Proud of their heritage; proud to be Lankans
If you ask most Sri Lankans about the races of Sri Lanka – they will reply that Sri Lanka is home to the Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and Burgher communities. Yet, Sri Lanka is also home to many other minorities who over the years have contributed greatly to the colourful tapestry of our society.
Although their numbers are small, they are proud of their heritage as well as being proud Sri Lankans. With the gaining of independence, their fortunes changed due to political upheavals, but every community feels they would not have survived if they hadn’t successfully integrated into society.
Here is a glimpse of some of these communities and their lifestyles: 500, a decline from the early 1950s when there were about 700.
There are only a few people who speak Sindhi or even understand it in Sri Lanka now.“If you’re lucky and your family speaks Sindhi then maybe you might pick it up,” says President of the Association Mahesh Dadlani, who estimates that the language will die out in one or two generations to come. The Sindhis have retained most of the customs they practised in India, although they have changed certain aspects to suit modern times. For example, the funeral rites require that the body be cremated on a pyre. If wood is not available, they now use gas. The Association allows flexibility in choosing certain rituals of marriage and funeral rites etc. with the understanding that certain aspects of the ancient customs are impractical today.
The ancestral roots of Malayalees lie in Kerala, South India from where most of them arrived in Ceylon through the major port city of Kochi (formerly Cochin). As a result, the Malayalees were called “Kochchi Minissu” (Kochchi people) in Colombo. In the pre-Independence era most Malayalees came to Sri Lanka in search of better working opportunities and they lived in “boarding houses”, M.K. Rahulan, President, Sree Narayana Guru Society said. “It was said that you couldn’t walk in Colombo without knocking onto a Malayalee.” Influenced by left wing political ideologies that prevailed in Kerala, Malayalees living in Sri Lanka were strong communists and supported the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and other leftist parties. Their concerns on creating a society with equal opportunities for all is depicted in the words of the sayings of Sree Naraya Guru Dev. (Malayalee religious leader) one of which, “One caste, one religion, one God for mankind”, we see written on the walls inside Sree Narayana Guru Society Malayalee Memorial Hall in Colombo 14. Malayalees have assimilated with other communities and assistant secretary of the society R.G. Chanassery points out similarities between Sinhala and Malayalam words which have the same pronunciation and meaning. Malayalam is still spoken among the families in Sri Lanka while the Society conducts weekly programmes to promote the language.