Story of a social outcast: is salvation only through education?

There was a taboo for social mobility, ability of a person to change from his father’s occupation and select a job on merit and rise in the position on the social ladder. There was only one way out. That was acquiring education and joining the Government service. Hence, education and Government jobs were the means of social mobility. This was exactly what the hero in Jayasinghe’s novel did. Government jobs not only earned respect of others but also a regular monthly salary associated with old-age social security through a pension scheme. It helped those who held Government jobs command economic superiority over ordinary people. Since the inflation rate was nearly zero, they also commanded over an unchanged basket of goods. Hence, if they managed their money prudently, they could acquire wealth giving them a further higher position in society irrespective of the caste to which they belonged

Edmond Jayasinghe does it again

The Diplomat turned Novelist Edmond Jayasinghe has released his third creative work under the title ‘Api’ or ‘We’. The previous two works were a novel under the title ‘Piyavi Esa’ or ‘The Naked Eye’ and a collection of poems under the title ‘Shades’. 

The Naked Eye was reviewed by me earlier and can be accessed at https://www.ft.lk/columns/Protesting-youth-Will-Edmond-Jayasinghe-s-The-Naked-Eye-guide-them/4-733478. The Naked Eye which appeared at the height of the Youth Agitation or Aragalaya of 2022 brought out a story of a young intellectual who formed an unarmed radical movement to change the country’s decadent society now moribund due to the short-sighted self-serving actions of power-hungry politicians of all hues. But he was betrayed by jealous enemies from within. 

Based on this frustrating outcome, I made the following recommendation to those who had setup their operating centre at the Galle Face Greens which was creatively designated as Gota-Go-Gama or the Land Calling Gotabaya Rajapaksa to Exit from Presidency: ‘The present unarmed protestors are taking forward what Hewa of Edmond Jayasinghe could not accomplish. I recommend that they all should read his novel because it is a manual for them. What are the lessons which the present protestors can learn from Jayasinghe? One is that without an ideological change, you cannot change society. The other is that enemies will come not from outside but from within. Such enemies who work in their own personal interest will deliver a fatal blow to any social movement. Hence, Jayasinghe leaves the message that those who plan to change society should be wary of these enemies from within. The rulers will capitalise their dissent and crush the movement without firing a single bullet at them’. 

This vital advice was given in April 2022. However, when one looks at what happened thereafter, this advice may have failed to catch their eyes.

Story of an outcast

The story in Api is woven around a young man called Jayatunga belonging to a lower cast. The family lives in a village with others in the same caste and does not encounter any social isolation or maltreatment when dealing with them. However, when it comes to high caste people in the same or neighbouring villages or students or teachers in the school, the young man and other family members get discriminatory treatment. They cannot sit in chairs with others or have a meal at a table. They had been living in this way for generations and have accepted it as their fate being born in low caste families. As a result, they have been outcast in the locality by birth as well as by choice.

Practice of polyandry

The family, following the social tradition, has been practicing polyandry in which a wife is shared by many brothers in the family. The tradition is that younger brothers can share the wife of the elder brothers but not the other way. Accordingly, Jayatunga’s father brings in a wife who is shared by his younger brother too. Jayatunga calls the elder brother Father and the younger one, Little Father, following the village traditions. But about the wife and children, both have the same rights and obligations. If one is not present, the other should stand for the occasion. Thus, it is a very strong social institution that ensures protection of the woman in question and children born out of this shared bed with husbands, the building of a strong economic unit that is resilient enough to face outside destructive forces, and the promotion of the growth potential of the family concerned. After Jayatunga’s mother died, his two fathers went for a second polyandry by bringing another woman to the family.

Family chores before education

Jayatunga, as the eldest son of the family, must attend to all the family chores in addition to going to school regularly. His father had a small grocery store and Jayatunga’s main family chore was at the store. From early in the morning till he goes to school and after school till almost mid-night, he was at the grocery store helping the father. It was his Little Father who had been charged with the task of cultivating family paddy fields. When the cultivation season is on, Jayatunga should help his Little Father in all the activities there, from land preparation to storing of the paddies in the barns. Despite the preoccupation in these household chores, Jayatunga had the inborn ability to study and skills in other extra-curricular activities. 

Yet, he was not given the due recognition by those high caste teachers. They even went to the extent of disrupting his maiden love affair with a high-caste girl on that ground. This was a shock to Jayatunga. Then, several other shocks were delivered to him one after the other. His mother who had born of six children by the two brothers died of a chronic illness. After her death, his father became mentally deranged and stopped attending to the family work in the same vigour and enthusiasm as he had before. Little Father who could not attend to the family work in the same effectiveness and efficiency as his father could not meet the new challenge faced by the family. 

Father who had earlier supported his continued education insisted that he should stop studies and take over the grocery store. In this background of a dissolved family, he had the comfort and mental support of an illiterate girl of the same caste who had been visiting his house with her mother to do the normal household work. This girl who had been constantly behind him when he had lost everything finally became his wife.

In this novel, Jayasinghe takes us through a special period of Sri Lanka’s history in which a major social, cultural, and economic transformation was taking place. Though the caste system had not been recognised by the colonial rulers when recruiting to public service, it had been deeply rooted in the country’s social and cultural fabric. High caste people always looked disparagingly at low caste ones. They were not treated as equals in social intercourse, especially in marriage relations. Though the Buddha disapproved of the discrimination of people on caste grounds, the entry to the Buddhist order was strictly restricted to high caste people. Leadership in village level bodies was also the preserve of the high caste ones

Going for a second polyandry

When the two fathers brought in another woman, a middle-aged woman who had a daughter by her previous marriage, in a second polyandric arrangement, Jayatunga was very uneasy when he had to deal with her. He did not want to address her ‘Mother’ as the custom required. For him, she was the new woman and he avoided her continuously though she had a soft feeling for all the six children including Jayatunga. The new woman was very efficient and active and managed the household and its economic empire just like the mother did. Gradually, she won the trust of Jayatunga, and he started to change his attitude toward her. 

