Game Minissu & Pitagamkarayo

R.L. Brohier argues that “Colombo is a city forced on the peoples of Ceylon in spite of themselves. It was never a creation of their own choice or making.” Nihal Perera points out that from the later part of colonization, Colombo underwent a large-scale Ceylonization, where the low-country elite furtively began to prevail over the city. This he argues triggered an irreversible process of indigenization, where concurrently, it paved the way for mass internal migrations of the Ceylonese into what was essentially a city built by colonial powers sans an 'organic evolution' nor a hinterland. As such, Colombo has no real natives and is a city of settlers.

In this context, Colombo theoretically ought to be neutral grounds, a terrain of equal opportunities where even the oldest families are naturalised citizens, merely a few generations old. However, the reality is a highly polarized city overlain with a complex web of tacit cold-wars, where social groups conflict at every juncture, cultural and racial differences increasingly cultivate more intolerance and elusive fists of contradictory political agendas continue to tax the physical landscape of the city. Colombo's socio-economic neutrality is nothing but a theoretical fantasy. While there are of course a number of factors at play here (I intend to explore some of these during the course of research), one significant element that immeasurably contributes to this, which has overtime mutated into a subliminal social norm guiding the city's interplay, is the oxymoronic conflict of 'insiders' and 'outsider'.

To explain this, I must first describe the same in its traditional, rural context. In Sri Lankan rural society, land ownership has significant social connotations and defines a person’s position as game minissu (insiders) or pitagamkarayo (outsiders) relative to a community. Pitagamkarayo have settled in a new place away from their ancestral homeland, whilst game minissu descend from the indigenous settlers of the village. The pitagamkarayo, are considered an inferior social group to the game minissu, and are excluded from village decision making and communal affairs. It may take up to a few generations for the pitagamkarayo to be assimilated into formal village society.

Such values and social stratification are paralleled in Colombo's most dense urban orders. As a culmination of fieldwork research I have identified 3 distinct processes through which this this social friction play out. First is the marginalisation (and sometimes the villainisation) of the new comers in low-income settlements and shanties.

Chandra (pictured above), moved to the watte (synonymous with slum) a couple of years ago. She and her family moved from their home town Kongahawela, a rural village in North-central province as it was required to admit his incapacitated husband into the Colombo General Hospital and it became absolutely necessary for her to seek employment to support her family. She currently works as a seamstress at a shop in Pettah and sells peanuts at night. She described her life in the city as an extremely lonely and sometimes even dangerous one. She remarked, that while there's clearly a strong sense of community in the watte, she and her young daughters never feel welcomed. She worries for the safety of her daughters, as she feels that no one is looking out for them. She expressed that she cannot continue living out there for too long as she fears their failure to create or be assimilated into a social network may prove too difficult to guard themselves against prevailing crime and violence.

Chandra's story is indeed one of many, at the same time the second manifestation of this 'insider-outsider' conflict is the 'threat' of the new. Sulfa and her mother (pictured below), live in the slum behind Panchigawatte road (my chosen site). Like many I had encountered in my daily wonderings through the site, Sulfa wishes to uproot her family and leave the watte. She is increasingly discontented with 'new' people coming into the wattes. According to her, the pitagamkarayo topple the balance of 'community spirit'. She protests that most new comers are either single males and disfigure the long standing networks of familial relationships. She further claims that, regardless of whether the new comers are individuals or families, they have managed to breed a sense of individualism that has truly affected the communalism, which is brutally necessary for the salubriousness of the neighbourhood and its security.

Adding to the micro-dynamics of the urban settlements is the third process, which while acting on a slightly more macro scale, perhaps has the most prodigious effect on the changing urban order of Colombo- the upper-classes' assumed status as 'insiders' and the automatic classification of the lower-income settlement neighbourhoods as the 'outsiders'. This socio-spatial classism in Colombo has also permeated into the political mindset and most developmental and city-planning initiatives are so blatantly driven from uncontested connotes attached to the low-income neighbourhoods as 'settlers'. This line of thinking makes it easier to keep that particular populace out of decision making processes and civic participation. This mind set and the use of words like 'settlers' also make it easier to evict or uproot them. On a psychological level this supposition relates back to the rural concept of landownership. Many low income housing do not possess formal land tenure. The appearance of these devised housing also convey a sense of impermanence. This paired with the fact that these locales are open receptions of migrant communities further give way to assumed designations of 'outsided-ness'.

It is evident that Colombo has a very convoluted urban-rural dynamic. The insider vs. outsider notion is essentially a rural one has trickled down to urban centres with migrations of rural populace into the city. Perera believes urbanization of Colombo was synchronistic with indigenisation. He argues from its early days of reclamation from colonial powers, with indigenisation, Colombo underwent ruralisation, as migrating rural populations brought with them rural construction methods, lifestyle and core rural values such as the communal spirit that Sulfa spoke of and overtime have formed a hybrid urban-rural culture. Chandra's situation elucidates a natural contradiction in the ruralness that's exacerbated by the hybridity of rural and urban. As a recent import from a rural village, she seeks to be included in the community- the insider-outsider dynamic prevents this- however, she finds it impossible survive in an urbanity without immediate acceptance and assimilation into a network. As Perera argues, the elite neighbourhoods were also ruralised as part of the indigenising process. The elite too clung onto aspects of ruralism, in particular those traditions and customs that validated their wealth and class to the traditional Kandyan aristocrats. As such, there too exist a hybrid culture, that may hold a different set of rural values in its core. These two cultures of the elites and subaltern more often than not clash, leading in the upper-classes an institutionalized socio-spatial classism in Colombo.