In South India, the categories 'Brahmin' and 'non-Brahmin' are frequently treated as self-evident, both within Tamil politics and mainstream academic discourses. Departing from this 'common sense', the present book historicizes the complex processes by which these categories came into being and acquired political power over the past century. Using archival, regional-language, and unconventional sources, M. S. S. Pandian unsettles the self-evident quality of these categories and opens up a rich theoretical-critical space to rethink them.
In the process, this book also offers a new perspective on colonialism nationalist accounts, it shows the ways in which colonialism was, for Tamil society, a moment of crisis as well as possibilities. This ambiguous quality of colonial rule facilitated new ways of looking at the figure of the Brahmin, even as it enabled the making of a non-Brahmin identity.
The importance of this book for understanding politics and society in Tamil South India can scarcely be exaggerated. The Non-Brahmin Writings and discursive strategies of E. V. Ramasamy 'Periyar', Maraimalai Adigal, and lyothee Thoss, alongside those of an array of Brahminic thinkers and propagandists, are presented here with a degree of sophistication and analytic skill not available in other works of political, social, and intellectual history on the Indian South.
This book will interest every historian, sociologist, and political analyst of India, as well as all who wish to understand anti-Brahmin and anti-upper-caste social movements.
Acknowledgements | x | |
1 | Introduction: The Politics Of The Emergent | 1 |
Genealogies of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin | 6 | |
Lives and Time during Colonialism | 10 | |
2 | Becoming Brahmin In Colonial Tamil Nadu | 17 |
Mission Unaccomplished: Missionaries in Colonial Tamil Nadu | 19 | |
Replication as Response: Hindus Counter Missionaries in Tamil Nadu | 26 | |
The Tamil Brahmin in Search of Authenticity | 31 | |
Be Traditional, Be Modern: Practising Brahminism in the Tamil Country | 37 | |
Reforming to be Authentic: Liberal Brahmins and 'Birth' Brahmins | 40 | |
The Authentic Brahmin as the Authentic Hindu | 45 | |
Brahminical Hindu Becomes Authentic Indian | 52 | |
3 | Brahmin Hybridity | 60 |
The Tamil Brahmin as Colonial Hybrid | 63 | |
Brahmin Power in the Material Domain | 67 | |
Two Domains or One? The Cultural, the Material, and Tamil Modernity | 72 | |
Brahmin Bilingualism and Power | 77 | |
Being Brahmin, being National | 84 | |
Organizations of Associational Life in the Madras Presidency | 85 | |
Travels in Hyper-anxiety: Tamil Brahmins and the Indian National Congress | 89 | |
Deferring Difference: Brahmins, Non-Brahmins, and Communal Representation | 94 | |
The Agraharam as a Metonym | 100 | |
4 | Speaking The Other/Making The Self: The New Voice Of The Non-Brahmin | 102 |
Pundit Iyothee Thoss (1845-1914) | 103 | |
The Past According to the Sage Aswakosa | 105 | |
A Comparison: G. Subramania Iyer and Iyothee Thoss on Dravidian Subjugation | 110 | |
Brahminhood, Caste, and the Hierarchy of Values | 111 | |
Brahminhood, Moral Conduct, Power, and the Public | 115 | |
Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950) | 120 | |
Adigal's Saivite Dravidianism | 125 | |
Adigal's Comparison of 'Castes' | 130 | |
Adigal and His Several Publics | 136 | |
Contesting Authority, Contesting Power | 141 | |
5 | From Culture To Politics: The Justice Party | 144 |
A Short History of the Justice Party | 146 | |
Conventions of Politics and the Justice Party | 152 | |
Historicizing Brahmin Power | 157 | |
The Non-Brahmin Argument on Disinterested Rule | 166 | |
A New Common Sense among Non-Brahmins | 169 | |
The Justice Party and its Several Publics | 174 | |
The Case of Raghava Reddi | 178 | |
6 | The Brahmin As A Trope: The Self-Respect Movement | 187 |
E. V. Ramasamy (1879-1973) | 188 | |
The Dravidar Kazhagam (DK), the Dravida Munnetra | ||
Kazhagam (DMK), and Brahminic Hinduism | 193 | |
Two Hinduisms | 196 | |
Inferiorized identities: Subalternity and Self-Respect | 205 | |
Forming a New Subaltern Non-Brahmin Public | 210 | |
Forging Subaltern Alliances: Ideologies of Language-Use and Idiom | 220 | |
Epilogue | 233 | |
The Vocabulary of Contemporary Elections in Tamil Nadu | 233 | |
True 'Dravidians' Today | 236 | |
A Dalit Critique of Power | 240 | |
The Unknown Futures of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin | 244 | |
Bibliography | 246 | |
Index | 259 |
In South India, the categories 'Brahmin' and 'non-Brahmin' are frequently treated as self-evident, both within Tamil politics and mainstream academic discourses. Departing from this 'common sense', the present book historicizes the complex processes by which these categories came into being and acquired political power over the past century. Using archival, regional-language, and unconventional sources, M. S. S. Pandian unsettles the self-evident quality of these categories and opens up a rich theoretical-critical space to rethink them.
