IN the southern Indian state of Tamilnadu, a majority of
Dalit men, women and children work as agricultural labourers in return for a
pittance. They live a life steeped in poverty and find it difficult to throw
away the shackles of debt bondage that have been passed on to them from
previous generations. The practice of segregation continues and Dalits are
forbidden to enter places of worship, to draw water from public wells or
wear shoes in the presence of the dominant upper caste groups.1
In such a situation, the Dalits are forced to perform the lowly occupations
which are often stigmatized as polluting.
In most villages Dalits are made to render free service
in times of death, marriage or any village function. They are forced to
clean the village, dig graves and dispose off the carcasses of dead animals.
Any effort to subvert the practice of untouchability leads to social boycott
and acts of retaliatory violence. The attempts on the part of the Dalits to
convert to Buddhism, Christianity or Islam, seldom offer them an opportunity
to discard the label of untouchability.2
Significantly, the prevalence of the caste system adds an
economic dimension to the social scenario of rural Tamilnadu. R.
Balakrishnan, the Chairman of the Tamilnadu Commission for Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes had observed, ‘The caste system is an economic order.
It prevents someone from acquiring land or receiving an education. It is a
vicious cycle and an exploitative economic arrangement. Land owning patterns
and being a high caste member are coterminus. Also there is a nexus between
(being) lower caste and landlessnessÂ… Caste is a tool to perpetuate
exploitative economic arrangements.Â’3
Such a statement obviously implies the degraded state of Dalit agricultural
labourers, most of whom happen to be landless.
The lack of access to landed resources compounds the
economic problems of the Dalit masses. This state of helplessness is
exploited by upper caste landlords and rich peasantry belonging to the
intermediary caste groups. Economic liberalization too has had an adverse
effect on the livelihood of these underprivileged groups as the downsizing
of the public sector has diminished the job opportunities for Dalits in
state owned enterprises. Further, globalization and the entry of corporate
giants have deprived a section of the Dalits from exercising ownership
rights over land which in the past had been assigned to them as Panchama
lands. The assignees were forced to sell these lands to the other castes in
order to survive the pangs of starvation.
Yet, these lands continue to be recorded year after year
as DC (conditional) lands in official revenue records. It is ironic that the
assignees of DC lands themselves have no real understanding of the
conditions that have been laid down for the exercise of occupancy rights
over such lands. The inability on their part to comprehend the intricacies
of land transfer have been of great advantage to the upper caste landlords
and land speculators. No wonder, attempts on the part of the Dalit Joint
Action Committee and the Save Panchama Land Movement to force the government
to restore all such lands to their original Dalit owners have resulted in
mayhem and rioting.4
Consequently, the
state of Tamilnadu has been ravaged by caste clashes. The clashes between Thevars
(a backward caste) and Pallars (Dalits) have been in the headlines of
the national dailies for now well over a decade.5
It is often argued that the sense of self-esteem and freedom among the
Dalits resulting from the governmentÂ’s policies of protective
discrimination have encouraged the land owning background and upper caste
groups to strengthen the foundations of the old social order.6
This strife torn atmosphere has generated predictable
responses from radical minded academics and grassroot level Dalit activists
in Tamilnadu. The functioning and relevance of the governmental structure,
as practiced and sustained by the post-colonial state, have come under close
scrutiny and criticism. The attempt on the part of the Indian nation state
to be representative of all lingustic and religious groups has come under
heavy attack. All talk of plurality in terms of religious and cultural
experiences have been looked upon as calculated moves aimed at erasing the
differential experiences of groups within the contours of the Indian nation
state structure.
