It happened in class II of a ‘reputable’ Matriculation school in the city almost four decades ago. The class teacher was seen dragging a boy by his collar to the headmistress’s room. She beat him up on the way, accusing him of stealing the scented eraser of his bench mate. The heartless headmistress too thrashed the poor boy by terming him as a thief. The class teacher encouraged the headmistress to give him more and more blows. But, what is worse in the incident was the teacher’s ‘concrete evidence’ for the boy’s act of stealing the eraser.
It happened in class II of a ‘reputable’ Matriculation school in the city almost four decades ago. The class teacher was seen dragging a boy by his collar to the headmistress’s room. She beat him up on the way, accusing him of stealing the scented eraser of his bench mate. The heartless headmistress too thrashed the poor boy by terming him as a thief. The class teacher encouraged the headmistress to give him more and more blows. But, what is worse in the incident was the teacher’s ‘concrete evidence’ for the boy’s act of stealing the eraser.
As the headmistress began to break the boy’s knuckles with her wooden scale, the class teacher incited her thus:
“It is only this boy who must have stolen the eraser. Look, how dark-complexioned he is”
So, what the teacher implied was that only dark-skinned people are criminals on earth, and never the fair-skinned. The victim of the teacher, who later became a poet, registered his indelible memory as a short verse in his book Niramariyaa Thoorigai:
The class teacher of the second standard,
Who made my knuckles swell,
Found out a shred of strong evidence to prove
My Stealing of Magudeshwaran’s scented eraser.
The evidence...
My dark, black face
But, an exclusive essay on the title ‘Karupppu’ (Black) has been written in the book Panpattu Asaivugal by Tho. Pa alias Tho. Paramasivan, eminent author, cultural historian, and former head, department of Tamil, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli. The scholar bade farewell to the world last Thursday, leaving a treasure trove of his cultural writings.
The research article of the veteran Tamil scholar brings to light how black being the colour of human skin has stood as a symbol to indicate the uncivilized, illiterate, and poverty-stricken people.
“From the common man’s taste for beauty, black is a colour of something ugly. Therefore, the entry of colourism in our society has to be researched” says Tho. Paramasivam.
The scholar asserts that in classical pieces of literature including Sanga Ilakiyam ( Sangam Tamil literature), Needhi Ilakkiyangal ( Didactic literature) and in Silambu and Mekalai ( The two great Tamil epics Silapathikaram and Manimekalai), only the physique of men and women were described, and not their skin colour. However, a few songs from Sangam literature inform that women, as a result of parting their lovers, had the formation of pasalai (gold-colored beauty spots on the bodies of women).
“On the other hand, pieces of Tamil bhakthi literature praise black as the colour of beauty. Andal, the woman saint-poet and the devotee of Kanna, addresses Him as ‘Kannan Enum Karundeivam’. The other Azhwars too call Him ‘Kariya Manickam’ (Black carbuncle). Also, Kambar, while describing the smartness of Rama in his epic Kambaramayanam, notes that even sunlight disappeared against the brilliant, collyrium- dark complexion of Rama”.
But, how did this black colour, which once stood for beauty, later become a symbol of derogation?
Tho. Paramasivan discovers the answer in his book Panpattu Asaivugal, a research work on Tamil cultural history.
“Discrimination based on one’s skin colour had never been in Tamil society until the 14th century AD. But, for the first time, when the Tamil land came under the non-Tamil Vijayanagara rule, it witnessed an extensive migration of Telugu-speaking people. Besides, the land also experienced the invasion of Urdu-speaking North Indian Muslims, the English, and the French. With these fair-skinned foreign people being rulers, they looked down on the native Tamils as dark-complexioned ones. Thus, the dark-skinned were made inferior to the fair-skinned”.