In the process, this book also offers a new perspective on colonialism nationalist accounts, it shows the ways in which colonialism was, for Tamil society, a moment of crisis as well as possibilities. This ambiguous quality of colonial rule facilitated new ways of looking at the figure of the Brahmin, even as it enabled the making of a non-Brahmin identity.
The importance of this book for understanding politics and society in Tamil South India can scarcely be exaggerated. The Non-Brahmin Writings and discursive strategies of E. V. Ramasamy 'Periyar', Maraimalai Adigal, and lyothee Thoss, alongside those of an array of Brahminic thinkers and propagandists, are presented here with a degree of sophistication and analytic skill not available in other works of political, social, and intellectual history on the Indian South.
This book will interest every historian, sociologist, and political analyst of India, as well as all who wish to understand anti-Brahmin and anti-upper-caste social movements.
Acknowledgements | x | |
1 | Introduction: The Politics Of The Emergent | 1 |
Genealogies of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin | 6 | |
Lives and Time during Colonialism | 10 | |
2 | Becoming Brahmin In Colonial Tamil Nadu | 17 |
Mission Unaccomplished: Missionaries in Colonial Tamil Nadu | 19 | |
Replication as Response: Hindus Counter Missionaries in Tamil Nadu | 26 | |
The Tamil Brahmin in Search of Authenticity | 31 | |
Be Traditional, Be Modern: Practising Brahminism in the Tamil Country | 37 | |
Reforming to be Authentic: Liberal Brahmins and 'Birth' Brahmins | 40 | |
The Authentic Brahmin as the Authentic Hindu | 45 | |
Brahminical Hindu Becomes Authentic Indian | 52 | |
3 | Brahmin Hybridity | 60 |
The Tamil Brahmin as Colonial Hybrid | 63 | |
Brahmin Power in the Material Domain | 67 | |
Two Domains or One? The Cultural, the Material, and Tamil Modernity | 72 | |
Brahmin Bilingualism and Power | 77 | |
Being Brahmin, being National | 84 | |
Organizations of Associational Life in the Madras Presidency | 85 | |
Travels in Hyper-anxiety: Tamil Brahmins and the Indian National Congress | 89 | |
Deferring Difference: Brahmins, Non-Brahmins, and Communal Representation | 94 | |
The Agraharam as a Metonym | 100 | |
4 | Speaking The Other/Making The Self: The New Voice Of The Non-Brahmin | 102 |
Pundit Iyothee Thoss (1845-1914) | 103 | |
The Past According to the Sage Aswakosa | 105 | |
A Comparison: G. Subramania Iyer and Iyothee Thoss on Dravidian Subjugation | 110 | |
Brahminhood, Caste, and the Hierarchy of Values | 111 | |
Brahminhood, Moral Conduct, Power, and the Public | 115 | |
Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950) | 120 | |
Adigal's Saivite Dravidianism | 125 | |
Adigal's Comparison of 'Castes' | 130 | |
Adigal and His Several Publics | 136 | |
Contesting Authority, Contesting Power | 141 | |
5 | From Culture To Politics: The Justice Party | 144 |
A Short History of the Justice Party | 146 | |
Conventions of Politics and the Justice Party | 152 | |
Historicizing Brahmin Power | 157 | |
The Non-Brahmin Argument on Disinterested Rule | 166 | |
A New Common Sense among Non-Brahmins | 169 | |
The Justice Party and its Several Publics | 174 | |
The Case of Raghava Reddi | 178 | |
6 | The Brahmin As A Trope: The Self-Respect Movement | 187 |
E. V. Ramasamy (1879-1973) | 188 | |
The Dravidar Kazhagam (DK), the Dravida Munnetra | ||
Kazhagam (DMK), and Brahminic Hinduism | 193 | |
Two Hinduisms | 196 | |
Inferiorized identities: Subalternity and Self-Respect | 205 | |
Forming a New Subaltern Non-Brahmin Public | 210 | |
Forging Subaltern Alliances: Ideologies of Language-Use and Idiom | 220 | |
Epilogue | 233 | |
The Vocabulary of Contemporary Elections in Tamil Nadu | 233 | |
True 'Dravidians' Today | 236 | |
A Dalit Critique of Power | 240 | |
The Unknown Futures of Brahmin and Non-Brahmin | 244 | |
Bibliography | 246 | |
Index | 259 |