Dravidian Movement in Its Pre-Independence Phases

Dravidian Movement in Its Pre-Independence PhasesAuthor(s): N. RamReviewed work(s):Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 14, No. 7/8, Annual Number: Class and Caste inIndia (Feb., 1979), pp. 377-379+381+383-385+387+389-391+393+395-397+399+401-402Published by: Economic and Political WeeklyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4367357 .

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Dravidian MIovement in Its Pre -ndependence

Phases N Ram

The significant feature of the political situation i'7 Tamil Nadu is the existence of the two mass- based and politically powerful organisations - the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Working apparently at cross puirposes and staking rival claimns to have reached the summit of Dravida Iyakkam, these two streams defy the authoritarian logic inherent in glib condemnations of 'regional forces' and the arrogant advocacy of an allegdly ideal 'two party model' for countries like India. Such a view does tot take into account the character of the actual 'parties' in whose interest the 'two-party system' is allowed to function and develop, nor the class forces whose aspiratioins they express. It also ignores the historical forces which gave rise to such phenomenotn as the Dravidiani. Movement which, for all its weaknesses, inconsistencies and limitations, cannot he summarily disnmissed as being anttagonistic to an 'all-india' approach whose ideal political expression is alleged to be found in a 'two-party system'.

This article attempts a political explanation of the conmplex of historical forces that were working in the seconid half of the 19th century and wvhich gave rise to the Dravidian Movement.

THE very existence of the two mass- based, vigorously kicking political organisation - the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.(AIADMK) and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) highlights a significant feature of the political situation in Tamil Nadu. Work- ing apparently at cross-purposes and staking rival claims to have reached the -summit of Dravidar Iyakkam (or the Diavidian Movement), the two nevertheless to.gether defy the authoritarian logic inherent in the condemning or disnmissing of 'regional forces' and in the 'two party model' so lightly and arrogantly advocated for India.

In.whose interests do the two parties fuinction and develop? What are the social and class forces whose aspirations they express? And in what direction are they tending? To answer these questions, a historical analysis hecomes necessary of the complex forces working in the second half of the nineteenth century and through the twentieth century.

Such a perspective would demonstrate as we hope to do in a preliminery

fashion in this paper - that the complex historical phenomenon known as the Dravidar Iyakkam., for all its limit- edlness, inconsistencies, and weaknesses, cannot he treated patronisingly by those advocating an all-India approach. WVhat is needed is a many-sided political explanation of an essentially political phenomenon.

To deal with the state's ruling party first, it must be recognised that the explanations most frequently advanced in academic and journalistic analyses for the rapid rise and electoral. success of the party led hy M G Ramachandran fall into the trap of dismissivism. There

is either a one-sided and exaggerated emphasis on the role of 'film glamoul' supposed to appeal especially to women, or there is the characterisation of the AIADMK as a 'one man party'. Alter- natively, of course, there is that sweeping assertion that Tamil Nadu is still in the grip of the forces of 'regional- ism' or 'cultural nationalism' or of 'pri- morclial sentiment'.'

These various explanations, while they do make contact with certain real aspects of the phenomenon, miss the leading fact: that the AIADMK has inherited the greater part of the com- mitted strength and following of the undivided DMK - which itself was lescribed on the morrow of its fouinding by one of its publicists as "the latest organisational shape of the Dra- vidian movement ... the answer to the anxious quest of the Dravidian people for a democratic organism best suited to give adequate expression to their feelings and sentiments, aims and aspirations".2

It is an inherent characteristic of politics that numerous and varied com- ponents are interwoven into its trans- fortming processes. Consequently, simple- minded or single-term solutions can be rejected out of hand.3 Nor is it possible to build neat and compact models of political development on the asstunmption that the advance or decline of the programme of a political party, or the mode of political articulation of a particular class or classes, will be linear or uninterruipted.

Nevertheless, if we - adopting the ,general method of abstraction - attempt to separate the essential from the inessential, the phenomena as they occur in their most typical form fronm

the disturbing influences, certain characterising features of the Dravidar Iyak- kam, and in fact of political development in Tamil Nadu become reasonably clarified.

The first fact that becomes quite clear is that the elements comprising this movement have repeatedly asserted themselves well over a century. As for the last decade and a half, the traditional strength of the dominant bourgeois-landlord movement, the Congress, has been steadilv eroded by the advance of the political organisation (or organisations) of the Dravidar lyakkam, and this process has so far appeared to be irreversible. The evidence of this is manv-sided and impressive. It consists of the directly observable political activity of the major political forces in Tamil Nadu - their slogans, their mass mobilisations, their ideological and political campaigns - in relation to the masses of the people. It consists of their specific activity and impact among industrial and unorganised workers, among students, teachers, middle-class employees and professionals, in the uirban areas; and among agricultural labourers and different sections of the peasantry, and other labouring people, in the rulral areas. It consists in their ability to organise and rally numbers for their strategy and tactics. It lies in the less easily observable connections with the interests of the exploiters which the two main parties of the 1D-avidar Iyakkanz have developed in the course of their evolution. It consists in the evidence provided by the results of consecutive assembly elections, which are summarised in the Table.

The results of the Assembly elections provide a clearer picture of the correla-

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Annual Number February 1979 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

TABLE- SALIENT FEATURES OF ELECTORAL CHANGE IN TAMIL NADU AS REFLECTED IN LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS, 1957-1977

Year Voter Tturnout DMK AIADMK Congress Janata (Per Cent) Number of IPercent- Nunmber of Percent- Number of Percent- Number of Percent-

Seats age of Seats age of Seats age of Seats age of Votes Votes Votes Votes

1957 49.33 13 12.80 NA NA 151 14.30 NA NA 1962 70.65 50 27.10 NA NA 139 46.14 NA NA 1967 76.59 138 40.77 NA NA 50 41.04 NA NA 1971 71.83 184 48.58 NA NA NA NA 17 34.99 1977 61.57 48 24.89 130 30.36 29 17.53 10 16.69

Note: NA is Not Applicable. The Congress did not contest any Assembly seat' in the 1971 elections, in a deal with the DMK. The seats captUred and votes polled by the Congress(O) in 1971 are credited to the Janata on the generally accepted assumption that the Janata Party in Tamil Nadu draws virtually its entire political base from the Congress(O), although it is equally clear that the decline in political strength from the days of Kamara; is very sharp.

tion of political forces in Tamil Nadu than the results of the parliamentary elections do. The June 1977 results, in particular, allow us to measure the independent electoral strength of the AIADiMK and the DMK, in relation to the independent strength of the traditional Congress camp, the then-undivided Congress, and the Janata parties, without the mediation of very temporary and uinstable alliance factors. It can be seen clearly that the Dravidian move- inent has made serious inroads into the main all-India parties of the big bourgeoisie and landlords and also reached past the Congress and other parties, mobilising sizeable sections of hitherto untapped mass support.

LEGITIMACY OF THE TERM,

'DRAvAiAR IYAKKAM'

A legitimate question might arise at this satge: Is there a Teal-7ife -political animal which -oan be referred to as the Dravidian movement (or as it was known in an earlier phase and narrower groove, the 'Non-Brahmin Move- ment')? Is it not an invention by Western academics and ignorant theo- rists who look at the surface of the problem merely and go mainly by verbal and bookish evidence? The answer is partly no and paltly yes.