M.S.S. Pandian has argued that moral regulation by the
modern state is integral to the existence of nations, as it remains an
effective ploy in the creation of an ‘ever-elusive homogenized citizen
subject.Â’7
Since citizenship does not have any ‘connotation’, what essentially is
represented in the personality of a citizen is a result of changing power
dynamics in a nation’s biography. Pandian observes, ‘The contest around
citizenship staged by those social groups that find themselves inadequately
or not represented at all in the citizenÂ’s figure, reproduces most often
the very language of the nation.Â’8
While, at one level, the claim to citizenship is presented as a claim to
equality, at another level it is essentially a narration of irreconcilable
differences. Presumably, it is the other aspirations that strengthen the
demands for an alternative nationhood with rights to an alternative state.9
Incidentally,
there have been some moments in contemporary Indian politics when attempts
were made to obliterate the language of the nation state. The writings of
the Tamil Dalit intellectuals known as the Pondicherry Group represents what
may be seen as an example of such a trend. Raj Gowthaman, A. Marx, Ravikumar
and others have attempted a rethinking on questions related to power and
culture, in particular on the complexity of issues relating to
Tamil/Dravidian nationalism.10
The interest in
Dravidian nationalism is no recent phenomenon in Tamilnadu. In the early
decades of the twentieth century, the Dravidian movement led by E.V.
Ramaswami Naickar had tried to counter the challenge of the hegemonic Indian
nation through the construction of Tamil/Dravidian nationalism. This phase
of the Dravidian movement advocated a form of nationalism which was
territorially undefined and ‘allowed sufficient space for different
identities to articulate themselves.Â’11
The movement upheld a more inclusive notion of citizenship by integrating
the aspirations of lower castes, religious minorities and non-Hindi
speakers. The Dravidian movement leaders in Tamilnadu invented a glorious
Tamil past to silence ‘the unwelcome product of north Indian imperialism
or depredating Brahminism.Â’12
Thus, what was essentially arrived at was an undifferentiated/homogenized
non-Brahmin, who was still awaiting his/her nation.
The current Dalit intellectuals have started questioning
the logic behind the construction of the Tamil/Dravidian. Their questions
essentially focus on (a) Whether the citizen figure of the
Tamil/Dravidian adequately represents the Dalits and (b) How did this
category of undifferentiated non-Brahmin (which was an essential attribute
of Tamil/Dravidian) pose obstacles for the Dalits in their quest for a
sovereign identity and separate politics?13
The proponents of the Pondicherry Group tried to find answers to these
questions in an era that witnessed the Ambedkar centenary celebrations, the
disintegration of the Soviet Union and the rising brand of Hindutva
politics.
In his two books,
Dalits Paarvayil Tamil Panpadu and Dalit Panpadu, Gowthaman
questioned the claim of homogeneity in Tamil culture.14
Instead, he characterized the whole of Tamil culture as a relationship
between the hunter and the hunted. He rediscovered in the classical Tamil
literature a world of unequal social relations and a hierarchical system.
This stood in sharp contrast to Dravidian nationalismÂ’s advocacy of
classical Tamil literature as the epitome of Tamil greatness. Gowthaman
expressed the opinion that classical Tamil literature had always been the
voice of the upper castes and seldom the voice of the Dalits. The Dalits and
other labouring classes had toiled hard as the producers of wealth. But, the
priestly classes, royal families and landlords, who lived by exploiting
these classes, had succeeded in establishing their domination through
ideology and violence.15
It has been pointed out that GowthamanÂ’s narrative of
Tamil history differs from that of mainstream Dalit discourse in the way the
Dalit past has been reconstructed. While the mainstream Dalit discourse had
tried to represent the Dalits as the authors of the Indus Valley
civilization,16
GowthamanÂ’s narrative of the Tamil past depicted the world of lowly hill
cultivator, hunters, fishermen and pastoralist communities. The social life
of these groups was believed to have been communal and more or less
egalitarian, since there was hardly any internal differentiation. In other
words, it was through such a narrative that a Dalit counterculture was
sought to be projected.
M.S.S. Pandian has argued that the other past of the
Tamils, which was silenced by Dravidian nationalism but underwent a revival
in the hands of the Pondicherry Group, essentially represented ‘a faceless
past, without heroes or heroic episodes.Â’17
This past stood for the erasure of the civilizational high points of Tamil
culture and celebrated the traditions of those who were believed to be
beyond the pale of this civilization. This projection had all the
possibilities of ‘eluding the trap of nationalism.’18
Incidentally, the
Pondicherry GroupÂ’s search for Dalit liberation was not limited to a
specific territory and advocated mobilizing under-privileged groups or
communities, all of whom could be a source for a new brand of politics.
