Tamils call for land rights during Pongal
by Melani Manel Perera
The annual festival celebrating the winter harvest with the sharing of a traditional dish has provided the opportunity to remember the injustices endured by the plantation workers’ community in Sri Lanka for more than two centuries. Damages caused by the recent Cyclone Ditwah has only worsened the situation.
Colombo (AsiaNews) – The Thai Pongal festival, which recently saw the Sri Lankan Tamil community mark the winter harvest, offered once again this year an opportunity to assert land rights for a community that has been marginalised in the country for generations.
In Colombo, an event titled “Pongal for Rights” was held at the Liberty Circus, organised by the Civil Society Alliance for Reforms for the Malaiyaha Community, bringing together plantation workers, activists, and representatives of civil society groups to highlight the long-standing injustices faced by the Malaiyaha people, particularly in the wake of recent climate disasters.
In keeping with Tamil Hindu tradition, the organisers, dressed in colourful traditional clothing, prepared the Pongal sweet with clean water, raw rice, coconut milk, sugar, dried fruit, and a large clay pot placed over a fire, while a Pooja (ritual devotion) was undertaken to invoke a blessing to bring justice.
For more than two centuries, the Malaiyaha community has worked on tea plantations, acting as the backbone of Sri Lanka’s plantation economy. However, many of them still live in overcrowded line houses, without land title, secure housing, or basic services.
The situation got worse in the wake of the Cyclone Ditwah, which caused flooding and landslides across the Central Highlands, including Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Badulla, Matale, and Kegalle.
Entire plantation communities, especially in the central hill areas, were severely affected, losing homes, livelihoods, and access to essential infrastructure.
“The Mailayaha people, who have been in this country for 203 years, still live as a landless group. We have asked all the governments that have come to power so far to provide land titles to these people. But there was no such programme,” said Anthony Jesudasan, executive director of the Voice of Plantation Peoples Organisation.
“That is why many of those who have been affected by the recent disaster are in displacement camps. The 50 lakh (five million) rupees that the president and the government promised to provide are not available to these people,” he added.
“We have still not been able to celebrate Pongal happily in our own backyard. We decided to celebrate Pongal at this intersection because we need to give this message to the entire society,” said Jeewarathnam Suresh, executive director of Institute for People Engagement and Networking (IPEN). “We are saddened by the fact that the development process is going on, abandoning our community, even during the disaster process,” he added.
The community’s main demands are: individual housing units instead of line-room houses, land with secure legal titles, the creation of new villages with adequate infrastructure, and the reconstruction of disaster-affected Malaiyaha settlements, led by the state and supported by civil society groups.
The Tamil community in the village of Sewwanthivu (Puttalam district) also gathered at the Sri Siva Subramaniam Kovil to celebrate Pongal. The Pooja was officiated by the kurukkal (Hindu priest) with the participation of all village families, who then shared the prepared Pongal, exchanging affection and solidarity.
“The feeling of the people of this village is that they are being marginalised and treated less well just because they are Tamils. They stated that even during the recent floods, when water rose to a height of eight feet, no one came to help them, and even after that, the assistance they received was minimal and of poor quality,” said Sister Deepa speaking to AsiaNews.
Yet, “as a village, the unity they have is very commendable. They live in harmony with the few Sinhalese people living in this village. So, during this Pongal festival, they asked God to create the necessary environment for everyone to live together in harmony without discrimination,” she added.
