THE SOCIAL MARGINALIZATION OF DEPRESSED CASTE WOMEN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY ON SOCIAL ISSUES OF TOM-TOM BEATER CASTE WOMEN

Abstract

Educated and economically affluent youths of depressed caste communities in Sri Lanka have been engaging in several strategic actions to avoid communal aspects of their caste identity so that they tend to set apart them from the caste-based marginalization. However, their strategies to refrain from material social facts of their group identity are not seemed to be efficient to protect their women from such marginalization, instead these tendencies have caused further difficulties for women in the community structure. This ethnographical study is based on selected Tom-tom beater communities in Batticaloa district, Sri Lanka. Overall objective of the study is to describe social issues of women of tom-tom beater caste women due to the strategic actions of men of the caste group. The study is mostly based on qualitative information collected through ethnographical field work. The study found that the strategic actions of youth are based on refraining from two material social facts of their caste identity. To evade caste obligation, firstly, they coercively prevent their caste men to play drum in public and religious ceremonies. This radical action economically affects women of those families that relies on drum beating for income and, as a result, makes them as women headed households. Secondly, they try to change their non-agamic Hindu rituals into Agamic ones. This study draws the conclusion that tendencies of Tom-tom beater caste men for upward status mobility in a closed stratified social system generate severe social issues and life challenges for women of this caste.