Gowthaman argued that Dalits should build a Dalit sub-national culture based
on the culture of the tribals, who are treated as without a nationality like
the Dalits. However, this Dalit sub-national culture was viewed as an
oppositional culture, which was bereft of formalization into any form of
power. Gowthaman believed that state, caste, religion, God, morality,
justice, norms governing man-woman relationships, as well as ideologies of
family and literature, were all institutions that highlighted civilizational
achievements. Thus they had to be resisted. This resistance meant
resignifying as positive, as well as celebrating, those cultural practices
that the upper caste institutions deemed as lowly.19
Members of the
Pondicherry Group, particularly A. Marx and Ravikumar, have argued that
nationalist invocation of the past cared little for the ordinary and denied
them of any valid location in the society. They believed that defecating and
urinating on heroes could be the beginning of displacing one set of heroes
with another. However, there is also a clear message of defiance implicit in
these acts. The aim on the part of the Dravidian nationalists to construct
Dravidian literature as of exemplary literary quality was defined as an act
of getting involved with the very structure of power, which they sought to
demolish.
Such ideas have at times also been replicated in the
writings of the mainstream Dalit leaders of Tamilnadu. Thirumaavalavan, a
vocal Dalit leader of Tamilnadu with a very radical bent of mind,
categorically asserted that the upper caste bias of the Dravidian parties
– the DMK and AIADMK – can only be resisted if the Dalits organize
themselves. Nevertheless, he seems reluctant to snap ties with these parties
because of electoral compulsions. ThirumaavalavanÂ’s position thus seems to
be both radical and compromising.20
In contrast, the
Pondicherry Group’s political agenda is ‘one of moving from a faceless
past to a faceless future – a future denuded of all difference.’ As
Gowthaman has observed, ‘Our problem is not one of becoming owners of
wealth or richer or crypto-Brahmin. To become owners, we need several
workers. Likewise, to become rich, we need several poor. To become a
crypto-Brahmin one needs a series of lower castes including the Dalits. That
is why we do not need the order of domination and subordination. Only when
the Dalit protest culture destroys this order, we shall arrive at the
consciousness that one need not either be a crypto-Brahmin or a drudging
Dalit. [Instead] let us be human beingsÂ… We call those who are not bound
by domination and subordination as human beings.Â’21
The desire for power as a solution to the powerlessness of the Dalits has
also been strongly criticized. Finally that since Dalit liberation basically
stands for destruction of power, the yearning for power could lead to the
destruction of Dalit politics.22
The Pondicherry
GroupÂ’s vision of politics, therefore, stands at a distance from both
Dravidian nationalism as also mainstream Dalit politics in Tamilnadu. While
the Dravidian movement and the mainstream Dalit politics seek solutions
within the construct of a nation, the Pondicherry Group stands for a
disentanglement from the trap of the nation. But, there may have been
several other objectives that guided the perceptions of this group. In fact,
through the entire exercise of critiquing as well as rejecting the
civilizational claims of modernity, the Dalit activists try to claim a space
for autonomous Dalit politics. This new political project, which is
specifically addressed to the lower castes, gives rise to a sphere of
politics outside the modern civil society/public sphere. The defiance that
has been displayed in conceding to the demands of Indian upper caste
modernity, has heralded the appearance of the subaltern counter public. As
M.S.S. Pandian observes, ‘…this is a public where a language of caste
instead of the language of speaking caste by other means is validated,
encouraged and practiced.Â’23
Nonetheless, modern civil society with its emphasis on modernity continues
to resist the articulation of lower caste politics.24
Footnotes:
1. For more details, see Broken People: Caste Violence
Against IndiaÂ’s Untouchables, Human Rights Watch, New York, 1999, pp.
23-24.