The 'Dravidar Iyakkam' as concep- tualised in the main academic studies of it4 is indeed a creature of the Western political scientist's imagination, a bookish concept introduced into a situation where the wood is simply asking to be missed for the trees. The tendencY to focLus on the superficial and to mix up the primary with the secondary, the significant with the trivial, is certainly characteristic of the bulk of these academic studies which are either industrious but unevenly pursued, empirical investigations or extremely ab-

stract and schematic theoretical cons- tructs. This weakness is particularlv evident in the two major empirical studies of the movement which tend to conclude that Tamil nationalism is 'cultural nationalism'.5

However, since the idea of a Dratidar Iyakkam is a real one to both the prota- gonists and antagonists of the movement, and since an idea that takes root among the masses (especially over a whole historical epoch) becomes a mate- rial force, the term, separated from the misleading and gullible connotations given it by the pioneering Western political scientist, becomes a useful des- criptive device to take into account a many-headed and complex social, ideological, and political phenomenon.

ORIGINS AND RISE OF THE DRAvIDIAN

MOVEMENT

We propose that any in-depth and theoretically fruitful research into the Dravidian movement can be conducted only if it is hypothesised as a complex response to the meeting and working out of the following historical processes: (a) the national awakening in Tamil Nadu as a part of the old Madras Presi- dency, (b) the inter-linked stirrings (initially spontaneous, later organised to a certain extent) of the masses of the people against caste and class oppression, (c) the 'divide and ru-le' manoeuvres of British imperialism and its servitors, and (d) the compromising policy of the bourgeois leadership of the freedom movement on social and class issues.

In this paper, we attempt to offer a connected interpretation and a prelimi- nary analysis of the pre-Independence phases of the Dravidian movement, based on the vast volume of empirical research that has been published, even as we draw attention to the gaps in this

historical data.

If, by-passing the real historical processes mentioned above, one goes merely by the inward-looking rhetoric and subjective claims of the leaders and publicists of Dravidian 'revivalism', or is swayed by the uncritical co.ndemna- tion of the movement as sectarian, communal, and even 'anti-national' by the orthodox Congress leaders, there is no hope of comprehending the political phenomenon in a scientific sense. Just as important as comprehending the movement in its different streams is the need to study its different phases.

At the very outset, two misconceptions about the path of modern political development in Sout-h India need to be removed: The first is that there was a backwardness and hesitation in participating in the freedom movement; the second is that the freedom struggle as it developed in this region was largely the handiwork of Brahmin interests. These misconceptions - which were originally promoted by astute representatives of the colonial power have found influential academic support in numerous devious ways.

The impression that South India was a political backwater contributing little to the rising freedom tide in the second half of the nineteenth century has been dispelled by recent empirical research, notably the work of R Suntharalingam. His detailed study6 attempts to explore the connection between the origins of the different sections of professional and administrative intelligentsia and the nascent (merchant) bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the articulation of democratic and anti-colonial demands and social reform activity, on the other. Suntharalingam's research, though ham- pered by the absence of a scientific theoretical framework, explores a field characterised by a vigorous search of

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY Annual Number February 1979

freedom initiated by the professional intelligentsia, divergent attempts at social reforms under pressure of socio- economic and educational changes, and obstacles put in the way of both the freedom movement and social reform by the forces of revivalism and communalism. Noting that the impact of the socio-economic changes imposed by British colonialism was highly uneven, he makes the perceptive observation that caste associations became vehicles for political mobilisation only in the tw7entieth century, and that this phenomenon arose directly from the failure of an earlier generation of leaders of the freedom movement to resolve tensions generated by the uneven rate of the colonial impact in South India.7

Any serious attempt to understand the process of national and democratic awakening in historical perspective must relate its origins to the historical trans- formnation which took place in the early years of the nineteenth century: the process of development of the different peoples of India into nationalities side by side with the beginnings, rise and development of capitalism. The process of nationality formation, which was first evident in the maritime regions of Bengal, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, intensified in the second half of the nineteenth century. The emergence of national consciousniess, the development of literature in the local langua- ges, and the awakened interest in the historical past were an integral part of this larger process."

Tamil nationalism is sometimes characterised in academic literature as 'cultural nationalism'. We have alreadv seen that Marguerite Barnett, the black American political scientist who has in- vested a great deal of effort in her study of the Dravidian movement, goes so far as to label her study, "The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India". We believe that such an approach, mixing up schematic theory with em- piricism, obscures and diverts attention fromn the main direction and the essential tendencies of the political development of Tamil Nadu over the past century. To start with, such an approach refuses to face the question of the awakening to national life of the Tamil people under British rule as part of an all-India national movement. The national question in South India, and on the Indian sub-continent, is not seen primarily as part of the national-colonial question, as an integral part of the experience of the people's struggle against British imperialist rule. The connection between the nationality formation

and awakening to national life in different parts of South India and the evil of British colonial oppression, is obs- cured in a mass of secondary and often trivial detail. Rather, the anti-imperialist direction in which the national question developed is implicitly denied in such approaches which mix up irreconcilable theoretical conceptions of class, caste, nationality, political iden- tity, and ideology.

To take up the specific viewpoint and approach of Barnett as a negative example, her story has the following elements: Elite non-Brabmins ranged against Brahmins and hence the origins of Taniil 'cultural nationalism'. For- ward non-Brahmins and backward non- Brahmins and untouchables in jostling correlation and fierce contention, the fragmentation of the non-Brahmin move- rnent, and the emergence of the demand for Dravida Nadu. Backward non- Brahmins ranged against untouchables and other backward social groups, The development of 'cultural nationalism' through all this from movement to party, along the path of pragmatic, bread-and- butter, existence.

It is as though British imperialist oppression and its insidious policy of 'divide and rule' did not dominate this historical period. It is as though the people were passive instrutnents, Or

pawns, in a drama of manipulative movements and not the active creators of the complicated history of the Indian freedom struggle.

Tamil nationalism, in Barnett's ex- treme formulation of this view,

is not territorial but cultural nationalism. The cultural nationalist sees the nation as inherent in the group of people who possess certain cultural characteristics. And so, while the territorial nationalist gives priority to the direct relationship of the individual to the territorially defined nation State, the cultural nationalist gives priority to collective cultural realisation through nationalism. Cul- tuiral nationalists within a culturally heterogenous territorial State are likely to stress equality of culturally defined 'nations' or groups; the territorial nationalist, in contrast, would stress the equality of individuals.10 Such an approach understands the

process of nationality formation and national awakening apart from their real historical and class context. By making a schematic distinction between 'cultural nationalism' and 'territorial nationalism', it reduces Tamil nationalism, by force of bookish assertion, to the former - i e, to something less than full-fledged national consciousness. Such an approach is clearly incapable of establishing any serious connection between the developmnent of a Tvamil

nationality and developing capitalism; between the awakening to life of the Tamils as a nationality atnd the anti- imperialist and anti-feudal stirrings anki struggles of the masses; between the democratic posing of the national question in terms of overthrowing imperialism and eliminating national inequality and special privilege and the slogan of 'national culture' employed by the indi- genous bourgeoisie, partly against imperialism, partly (in alliance with the landlords) to drug the minds of the toiling people and divert them from the path of revolutionary class struggle.

The Western political scientist in- troduices a bookish concept into a situation where nobody is shown to have thought in these terms - or raised this slogan - in any recognisable sense. Having no reference to a living and active nationality striving, along with other emergent nationalities, to break free from the shackles of imperialism and feudalism, and unrelated to any particular class, the construct of cultural natioinalism' relates to the Dravidian movement in the role of a pseudo- scientific mystique.

