ in Sri Lankan history were royal military officials. The British colonials created a new Mudaliyar class in the 19th century by enlisting natives who were most likely to serve the British masters with utmost loyalty.
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[edit] History
References to the traditional Mudali class of Sri Lanka are to be found in historical literature such as the Rajavaliya, Mukkara Hatana and also Portuguese and Dutch colonial records. Mudaliyar is a South Indian and Tamil name for ‘first’ and a person endowed with wealth.
The British colonials created a new Mudaliyar class in the 19th century by enlisting natives who were most likely to serve the British masters with utmost loyalty. This class resembled English country squires, complete with large land grants by the British, residences of unprecedented scale (Referred to by the Tamil word Walauu or Walvoo) and British granted native titles. The British Governor
[edit] The De Saram Family
A De Saram family of Dutch and Malay ancestry had Sinhalised itself in the late 18th century by posing as the representatives of the masses and subsequently convinced the British rulers that they are from the numerous Govigama caste. This was a strategic move as it gave the British masters the impression that they had the backing of a large body of natives. It was also the easiest route to Sinhalisation as the peasant community was still unstructured and without any leaders. The De Saram family gained power and position by loyalty, switching religions from Dutch Protestantism to British Anglicanism and from the preference of British rulers to appoint individuals of unknown ancestry to high positions. By respectively collaborating with the Dutch and British rulers the De Sarams succeeded in marginalizing the traditional ruling class. The British notion of an inverted caste hierarchy in Sri Lanka is easily traceable to the documents on 'local customs' produced by this family. (See development and promotion of the Govi Supremacy Myth by these families).
The British naturally favored the subservient and cooperative De Saram family against the belligerent traditional elite. The De Saram family was given increasing patronage and chiefly appointments and grew in power and influence during the British period.
Governors Maitland. (1805–1811), Gordon (1883 – 1890) and others effectively used divide and rule policies and created caste animosity among the native elite and finally confined all Native Headmen appointments only to the Govigama caste in 1897.
The De Saram family eventually had a strong and exclusive network of relatives as Mudaliyars by the late 19th century. Later, through marriage alliances the network extended to the Obeysekere, Dias-Bandaranaike, Ilangakoon, de Alwis, de Livera, Pieris, Siriwardena and Senanayake families. This Anglican Christian, so called “Govigama”, network expanded further with the preponderance of native headmen apointments by the British as Mudaliyars, Korales and Vidanes from the Buddhist Govigama section of the community.
The creation of the above Mudaliyar class by the British in the 19th century, it’s restriction only to the Govigama caste in the 1890s, production of spurious caste hierarchy lists by this group (See creation of the Govi Supremacy Myth )and changes to the land tenure system, resulted in all other Sri lankan castes being classified as low castes during this period.
The influential Mudaliyar class atttempted to keep other Sri Lankan castes out of colonial appointments. The oppression by the Mudaliars and connected headmen extended to demanding subservience, service and even restrictions on the type of personal names that could be used by other castes.
[edit] The Ponnambalam-Coomaraswamy Family
As much as the De Sarams family was responsible for the rise of the Govigama caste, the Ponnambalam-Coomaraswamy Family was responsible for the 20th century, rise of the Tamil Vellala caste. The ascendance of the Ponnambalam-Coomaraswamy family commences with a Coomaraswamy (1783-1836) from Point Pedro joining the seminary that Governor North started for producing interpreters. Coomaraswamy passed out and served as an interpreter from 1805. He was rewarded by the Governor with a Mudaliyar position at the age of 26 and became the Jaffna Tamil with the highest government appointment. He played a critical role as the Tamil-English interpreter when the Kandyan king Sri Wickrama Rajasinghe was captured in 1815. He was rewarded with a gold chain and medal by Governor Brownrigg in 1819 for loyal service to the British crown. (Vythilingam 36-43) There were allegations that he was not from the Vellala caste.(Jayawardena 209)
Arunachalam Ponnambalam’s (1814-87) step Father Ariyaputhira was Coomaraswamy’s brother-in-law and in 1844 Ponnambalam married Coomaraswamy’s daughter Selachchi.
Ponnambalam was appointed cashier of the Colombo Kachcheri in 1845 and deputy Coroner for Colombo in 1847. Many leading Englishmen were his friends and it transpired in the 1849 Parliamentary Commission that he used to lend money to government officials. (Vythilingam 58)
His three sons P. Coomaraswamy (1849-1905), P. Ramanathan (1851-1930) and P. Arunachalam (1853-1926) were national figures and two of them, P. C. and P. A. married two daughters of Namasiyayam, an extremely successful Broker. This closely related and endogamous clan emerged as the pre-eminent Tamil family of the country and rose to national elite status. (Jayawardena 210-212)
Despite their anglicized background which propelled their rise, the family presented a staunch Hindu appearance and assumed the role of ‘Patrons of the Vellalas in Colombo. However many of its members; Muttu Coomaraswamy, P. Coomaraswamy, P. Ramanathan married western women. Ananda Coomaraswamy was married four times to western women.
They helped many young Tamils to secure employment in English Banks and Mercantile establishments. On the death of Mudaliyar Coomaraswamy’s wife in 1897, the leading daily, ‘The Ceylon Independent’ wrote “to her and her husband, almost every important Hindu family in the city owes its rise”.
[edit] References
- Jayawardena Kumari 2000 Nobodies to Somebodies - The Rise of the Colonial Bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka
- Peebles Patrick 1995 Social Change in Nineteenth Century Ceylon
- Vythilingam M. 1971 The life of Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan Volume I
