Programme
Ayyathurai Gajendran
Graduate Student
Department of Anthropology
Columbia University
E/ ag2114@columbia.edu
Limiting Categories: Seeing Tamils as Subalterns and Dalits
Marginalization of communities through assumptions of the indignity of labor, ascriptions of color, gender, and caste has been challenged in history, more sharply in modern times. Notably, claims of universal categories that, paradoxically, legitimize a hierarchised/verticalized social structure have come under severe interrogation recently; for instance, the caste critique of the category ‘Hindu.’
The emergence of the Subaltern School, and Dalit theorization have contributed to deeper understanding of the struggles of oppressed peoples in the Indian subcontinent. Many studies that invoke such schools and theories while unpacking the dehistoricization of Dalit/Subaltern anti-colonial achievements frequently overlook how these struggles are also embedded in an anti-caste substratum in order to found a post-colonial-caste democratic society. Thus, beyond the exposition of anti-colonial ‘resistance’ of the subalterns some categories become a fetish limiting the subalterns/Dalits’ larger concerns.
Modern Tamilnadu emerges as a case in evidence. The Tamil Buddhist movement from the late 19th century could be seen as a movement that aimed to create a society of casteless Tamils. Interestingly, most of the people of this movement who spoke and wrote as casteless people, might abhor being called Dalits or Subalterns, especially the overlooking of their problematization of the colonial-caste context of Tamizhagam.
This paper will engage the work of Iyothee Dassar (1845-1914) and his contemporaries who invoked Tamilhood in order to create a Tamil society that rejected gender, caste hierarchy, and brahminism. Significantly this movement predates both Ambedkar and Periyar. The paper will, drawing on field work, attempt to connect the work of Iyothee Dassar and his contemporaries with those who claim themselves as casteless Tamil Buddhists today.
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Mr. Ayyathurais is currently purusing his doctoral studies where he is focused
on an historical-anthropological research on the late 19th century anti-caste
movement in Tamilnadu, South India. Particularly, the intellectual engagements
of Iyothee Dass on the question of nation, religion, history, and identity in
the colonial-caste context are my concerns. Future projects include: Caste and
the politics of music, documentaries, cinema, and cultural symbols in the
colonial and post-colonial times; anti-caste knowledge systems; gender and
anti-caste theory and practice. His publications include, Transforming Dalit
Politics (1998): Introduction (Tamil), Ziegenbalg: Varalartrin
Vazhimaruppu, and Anbuselvam. Madurai:Pathiyam (2007), and On
Representation, in Ambedkar in Retrospect. eds. S. K. Thorat and Aryama
(forthcoming).