STIRRINGS AGAINST SOCIAL OPPRESSION AND THER RBELEVANCE

In the modern colonial society, it was no suirprise at all that any movement for social equality and against caste domination had to have an anti- Brabmin orientation,1' since the Brah- min was the supreme caste in the Hindu hierarchy, the kingpin in the oppressive varnashramadharma structure. In fact, there is today considerable evidence from the second half of the nineteenth century on both the extraordinary privileges of the Brabhnins in Hindu society and the spontaneous stirrings of persons and groups drawn from the lower castes against this oppressive dominance.

The situiation was usefully indicated, although over-simplistically, by Richard Temple who, writing in 1882, asserted that: in Bengal, Brahmin influence was moderated by the trading and literary castes; in the North-Western Provinces by the Rajputs and the Muslimns; and in Bombay bv the Parsis and Jains; however, in Maharashtra and South India, Brahmin influence was absolute, with the other castes in a position of almost total subservience.'2

A variety of factors appears to have contributed to this situation in South India."3 In the first place despite the decline in political power and despite the absence of any clear-cut dominance in agrarian life .except in pockets such as parts of Thanjavu district); the

879




Brahbmiins continued to lord it over the llinidu ritual hierarchy, treating the non- Brahmiins as inferior beings. Secondly, Brahinins were in the vanguard of the developing intelligentsia, moving into key positions as officials, professors, lower bureaucrats, writers, lawyers, and editors. They were, moreover, extiremely active in the leadership of the Congress an(d in the Home Rule movement, pro- vidin(g a handle to anyone interested in b)randing these organisations of the freedom movement as casteist and sectarian. Thirdly, there was in the Tamil districts a pointed and highly provocative movement led by Brahmin interests (especially in the first quarter of the twentieth century) in support of carunashrarmadharnia - which found an influential precursor and ally in the highly divisive revivalism of the Theo- sophical movement pioneered by the Americani Colonel I-I S Olcott, and led with considerably more public impact Iby Annie Besant.

Already, in the second half of the nineteenth century, voices were raised against this hegemony and privilege. The cotltroversy that was whipped up by British and Anglo-Indian journals over the elevation of a Brahmin, Muthu- swamy Iyer, to the judgeship of the Madras High Court in the late 1870s fouind a responsive chord among certain sucti(ns of the people drawn from non- B.rahmin castes.14 The sentiment that "subordination to a Brahmin is an out- rage that makes the blood boil in the veinsi of a European"15 had been- preceded by a letter (published in the M11adras AMail) from a 'Sudra Corres- pondenit' challenging official statements ab)out Miithuswamy Iyer's knowledge of I-Hindu Law and customs and contending that the judge moved only within the rarefied cricle of his Brahmin relatives and frienids and had little actual knowledge or experience of the habits and ways of the rest of the community. This correspondent went on to opine that, despite progress in Western education and other fields, Hindus were still too mloved by 'caste feelings' to be expected to discharge their official responsibilities impartially.16 Another opponent, taking on the label of a 'A Driavidian Correspondent', observed that the l3rhamin was "least fitted of all castes to deal fairly with the masses ... since he considers himn-self as a god, and all others as Milechas". The writer proceeded to argLle that, in a situation where Brahmins were holding over 70 per ce.nt of ptublic appointments, it would be unwise to invest them with such high positions and thereby strengthen their position in the govern-

merit vis-a-vis other castes."7 The complex interaction among diver-

gent movements in social reform, Hindu revivalism as spurred on powerfully by the Theosophical Society from the 1880s, interests (including missionary efforts) acting on behalf of the colonial power, and the rising forces of the inational awakening has been researched in enlightening detail by Suntharalingam. What is especially interesting for our purpose is the evidence provided on the intimate liaison between Theosophy and Ilindu revivalism, which created a climate for revivalism of an entirely different vintage - despite the heroic efforts by rationalist sections such as the Madras Hindu Social Reform As- sociation'8 in the last decade of the nineteenth century.

For, intertwined with strongly democratic feelings against oppressive caste domiination was a revivalist streak which went by the name of 'Dravidian- ism'. In fact, revivalism and obscurantism, that leaned heavily on Sanskritic var,nashramadharma continually fed the taprcots of a southern variety. This particular division contributed distinctive elements of tragedy to the correlation of the bourgeois-led freedom movement with what came to be known, over an extended period and almost interchangeably, as the 'Non-Brabmin' or 'Dravidian' movement.

Significantly, the concept of 'Non- 13rahmiin', inseparably tied to the idea of the unity and integrity of South ln(lia springing magically fromi a 'Dra- vidian' past, was first postulated by European colonial scholars, some of whom, went so far as to postulate rigid racial divergences. Eugene Irschick Pavs considerable attention to the Pioneering attempts of Christian mis- sionaries to study Tamil culture and language.19 The Reverend Robert Cald- well (1819-1891) developed the theory that Sanskrit had been brought to South India originally by Aryan Brah- man colonists, and with it a peculiar type of Hinduism emlbodying the worship of idols.2'( He advanced the specific hypothesis that Tamil had been cultiv- atecl by 'native Tamilians' called Sudras Iw the Brabmins, even though they had )een Dravidian chieftains, soldiers and

cutltivators, never really conquered by the Brahmins." Caldwell (whose psetudo- scientific historical researches such as a detailed studly of Shanars of Tirunel- veli and a pioneering philological work have earned him a great prestige in Tamil Nadu) proposed that the term Sudra be dropped and, instead, the name of each 'Dravidian caste' be used accordinig to the rocalih, of the bccur-

renice.22 While another missionary, G U Pope (1820-1907), contributed substantially to the development of studies of Tamil literature and religion and addedl a new sophistication to Tamil cultural studies,23 influential colonial officials, such as J H Nelson and the brutally repressive Governior of Madras, Mount- stuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, manipu- lated and made political capital out of these sentiments expertly.24 In his 1886 address to the graduates of the Univer- sity of Madras, Grant-Duff demarcated the Brahmins of South India (whom he attacked, no holds barred) from the non-Brabmins in the auidience: "You are of pure Dravidian race" and "I should like to see the pre-Sanskrit element amongst you asserting itself rather more."25

Suntharalingam's point about the consequences of a generation of leaders of the bourgeois-led freedonm movement failing to resolve tensions generated by the uneven rate of the colonial impact in Sotuth India is well taken in. this context. Not that a broader approach to what a leading publicist defined in 1911 as "the intimate coni- nection between our social and political advance"26 was altogether absent in the earlier period. The vanguard 'enlight- erieers' drawn from the professionial intelligenitsia of the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, certainly represented such ani approach on social issues. The controversy that developed over the Age of Consent Bill (an anti-infant mnarriage measLre) in 1890 led to ani articulate iiinority of 'modernisers' among the intelligentsia appealing formlially for an alliance with "Dravidian social reformers and theii- leaders".27 Following the rupture of ranks in the IHindu social reform movement, there surfaced in November 1892 an organisation that had as its declared objectives the promo- tion of education among girls and women, the reform of domestic and mnarriage habits and, above all, the abolition of untouchability and the "amalgamation of castes". It represented a highly progressive response to a complicated situation. The short-lived Madras Hindu Social Reform Associa- tion, whose activities invited fierce attack from the revivalists and failed to attract the support of the all-India and provincial Congress leaders, requiired its members to practise edii- cation of wN7omen, postponement of the marriages of (lauighters, inter-caste dining, and encouragement of widow remarriage, and made a p-olemical (listinction between the 'thinking reformer' and the 'courage-of-conviction reforrner'.28

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY A-nnual Number February 1979

The problem of developing a movement on the l)asis of "the intimate connection between our social and political advance" continued to troublle the growing ranks of the freedom movement, and especially its leadership, and through the 1890s there was expressed a strong criticism of the 'moderate' style of p olitics and, in fact, "idisillusionment with the ideology and tactics of the Congress".29 The disil- lusionment was both on political and social reform issues and the kind of response evoked in the first deca(lde of the twentieth century - a period of raclical ferment in South India -sUg- gests a shift of the forces of the freedom movement to entirely new and hi (gher grouind.