But she was working more closely with the little father who was young and still very active. This bred jealousy in the father who became a devil in the house. When Jayatunga got selected to the university, he vehemently disapproved of it asking him to take over the grocery store and run it. Jayatunga did not want to be a prisoner of the family business but chose to join the Government service as a Rural Development Officer. 

He was assigned the job of development in his own and neighbouring villages. It did a miracle. All those high caste people who had earlier disparaged him and his family on caste grounds started respecting him as a Government officer who could now deliver favours to them. But Jayatunga was not to be corrupted in that manner. He married the illiterate girl who was behind him all those stormy years and started a new life.

Pre-globalisation eraToday, education and Government jobs won’t do the job

In this novel, Jayasinghe takes us through a special period of Sri Lanka’s history in which a major social, cultural, and economic transformation was taking place. Though the caste system had not been recognised by the colonial rulers when recruiting to public service, it had been deeply rooted in the country’s social and cultural fabric. High caste people always looked disparagingly at low caste ones. They were not treated as equals in social intercourse, especially in marriage relations. Though the Buddha disapproved of the discrimination of people on caste grounds, the entry to the Buddhist order was strictly restricted to high caste people. Leadership in village level bodies was also the preserve of the high caste ones. 

Hence, there was a taboo for social mobility, ability of a person to change from his father’s occupation and select a job on merit and rise in the position on the social ladder. There was only one way out. That was acquiring education and joining the Government service. Hence, education and Government jobs were the means of social mobility. This was exactly what the hero in Jayasinghe’s novel did. Government jobs not only earned respect of others but also a regular monthly salary associated with old-age social security through a pension scheme. It helped those who held Government jobs command economic superiority over ordinary people. Since the inflation rate was nearly zero, they also commanded over an unchanged basket of goods. Hence, if they managed their money prudently, they could acquire wealth giving them a further higher position in society irrespective of the caste to which they belonged.

Why is it called pre-globalisation?

But this social fabric is relevant to the pre-globalised society in Sri Lanka. I call it pre-globalised because in that era both trade and investment – inward as well as outward – had been restricted, money could be earned only through Government service and restricted business, and society had been divided on caste and ethnic lines. The Government was small and did not have mega projects funded through foreign borrowing that enabled the project promoters to earn an unearned income, now called corrupt practices. There was corruption of course but it had been kept under control. Incidents of corruption was heard only occasionally. Politicians had a high sense of accountability and readily gave up the jobs when challenged. 

I.M.R.A. Iriyagolla, Minister of Education during the Dudley Senanayake Government of 1965-70, was accused of favouring his daughter when the Indian government had offered scholarships to Sri Lankan students. Dudley gave him only two choices: resign from the portfolio or bring back the child studying in India. Iriyagolla did the latter. Sirimavo Bandaranaike was charged of accepting a Morris Oxford Car as a bribe in 1965 when she was the Premier during 1960-65. She offered herself for a free inquiry, and a Parliamentary Select Committee headed by an opposition party minister was appointed to inquire into it. She was cleared by the Committee despite her opponents had a majority in the Committee. But this was soon changed when politicians and businessmen associated with them captured both economic and political power in the country’s globalised era after 1980s.

Today, education and Government jobs won’t do the job

If Jayasinghe’s hero in the novel had been born in this new era, he would not have been able to rise the social ladder through education and the Government job. That is because economic power had now shifted to those who make money in much bigger amounts than what they could have earned through education and a Government job. One thing is that education does not necessarily help a person to get a Government job. Jayatunga could do it with only a pass in the Advanced Level examination. His brother could get a Government job with only a pass in the Ordinary Level Examination. Today, even with a doctorate, you cannot get a Government job if you do not have the correct connections. 

Another thing is that, even if you are successful in getting a Government job, with very high inflation and stagnant Government salaries, the basket of goods that you can command has shrunk throwing you into near poverty levels. Had Jayatunga been born today, with his Advanced Level qualification, he would have been going after politicians, from one person to another, for getting a job. In that case, he would have still been languishing in that caste-repressed social condition. Perhaps, Jayasinghe may write his next novel in those themes. 

If Jayasinghe’s hero in the novel had been born in this new era, he would not have been able to rise the social ladder through education and the Government job. That is because economic power had now shifted to those who make money in much bigger amounts than what they could have earned through education and a Government job. One thing is that education does not necessarily help a person to get a Government job. Jayatunga could do it with only a pass in the Advanced Level examination. His brother could get a Government job with only a pass in the Ordinary Level Examination. Today, even with a doctorate, you cannot get a Government job if you do not have the correct connections

Message for social transformation

In my review of his previous book, The Naked Eye, I commended him on his super-mastery of handling the Sinhala language. This was despite his education mainly in English medium. In the present novel also, he has demonstrated that mastery amply. Writing a foreword to the novel, university academic and writer, Sarath Wijesuriya, has noted the following: ‘The way in which the writer is scathing through life and society is meaningful. If the reader can ponder this book leisurely, and if he can awaken his cognitive power, this book will serve as an initiator of a new social transformation’ (Translation mine). I agree with Wijesuriya and recommend Jayasinghe’s new novel, Api, to all readers.

(The writer, a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, can be reached at [email protected].)