Brotherless Night

One prominent distinction between Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese population and the minority Tamils is one of religion. While most Sinhalese practice Buddhism, most Tamils identify as Hindu, and one of the defining characteristics of Hinduism is the practice of caste. Caste refers to a rigid social hierarchy wherein a person inherits a particular social class, often associated with a specific profession or trade, level of wealth, and traditional rank. The highest caste of Brahmins are, traditionally speaking, wealthy scholars or priests, while the Kshatriyas are associated with soldiers and rulers. The Vaishya caste consists of merchants and tradesmen, while the lower caste, Shudras, is made up of menial laborers. The lowest caste—the Dalits, who were once called the “untouchables”—provide labor like street cleaning and leather making. The Dalits have been the subject of discrimination for centuries, though Mahatma Gandhi worked to rehabilitate their image, christening them Harijans, or “God’s people.”

In Brotherless Night, Niranjan is acutely aware of caste and its inherently prejudiced system. He does not enjoy visiting the temple because people of certain castes (for example, the Dalits) are not allowed inside, lest they “pollute” the surroundings. He tells Sashi, “Think sometime about the people who can’t come here, Sashi […] And it isn’t only the temple where they aren’t welcome” (33). Niranjan is critical of the entrenched exclusion of certain social classes, especially because caste cannot be circumvented by accomplishment or character. A person is born into their place in the hierarchy, and this can never be changed. Sashi is, ultimately, convinced by Niranjan’s arguments; she reasons, “[If] there were a god, no god I was willing to worship would observe caste” (108). She comes from a family of educated physicians and administrators, but her caste privilege does not make her less empathetic to the fundamentally inequitable nature of caste.

One of the recruitment tools that the Tamil Tigers offer is the incentive of circumventing caste—or so they claim. Thus, disaffected young men from the lower castes are drawn to the movement; it is an opportunity for them to escape from a destiny of discrimination and menial labor. Still, Aran questions the Tigers’ commitment to this (and to all other forms of social justice that they purport to address). Several murders are committed within their village in Jaffna, and all the victims are members of the Dalit caste, labeled as traitors. Aran believes that this is a convenient way to rid the ranks of lower-caste recruits. Though Sashi is not as cynical as Aran, she understands the ways in which caste contributes to the growing separatist movement, fueling the cycle of violence that befalls her country.