Politically, the gains made by the 'extremist' camp within the Congress and the mass swerve in favour of this approach - as seen in the revolutionarv events of 1905-1908 and, in particuilar, in the events of February-March 1908 in Tuticorin and Tirtnelveli under the leadership of V 0 Chidambaram Pillai and Subramania Siva - prepared the ground for transition to an era where the freedomn movement began to search actively for a wider an(d more powerful mass base, going far beyound the ranks of the intelligentsia.

Representing a more complex ancl differentiated experience for the development of social reform concerns, the new period saw, in South India, the suirfacing of the 'Non-Brahmin Move- ment' and sharp contradictions within the nationalist ranks.

Way-ouit 'modernisers' suich as K Srinivasa Rani, a Marathi-speaking Brab- min from Thanjavur district, put forwar(d the view that there was no qtestion of Indlia developing politically until it clo!sed its blatantly divided social ranks. "Unless the ground is cleared, the rocks and stones removed, the basis of Natio- nal life broadened and deepend, andl the centre of life and interests changed from persons to principles, and divergent sects, classes, and creeds to the couintry at large, and unless our political sympathies go forth, from the pale of Iyers, Iyengars and Raiis, to wider circles of men.. .transcending Brahman and non-Brahman ... democracy on any large scale will be a danger, delusion and sham."30 In a remarkable tract pui)lished in 1911 that takes the form of a conversation between an Indian an(d an Englishman on the political con- lition of India (particularly Madras),

Srinivasa Rau made 'Ramdoss' define what, in his perception, were the loyalties that complicated Indian politics

-among other things, "if you use..

the names of the particular divisions of I-lindus, you touch a chord of each division".3"

From a somewhat different stance of emphasised loyalty to) the Raj, C Sankaran. Nair declared in a lecture in 1909 that nationalism was "an impos- sible (drain so long as the caste system stands in the way" and that, as a result of Brahmin dominance, other sections of society were being rendered unfit to accept political responsihility.32

Bu.t just as there was no question of 'transceniding' either the Brahmin-non- Brahmin issue or the other social divisions of the old order without fighting it out, the facile and repeatedly publicised assumption that nationalism could not develop in South India on account of the caste divisions proved wrong It was, at best, a needless fear, at worst, an apologetic or even blatant stance in support of the colonial power.

Nevertheless, men like Sankaran Nair were making an important point when they focused on the impact on public life of the orthodoxy and ritual privileges wvhich the Brahmins who entered the leadership of the Home Rule movement tended to saddle it with.33 In 191.3, the hearings of the Royal Commission on. Puiblic Services in Madras firmed up these feelings by hig.hlighting the dis- proportionate share of posts in the Madras Government services held by Brabmrins.34

On the eve of the First World War, feelings of resentment against Brahmin privileges in social and public life came to be videly articulated in letters to the daily press. While a writer from South Arcot district, for example, observed that "the Brahmin vs non- Brahmin hatred is found supreme in every Taluk",35 another could record his bitter resentment over an experience in Madurai where he and some Brahmin friencls celebrating the con- ferral of an honorary Rao Bahadurship on a friend came across segregation of non-Brahmins from Brahmins in the ClubI. .3 6

The academic literature on the subject tends to mix up the two issues: demiocratic opposition. to Brahmanical privileges and participation in the freedom movement. Irschick himself seems to be either naively or calculatingly on the wrong track when he postulates that "fear of a Brabman take-over of political power, should Mrs Besant succeed in her Home Rule endeavours, set off a series of reactions which culminated in the formation of a non- Bral-man party to challenge her moves".S37 It w-as not the 'fear of a Brahmin take-over' but a willingness to

serve the British masters in what was perceived to be their own class interests that led to the remarkable series of moves led by landlord and mercantile interests drawn from the higher non- Brahmin castes to form the Justice party.

T lhe whole point here is that the initially spontaneouLs, growingly organised, revolt of the intelligen.tsia and the masses belonging to socially oppressed castes against the Brahmin- lomnnated Hindu caste structure is not

to be confused with the interests articulated in the fonnation of a political organisation whose organising credo was total loyalty to the British Raj, opposition to the freedom movement in all its forms, and - as the movement began to run out of steam -a single- minded hunt for patronage through implementation of commuinal rule. The real situation, as opposed to the illusion attempted to be created by Justice party propaganda, appeared to be indicated by the following editorial olbservation: "The Non-Brahmans are as solidly in favour of Home Rule as any other community, despite the efforts of a small but exceedingly vocal clique which has been magnified by the forces of reaction as representing the forty odd millions in this Presidency."38

Nevertheless, it would be wrong to uinderestimate the fact that the ideological assumption that Dravidian history was separate from, and clearly superior to, the Aryan or Brahmanic tradition in India was influentially taken over by sections of the population in South India in the first two decades of the twentieth centuiry. It was reflected in the sporadic publishing activities of the Madras Dravidian Association (dating from 1912); in the 'Non-Brabmin Letters', a series of 21 'heart-searching' epistles authored by one 'SKN', profes- sing to articulate the position and the aspirations of various caste groups; and, of course, in the "Non-Brabmin Manifesto".39 For a somewhat later phase, Barnett cites the following revealing samples of not uninfluential writings from Dravidian movement journals: i0

Dravidato (September 29, 1920): cites with approval a non-Brabmini conference resolution to the effect that "Tamil is not properly encouraged now in the present universities and that many foreign Aryans, who wielded an influience in the University, brought the language to its present low condition...".

Dravidani (October 11, 192.1): cate- gorises selfishness, trickery, mischief, partiality towards their own class, barted, and avarice, as Brahmin traits, adding

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that "their selfishness is exhibited in their demanding immediate swaraj with the idea that they may hereby advance the cause of their class and makina other classes their servitors, retard their own progress of the world".

Dravidan (january 22, 1923): "From the very beginning of the Eniglish rule, the cu-nning Brahmans in Madras have occupied all posts in the government from the lowest to the highest and have been successfully keepin(g ouit the other commliunities by filling lip the vacancies with men of their owii community."

Nyaya Dipika (januiary 25, 19235): "The Brahmans are also foreigners to India as are the British.. the Brahmans, coming into India from Central Asia three thousand years ago, put down the ancient inhabitants of the country, have created dissatisfaction among them by bringing into being racial, religious, and caste differences, and have been com- nmanding the Inclians ever since."

A PERSPIECTI-VE ON THE JUS1ICE PARTY

In a period of accelerated, though complicated, advance of the freedom struggle among the masses in South India, both the South India Liberal Federation (or Justice party), foundecl in 1916 to articulate the interests of the big feuidal landlordls and the most collaborating section of the mercantile bourgeoisie, ancd the Self-Respe^t League, foutnded by E V Ramasami in 1925, made significant contact with the Brahmin-non-Brahbnin issue. Although distuirbingly intertwvined in practice, they must he analysed as independent m ovements influencing political development of Madras Presidency, especially the Tamil districts. Otherwise there is no question of drawing scientific con- cluisions from this experience.

