Housing the Unhomely: A Study of Srilankan Panchamar Fiction

Abstract

The emergence of Tamil ethnic nationalism in Sri Lanka in the 1980s has brought about significant geopolitical and social changes in the island nation. The ethno-nationalist mobilizations by the Sinhalese and Tamils censored the caste system and considered it as a divisive force. Caste ceased to be a marker of identity in official documents. Nevertheless, Tamil society continued to be pivoted on caste norms and conventions. As a paradox, caste was removed from the public realm, but continued to dominate the lives of the people at the local and personal level. The caste ideologies of purity and pollution dominated the social fabric, resulting in the exploitation and discrimination of Panchamars, a community which occupied the lowest rungs of the caste order. Between the 1950s and 1980s there were significant voices of dissent against caste oppression suffered by the Panchamars. The advent of the Tamil ethnic nationalist movement muted the voices protesting against caste hierarchy. Nevertheless, there were several novels, short stories and poems written in Tamil by Panchamars, during the 1970s and 1980s, which contradicts the notion of equality and solidarity among Sri Lankan Tamils. This essay draws on Homi Bhabha’s theory of “Third space” and “unhomely” and analyses Panchamar literatures as “enunciations” of caste discrimination prevalent in Sri Lankan society. While Panchamar literatures function as a counter-discourse to the unified Tamil identity espoused by Tamil nationalists, it has not brought any major social transformation within the caste society of the Sri Lankan Tamils. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s conceptualizations of habitus and field, this essay argues a compatible social field is necessary for the transformation of the third space to an emancipatory site, without which it will remain a mere reactionary space.