2. Ibid., p. 27.
3. Ibid.
4. Brindavan C. Moses, ‘Panchama Land in Tamil Nadu’
in M. Thangaraj (ed.) Land Reforms in India, Tamil Nadu: An Unfinished
Task, Volume 9, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2003, p. 130.
5. For more details, see ‘The New Resistance: Dalits
and the Politics of CasteÂ’, Frontline, 18 November-1 December 1995,
Vol. 12, No. 24; The Sunday Statesman (Calcutta edition), 15
September 2002.
6. Broken People, op.cit., p. 82.
7. M.S.S. Pandian, ‘Stepping Outside Histroy? New Dalit
Writings From TamilnaduÂ’ in Partha Chatterjee (ed.) Wages of Freedom:
Fifty Years of the Indian Nation State, Oxford University Press, New
Delhi, 1998, p. 292.
8. Ibid., p. 293.
9. The claim to equality which is often couched in the
language of rights inevitably endorses the nation state as the sole arbiter
of citizenship claims. This involvement of the nation state brings forth a
homogenizing desire, resulting in innumerable number of differences. For
more details, see Ibid.
10. M.S.S. Pandian, ‘New Dalit Writings From Tamilnadu’,
op.cit., p. 294.
11. Ibid., pp. 294-295; see also, M.S.S. Pandian, ‘"Denationalising"
the Past: "Nation" in E.V. Ramaswami NaickarÂ’s Political
DiscourseÂ’, Economic and Political Weekly, 16 October 1993.
12. M.S.S. Pandian, ‘New Dalit Writings From Tamilnadu’,
op.cit., p. 295.
13. Ibid., p. 296.
14. For him the culture of the Tamil nationality needs to
be explored as it was often discussed in the context of the Indian nation.
In fact, several contradictory elements were seen to exist within Tamil
culture. In a sense, the culture of the Brahminised upper castes widely
differed from that of the Dalits, a result of the subjugation of the latter
by the former. For more details, see Ibid., p. 302.
15. M.S.S. Pandian, ‘New Dalit Writings From Tamilnadu’,
op.cit., p. 303.
16. The depiction of the Dalits as authors of the Indus
Valley civilization was restricted not simply within the boundaries of
Tamilnadu or other parts of the erstwhile Madras Presidency. In the case of
Punjab, the lower caste leaders owing allegiance to the Adi Dharm movement
traced their identity to an ancient civilization that had been destroyed by
the Aryans. In UP, the Chamar leader Swami Acchutananda articulated the view
that ‘untouchables’ were the first inhabitants of India, the rightful
owners of the land. The Aryans were alleged to have destroyed their culture
and civilization and transformed them into ‘untouchables’ in the
society. Swami Acchutananda popularized the view that Adi Hindus had their
roots in the Indus Valley civilization of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. For more
details, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Religion as Social Vision: The Movement
Against Untouchability in Twentieth Century Punjab, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1982, pp. 2-3; Christophe Jaffrelot, IndiaÂ’s
Silent Revolution: The Rise of the Lower Castes in North Indian Politics,
Permanent Black, Delhi, 2003, pp. 201-202.
17. M.S.S. Pandian, ‘New Dalit Writings From Tamilnadu’,
op.cit., p. 304.
18. Ibid.
19. Gowthaman stated that it was through beef eating and
drinking that the resistance to upper caste disciplinary institutions could
be built. For more details, see Ibid., p. 305.
20. Thirumaavalavan, Uproot Hindutva: The Fiery Voice
of the Liberation Panthers (Translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy),
Samya, Kolkata, 2004, pp. 51-53.
21. For more details, see M.S.S. Pandian, ‘New Dalit
Writings From TamilnaduÂ’, op.cit., p. 308.
22. Ibid.
23. M.S.S. Pandian, One Step Outside Modernity: Caste,
Identity, Politics and Public Sphere, Council for the Development of Social
Science Research in Africa (Codesria), Sephis-Codesria Lecture No. 4,
Amsterdam/Dakar, 2002, p. 20.
24. Ibid.
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