There was certainly scope for exploit ing the issue which both these tendencies took up, since Brahmins had an extremely dominant role not merely in the administrative arena buit also in higher education during the period under consideration, as Irschick's research emphasisCs.41 "In 1921, banks ancd other money establishments employed Telugu and Tamil Brahmans, Komatis (Telugu Vaisyas), and Vellalas; these four groups held almost two- thirds of the available positions. In pulblic administration there was a marked preponderance of Tamil Brahmans.... In1 positions concerned with law, instruction, and letters, the pattern was similar."42 The data puit together by the Madras government in 1912 showed that, at the higher levels of government service where Indians were employed, Brahmins made up 55 per cent {of

Deputy Collectors, 83.3 per cent of Sub-Judges, and 72.6 per cent of District Mtunsifs.43 The analysis of caste com- position among those employed in 1917 in the IRevenue and Judicial departments as tahsildars, deputy tahsildars, English head clerks, sharistacdars of district and sub-courts reinforces very much the same concltusion.44 In higher education itself, a hreak-up showed that between 1870 and 1918, the proportion of Brahmins among the students enrolled and those granted Bachelor of Arts degrees by the University of Madras was in the range, 67-71 per cent.45 As for the proportion of candidates for the Bachelor of Law degriee, Brahmins constituted 73.57 per cent in 1919; and for the Licentiate of Teaching degree, the figure was 73.03 per cent. Only in the medical field was the proportion appreciably lower.46

In this context, certain features of political development in the Madras Presidency dur-ing the earlier phases of th- freedom movement fall into perspec tive. As already noted, the tendency of existing academic studies to identify 'Brahmin political involvement' with the freedom movement (in its Home Rule movement phases) and non-Brahmin involvement with tendencies such as Dravidian 'cultural nationalism', whicn could not be accommodated within the freedom movement, does serious viol- enice to the essence of a far more complicated historical reality.

The most prominent example of this approach is Barnett's naively hypothesised tension between two abstract behavioural models - the 'Brahmanic' mo(lel and the 'kingly' model.47 Ob- viotusly, the dichotomisation of socio- economic 'elites' into a Brabmin/elite non-Brahmin model tension has some reference to the process of overall historical change in South India in the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. But, since there is no attempt to research into and scienti- fically identify the main direction of socio-economic change, and the class reality during a period encompassing tiv. origin, rise and development of capitalism as well as the rise and development of a new stage of the freedom movement, the schema sweeping the surface-reality misses what goes on beneath.

The crucial fact that must be grasped in this connection is that, during the phases of modern political development with which we are concerned, the well- to-do intelligen.tsia played an extremely prominent role in freedom movement organisation.s nder bourgeois, Congress hegem,ony. And since Brabmins formed

a disproportionately high and privileged section of this intelligentsia 'in the Presidency at least up to the 1920,s, it has been all too easy to identify Brah- mins with the politics of hIome Ruile and 'forward non-Brahmins' with the politics of loyalty to the Rai.

The issue becomes much clearer when we consider the role of the British Raj in sponsoring and encouraging caste- isml, communalism, and other divisive forces. British imperialism had a deep rooted political stake in this practice which was actively adapted to the soil on which it was developed. There is no evidence whatever to suggest that it felt for the illusion, so readily accepted hy later-day academic researchers like Barnett, of equiating 'Brahmin political involvement' with nationalism, 'forward non-Brahmins' with 'cuiltural nationalism' and loyalty to the Raj, and the masses drawn from the backward and untouchable castes with a lack of involvement in either the freedom movement or cultur-al nationalism.48

The revolutionary upsurge in Tuti- corin and Tirunelveli in early 1908 must have been too fresh in its memory to permit any such illusion. The militant masses who rallied around V 0 Chidambaram Pillai - drawn from the petty and aspiring bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia and, above all, the working class - could not, by any stretch of political posturing, be fitted into caste-based models of understanding the freedom movemeint, since the hulk of them were indisputably non-Brahmin.

British imperialist policy, based on powerful class interests, was a consci- ouis policy of dividing the people of India in order to prevent them from rallying to the freedom struggle. It found and developed on this soil extensively complex elements of caste, communal discords and social obscurantism. It built upon this basis, it actively seized upon and encouraged the retro- grade, it promoted slogans designed to divert the masses from the struggle for Independence - such as, "Home Rule is Brahmana's Rule ,74 - it even won certain tactical successes through such methods. However, the policy of 'divXde and rule', even while it should not be underestimated, could not with- stand the challenge of the freedom movement indefinitely. Repeatedly, the mass base and sweep of the freedom struggle made nonsense of the well- publicised assumption that, in this society, Muslim would stay divided from Hindu, forward non-Brahmin from Brahmin, backward non-Brahmin from forwardl non-Brahmin, untouchable from all the other castes. The growing

384




unity of the masses forged in struggle was uinderminiing the very foundations of imperialist rule in India and, along with these foundations, (logmas of un- alterable caste-based political behaviour which was supposed to he inherent in these 'natives'.

The failure of British imperialism and its servitors to stem the rising tide of the freedom movement was reflecte(d in the specific political dlevelopment orf South Iindia through the 1920s and 1930s: the failuire of the anti-national Justice party with its slogan of 'non- Brahminism' to win the support of the masses on the one hand, and the pro- tracted and complex development of the bourgeois-led freedom movement of the people on the other.

In 1967, speaking at a reception organised by the 'Justice Party' in Madras, C N Annadurai, DMK Chief Minister of Madras, made play with his claims to be a representative of 'three different schools of thought' - the jtustice party, with its 'magnanimity' and tradition of fuilfilling 'the desires ofc the people' and achieving 'whatever was possible wvithout clashing with the British regime', the Self-Respect Move- ment, and the Congress, with its 'diplo- macy in handling political problems'.50

This was as much to whitewash the anti-national role of the Justice party as is attempted in the far more sophis- ticated academic literature (notably the work of Baker and Washbrook),51 which attempts to make it out that the quin- tessence of political development during the perio(d was inter-elite and inter- group manoeuvres among the indigen- ouls popuilation: "The years 1916-20 in Madras City witnessed a complex series of manoeuvres between the various grouips who all wished to stand forth as the leaders of the province when the benefits of the reformed constittition were released. Radical posturing and all-India alliances enabled the Nationa- lists . . . to drum the Mylaporeans out of the Congress by 1918. In early 1920, however, just as they were preparing to use the Congress name and organisation to fight the first elections to the new legislatures, they in turn lost control of the provincial Congress to their erstwhile allies from the mofus- sil .... The Nationalists had to quit the Congress or they had to stay in it and ignore the elections; either way it was, for them, a step into the political wilderness.... Tle battle for the leadership of the province under the dyarchy constitution was thus left to the Mylaporeans and the Justicites."52

The Justice party itself, in this view, was ". .. a very mixed hag indeed. It

included City mierchants and politicianis . Then there were professiolnal

inen.... Several families which spread widlely in the public services... were also interested in this new group.... Next came several of the higgest estate- holders of the province, particularly the rajas of Pithapuram, Ramnad, Bobbili and Kalahasti... . Finally there was a scattering of local politicians of all sorts.... The banner around which these various groups cluistered was the cause of the non-Brabman community."53

The 'cause of the non-B;rabman community' referred to here is chiefly the demand that seats be reserved for 'non-Brahmans' in the new Legislative Council. In this academic view, "as a tactical weapon . . . it was superb. Behind the demand for the reservation of seats was a request that government should recognise the jtusticites as fhie leaders of the non-Brahman majority in the province, and should admit that the non-Brahmans deserved special con- siderations. In this way, the justice leaders wouild become the main chan- nels of government patronage.... By 1920, they had won a goo(d measure of success. "54

Let us see what kind of 'stuccess' was won by the justice party, how, and with what consequences for politics in the Presidency. We can study this in the light of the detailed empirical research done on the subject, notably by Irschick. The class interests involved in the fouinding of this party cannot be in serious dispute, although it is true that the support it drew was somewhat 'mixed'. The conclave of 30 or so non- Brahmin leaders, including T M Nair and P Tyagaraja Chetti, at the Victoria Public Hall in Madras in November 1916, might have decided only to form a joint stock companv, the Souith Indian People's Association, in order to publish newspapers in English, Telugui and Tamil and articulate 'non-Brabman grievances'. However, bv December that year, the isstuing of the 'Non- Brabnmin Manifesto' and the formation of the South India Liberal Federation made explicit the ideological and political line of the new movement. The tone was decidedly anti-national and the immediate agenda wvas frontal opposition to Home Rule agitation. Beginning on the note that

the time has come when an attempt should be made to define the attitude of the several important non-Brabmin Indian communities in the Presidency toward what is called 'the Indian 1-home Rule Movement'.

the Manifesto declared that non- Brabmins could never sunpport any measure that

in operation, is designed, or tends collmpletely, to undermine the influence and authority of the British Rulers, who alone in the present cir- cumstances of India are ahle to hold the scales even between creed and class and to develop that sense of unity and national solidarity without which India will continue to be a congeries of muttually excluisive and wvarring grotups within a common puir- pose and a common patriotism.55

The newspapers of this so-called Non- Brabmin movement - Justice, released on February 26, 1917, Dravidan (in Tamil), begun in mid-1917, and Andhra Prakasika (in Telugu), fouinded in 1885 and taken over - actively pushed the view that Home Rtule wvould benefit only the Brabmins.

The real interests behind this movement and these slogans were also evident from the fact that, right from the beginning, the bulk of funds supporting the newspapers and activities of the Justice party came from the big landed gentry of the Presidency. Irschick reveals that, within a year of its founding, the party was formally backed by at least Rs 100,000.56 Backed by such muscle, the organisation attempted to spread throughout the Presidency.

Exploiting the weaknesses of the Congress-League scheme, and the dis- illusionment it created among influential sections of the freedom ranks, the juistice party attempted to advance its political line of servile loyalty to the Raj under the signboard of the 'Non- Brabmin Movement'. One interesting counter-move, in 1917, was the forina- tion of the Madras Presidency Associa- tion (MPA), whose immediate platform was to forward a scheme to ensure full communal representation to non- Brabmins - but withotut in any way breaking ranks with the freedom movement.

Forced to counter the Justicite propaganda that it was a tool of the Brabmins to undermine the rising status of the Non-Brabmin movement, the MPA went on to build an influential organisational structure. Irscbick makes an important point relating to the difference in class character between the Justice party and the MPA, in noting that onlv a relatively few zamindars and large landowners backed the latter, which was, in fact, in constant trouble over funds.57 The MPA responded to the Justicite claim to represeint the real interests of non-Brabmins by quickly reversing its initial opposition to commu.nal represen tation and putting forwar(d the line -

worked out by its President, P Kesava Pillai in co-operation with influential activists of the freedom ranks such as E V Ramasanili, T V Kaliyanasundaram-

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ECONOMTC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY Annual Number February 1979

Mudaliar, P Varadarajulu Naidu and V Chakkarai Chettiar - at the speclal Madras Provincial Congress Conference in December 1917 that, given the peculiar circuimstances of the Madras Presi- deency, "the comnitinities... other than

lriialhmaas should also he adequately represented in the Legislative Council".58

Findlinig a good part of their thunder stolen l)y an organisation from within the free(lom ranks, and smarting under the reftusal in the Montagu-Chelmsford 'lleport' to concede the principle of commuiiiiinal representation, the Justice leaders concenitrated on demonstrating with increased blatancy their loyalty to the lIaj. The enactment of the hated Rowlatt Act and the Jalianwala Bagh ma.ssacre of April 13, 1919, gave them an opportunity to court British favours nore actively. Commenting on the Roxxvlatt 'Report', Tyagaraja Chetti, one of the Justice bosses, exclaimed: "To what comMunity belong most of the persons who find a bad eminence in thIa.t Report? Who is the central figure among them8? Hie is none other than the Brahmin gentleman (Tilak) who lhas been elected to the P'residential chair of the n-ext session of the Indian Nationial Congress.')'9 The party also condoned the massacre at Amritsar commanded hy General Dyer. This, according to Irschick, reveals "more clear ly than any other instance the dulo'rece to which it was cut off from all- India opinion and events."60

The proceedings of the joint Select Committee in London to concretise the final details of the Go)vernment of Inidia Bill (h)y way of implemeuiting the Mon- taguti-Chelmsford proposals) attracted a strong Justiciwx attekiipt to have communal repr-esentation accepted for the Madlras 1'residency. The contingent which arrived in England, apart from the top leader, Nair, included all the chief satraps of the Juistice bloc, including the representative of the All- Inclia Landholders' Association and Madras Zamindars and Landholders' Assocation, who was later to become the Raja of Panagal and the chief partv b)oss.61 Following Nair's death due to illness in Englancd (before he could tendler evidence before the Joint Select Committee), K V Reddi Naidu and A liamaswami Mtudaliar took uip the task on behalf of their party. Appearing before the Conmmittee on Auiguist 12, 1919, Reddi Nai(lol prefacedl his remarks wvith the observation that stubs- tantial nDumIbers of non-Brabmins had joined the arme(l forces, that 'Besan- tine agitation' was boglls, and that Brah- mins were tunfit to utndertake several administrative responsibilities.62 Assert-

ing that India could not be considered a nation, he tried to demonstrate an irreconcilable racial divide between Brahmins (Aryans) and non-Brabmins (Dravidians). The way out of the in- equitous situation, he explained, was to give non-Brahmin caste Hindus a system of communal electorates. In aInswer to a specific question, he ex- plaiined that the Justice demands included in the term 'Non-Brahmin' all those who were neither Brabmin nor untouchable.63

Appreciating the content and spirit behind the Justice party proposals, the Committee showed a new receptivity, ofl behalf of the colonial power, towards the argument that a special approach was needed in a presidency where conditions were evidently ex- ceptional. Or, as Ramaswami Mudaliar put it in a memorandum to the Com.- mittee, the Madras Presidency should be "treated as the 'political Ulster of India,"64 Following this remarkable performance, the Justice leaders made iii Wnsive efforts to court the favour of the British Press, tndertook speaking toturs in major centres of that country, and tried to form a liaison with sections of the Liberal and Labour parties. When the Joint Select Committee in- cluided in its 'Report' of November 17, 1919, the recommendation that the non-Brabmins of Madras Presidency "muist be provided with separate representation by means of reservation of seats",65 it appeared that the Justice party had driven home its point (at least to its colonial patrons) although the way the recommendation was im- pleniented fell far short of its expecta- tions."6

With the 1919 constitutional scheme in action, the politics of grovelling before the Raj fouind fresh scope. A creature of the British, isolated from everything national, democratic, and cnlightened (and under Tyagaraja Chetti's narrow-grained leadership div- esting itself of whatever social reform pretensions that existed), the Justice party rodle to office in the 1920 elections. Irschick makes clear the character and(1 significance of these elections: Only 2.9 per cent of the total population of the Presidency was eligible to vote and the, voter turn-ouit wvas l)arely 25 per cent of this. With the Congress boycotting the polls, the Julstice pIarty w,as left unchallenge(d in the field an'd bagged 6.3 out of the 98 elected seats. Booste(d by goveriinment appointments the strengrth it couldI boast of was actually 81 in a Legislative Council of 127.67

The bgunch that took office at the

inivitation of Lord Willingdon - initially with A Subbarayulu Reddiar, a landlord from Cuddalore, as 'chief minister' and later led by P Ramarayan- ingar, the future Raja of Panagal - carried absolutely no conviction among the masses. Its reactionary political orientation was remarkable for opposing everything that was popular and anti- colonial and for the total isolation this policy earnied for the party in national affairs; while the abuse of authority, the sordid hbunt for patronage and the corruption b)ecame a sensitive election issue in 1926.68

It viciously attacked Gandhi, in his capacity as the rising leader of the freedom movement, and his programme of non-co-operation with the tXaj. Characterising him early in 1921 as "the least tolerant and most vain of pul)lic men", who sought to trade on his standing among the illiterate masses t3) spread false doctrines, it came ou. frontally against the Malabar uprising of 1921, going so far as to attack GCandhi (intriguingly, in the light of his knoxwn hostility to this anti-imperialist and anti-fetudal uiprising) as preparing to "convert this country into a cremation ground before it attains Swaraj".6"'

Gandhi's (lecision to call off non-co- operation following Chauri Chaura in February 1922, and growing evidence that the mnasses rallying to the freedom struiggle cJuld not be contained within the limits imposed by the bourgeois leadership of the Congress, only invited the of-ficial Jtusticite response that it was do(,ubtful that the Bardloli decisions xvotld l)e honoutred by the great num- I)er of "hoolig-ans and r owdies" who ha(d fl;.cked to non-co-operatioin to "indulge in their nefarious predilections towards violence and lawlessness".70

Ther e is niow iron-clad evidence that the justice party demonstrated in office, amiong other things, that it ha(d no sympathy whatsoever for the uni- touchable masses who were struggling for- elementary democratic rights. Deve- loping otut of the militant strike of workers at the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills in 1921, the management's effort to prise untouchable workers away fromo their caste Hindu colleagues began to yield poisonouis frtuit. Leacling to clashes b)etween the, untouchable sections (against wvhomi searegation was practised even within. the factory) which were persuaded to go in and the 'caste Hindu' strikers, the tactic provided the gov- ernnc nt the pretext to resort to a murderous volley of firing which took several lives.71

WVith Justice party journals drawing

387




from the experience the wretched con- clusion that there was "undue pamper- ing of the Adi-Dravidas by the officials of the Labour Department, and partly by the, perhaps, unconscious encouragement given to them by a few police officers",72 the situation appeared tailor- made for a diversion from the class issues involved. The British, past- masters at using such an opportunity to split the ranks of the toiling people, went all out to picturise the class struggle of vanguard of the working class in the Presidency ancd the weaknesses and gaps that had been exposed in the field as essentially a caste problem.73

The 'Puliyanthope troubles', as these happenings came to be known, revealed the extent to which the Justice party in office was alienated from the masses of the untotuchables and even their welfare organisations. Leaders from the untouchable ranks, such as M C Raja, a member of the Legislative Council, began sharply to criticise the Justice party as out of tune with the aspirations of their people. At the second South India Adi-Dravida Congress held at Koilpatti in Tirunelveli district in mid-1923 - after this organisation had broken ranks with the Justice party he observed that the party's 'natural aniimosity' towards the untouchables had been evident long before the 'Puliyanthope troubles'.74

Irschick sums up the results of the first stint in office by the Justice party usefully. First, even on social questions,

the party's unwillingness to allow the untouchables to play a role in its policy indicates the closing of party ranks to include only caste Hindus with a relatively high position in the ritual hierarchy, an established position in government service and education, and a strong investment in the land and commerce of south India.... Second, not only had the social role of the Justice party become narrower and more conservative, but election to the Council and the formation of a justice ministry had changed the party ... into a mere political mechanism, a broker for government jobs for a few select non-Brahman caste Hindu-s.75 He might have added, a political

mechanism at the beck and call of the 'colonial power and a broker for patronage which alienated itself growingly from the people - for one thing, in the 1923 Cotuncil elections, when the electorate had risen to 3 per cent of the total population and the voting turnout to 36.2 per cent of this, the Justice party lost grouind from 1920. It won only 44 seats as against 63 earlier and it was only the government ap- pointment of 17 additional members

that gave it a leg-up to carry on in office.76

In the period of its rapid decline that approached senility, the party went through the motions of building bridges to the non-Brahmin movement in Maha- rashtra- with little avail.77

That the efforts to put on a new face at this stage had no seriouLs effect was reflected in the trouncing that the Justicites received in the 1926 elections at the hands of the Swarajists and even independents; and Irschick's evidence shows that the party was very close to demise in 1926.78 With substantial sections of the former activists and sympathisers leaving the party to join the ranks of the freedom movement- which was developing in a new phase of mobilising the masses, with new tactics - a Special Confederation of the Justice party convened at Coimba- tore in July 1927 attempted to make a virtue out of necessity by recognising that it was "permissible for such non- Brahmans as desire to do so to join the Congress maintaining intact the indi- viduality of the Justice party".79

With the death of the Raja of Panagal in December 1927, a phase in the political development of the Pre- sidency came decisively to an end. "It was really the end of the party, though for eight more years it led a twilight existence and even held office, between 1930 and 1936...".80

Suich, then, was the character and experience of the party that British colonial interests went all out to promote as an alternative to the organisations of the freedom movement in Madras Presidency. The historical data are far too firm today to allow any illulsions about its 'magnanimity' and isuccess'.

RISE OF SELF-RESPECT MOVEMENr

Meanwhile, a series of highly significant socio-political and ideological developments facilitated the emergence of the suyamariyathai iyakkan -asso- ciated with, but independent of, the path of development of the decrepit Justice party. The year of E V Rama- sami's formal break with the Congress - coming after repeated attempts to have it out on social issues -signals no less than a new phase in the political development of Tamil Nadu. While the Jtustice party tried to spread its tentacles throughout the Presidency (and while its class character leaves little room for dispute), the Dravidian social reform movement started by E V Ramasami in 1995 (with the able assistance of S Ramanathan) and con- centrated within the Tamil districts of

the Presidency, was powerfully oriented towards oppressed groups in the caste hierarchy, including untouchables, and adopted concrete measures to involve women and youth.8'

Although, unfortunately, EVR took to employing justice party platforms to preach his views on self-respect and social equality it must not be forgotten that he also used these occasions to sharply criticise that party's attitude to social reform.82 The social and class character of the suya;rnariyathai iyakkam, which was clearly different from that of the Justice party, must be considered an open-ended question that only detailed research with a scientific basis can solve.

However, the infoi-rmation now available on the political activities of E V Ramasami (1879-1973), the founder of the Self-Respect movement, reveals a great deal of the history of the Dravi- dian movement. As a boy from a well- to-do merchant family boldly violating caste-based rules of social behaviour'; as a young man who sought and failed to find. the personal and social answers he wvas looking for in sanyasihood and religious mysticism; as an ardent Con- gressman who campaigned wholeheart- edly for freedom and social reform and spent a small personal fortune as part of his commitment to the movements; as a Congressman alienated by the high- caste prejudices and social obscurantism of the party leadership in the Presidency and in the country, notably Gandhi; as an enemy of Congress up- holding the banner of militant social reform which claimed it sought to "turn the present social system topsy-turvy and establish a living bond of uinion among all people irrespective of caste or creed";83 as a social reformer who, following a visit to the Soviet Union in 1931, campaigned with short-lived conviction in suipport of socialism and participated in conferences against landlordism and usury; as a leader of the Self-Respect League falling, tragically, into the trap of collaboration with the jtistice party; as the leader of a justice party completely discredited among the people; as the founder-leader of the Dravida Kazhagam collaborating with British imperialism against the freedom movement; as a tragic figure railing. against the transfer of power, characterising Ifndependence Day as a 'day of mourning' and demanding 'freedom from Brahmin Raj'; as a supporter of the newly formed Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam led by former lieutenants who had broken loose from his authoritarian hold over the organisation, and an enemy of the Congress Ministry



Aninual Number February 1979 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

headed by C Rajagopalachari; as a sup- pcrter of the 'Kamaraj Congress', seen as representing the interests of 'real Tamilians'; as a supporter of the DMK in power; as an idol-breaker who, towards the end of his very long life, polemicised against and rejected the Tamil language and Tamil culture set up as fetishes; as a militant propagan- dist of social reform divorced from, and contraposed to, class analysis and a scientific theory of economic and political change -the rich, many-sided, outrageously inconsistent life of this Periyar ('Great Elder') of Tamil Nadu politics seems to embody many of the specific historical features and contradictions of political development in over three quarters of a century.

The biographical details now available on Periyar provide ipsights into the weaknesses, the inconsistencies, the vacillations and the contradictions of the bourgeois leadership of the freedom movement. The failure to win over and keep this outstanding individual and his followers within the camp of the freedom movement is a measure of the failure of this leadership to provide consistently democratic answers to the key issues of the day. This particular inconsistency, which could be sharply discerned in the split between the 'extremists' and the 'moderates' of the 1905-1908 period, was expressed in a more developed and refined form in Gandhism: its essence lay in what R P Duitt characterised as "the disastrous combination of political radicalism and social reaction in India".84

Two TRENDS WITHIN THE SEL.F-RESPECTr

MOVEMJENT

It is important to grasp the fact that, in its social determinedness and content, the Self-Respect movement which appropriated the slogan *of 'Non- Brahminism' covered two essentially different tendencies. These tendencies diverged sharply in terms of philosophical-social outlook, although politically they made common cause with the Justice party. It is certainly no small qualitative distinction that is involved between the 'moderate' and 'radical' positions that academic researchers have tended uncritically to identify within the social reform movement. The qualitative distinction is between a revivalist- idealist position that claimed to return to the spiritual, religious and social roots of an idealised Dravidian path and a crudely atheistic, metaphysically mate- rialist attack on religious and social ob)scurantism led by Periyar.

The first trend, fitfully espoused by

the leadership of the Justice party, faded away with the decline and demise of that party. The second trend, whose popularisation was essentially a phenomenon of the late 1920s, was carried forward actively and militantly by Periyar and far outlived the Justice party, influencing political development in Tamil Nadu after Independence. In an atmosphere charged with suffocating remnants of superstition and religious obscurantism, of caste division and privilege, this revolt against Brahmanical Ilinduism and varnashramadharma characterised by a simple and straight- forward sharpness and gaining, over the years, in qualities of popularisation - had an important positive role.

If the movement can be said to have diverted people's consciousness, energy and organisation from class issues, the essential explanation is that the theoretical and practical work of those charged with the historic responsibility of taking up class issues, and of developing the class struggle towards suc- cessful democratic and socialist revolution, was too weak to prevent the people from being so diverted. Some of the more perceptive leaders of the working class movement and party criti- cally grasped the positive elements in Periyar's contribution even while eva- luating his pro-British political positions and his opportunist role following the transfer of power. Some others were carried away to the extent of con- sidering him a great revolutionarv fighter. When the working class party and movement as a whole comes to a serious historical self-criticism and evaluation of its work, it is likely to ex- plain the connection between its line and practice and the specific ide-ological- political alternative to Congress dominance and Congress rule that emerged ancl developed in Tamil Nadu.

The tendency of certain academic researchers, such as Barnett, to identify the essential differences between Peri- yar and the working class movement as a difference centering on alleged 'Brahmin domination' of the Commu- nist party85 reflects an absurdly superficial and false understanding which refuses to go beyond Periyar's words and see the profound differences in class outlook, ideology and practice that separated him from the working class movement. These approaches completely miss the significance of the role of the working class in the freedom movement between 1918 and 1.947 and the qualitative change brought about when the political line and practice of the working class began to contend- given all its limitations in development

- with the political line and practice of the bourgeoisie. They are unable to see the political and practical differences b)etween the bourgeoisie and the pro- letarian approaches to a series of issues, including the content of freedom and the problem of democratic social reform.

In Tamil Nadu, in the twentieth century, there became increasingly evident two irreconcilable cultures, the culture of the bourgeoisie and the landlords and the culture of the cruelly, often barbarically, oppressed and exploited toiling people. The latter contained, in however rudimentary a form, live democratic and socialist cultural elements. The development of the industrial working class was the leading factor in the development of the democratic and socialist culture; the process of differentiation among the peasantry, throwing growing numbers into the ranks of the rtural poor and intensifying the class contradictions in the countryside, strengthened the objective basis for the development of this culture.

if the bourgeoisie and the landlords - initially drawn by and large from the top sections of the upper castes -

appropriated the slogan of 'Tamil culture' and 'Dravidianness' and used it to

njol)ilise the masses behind them, it must also be recognised that the democratic and rudimentary socialist elements in Tamil culture and society repeatedly asserted themselves in political life. This became increasingly evident as the oppressed classes provided the developing basis for the freedom movement, as they increasingly fought against social and cultural degradation as well as class exploitation and to overthrow the colonial oppressor.

The strivings, the struggles, the revolts of the people belonging to the lower and untouchable castes in Tamil society to improve their social position form an important component of the democratic struggle.

'Historical studies of the complex interaction in Tamil Nadu between caste anld class under the modern colonial impact have merely begun. The major part of data available relate to the changes over a century and a half in the socio-economic position of the masses drawn from the Nadar caste, foirmerly a depressed caste known as Shanars. The pioneering study is by the American political scientist, Robert L Hardgrave, Jr,86 a detailed probing which lights up the field brilliantly in spite of being somewhat naive in its sweep and in certain theoretical assumptions about the forces of socio- economic and political transformation.



ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY An-nual Number February 1979

Ilardgrave's empirical data concern the masses belonging to a caste which incltudes very large numbers of those who "lived almost wholly from the products of the palmyra, and the vast majority... engaged in climbing"; and sizeable sections who were already in the beginning of the nineteenth century active in regional trade.87

With the development of transport and communication and new opportunities for expanding trade, the Nadars fanned out north of the Tambaraparni River into 'Maravar country' with jag- gery, dried fish, and salt. Immigation followed trade and this significant movement resulted in the creation of pettais, fortified enclosures protecting their trading interests, and new mercantile settlements. The Nadars appear to have settled in the early part of the nineteenth century, according to the evidence provided in Hardgrave's narrative, in six primary centres - Siva- kasi, Virudhunagar, Tirumangalam, Sat- tankudi, Palayampatti and Aruppukottai - known as the 'Six Towns of Ramnad'. In these concentrations there developed a stratum of enterprising merchants, middlemen and moneylenders who ac- cutmulated substantial wealth. The bulk of the masses belonging to this caste grouping (which had a number of sub- branches) continued to labour in extremely humble occupations and were subject to harsh socio-economic oppression; nevertheless, the formation of new and rising classes closely tied to the imnpact of British rule brought about significant changes both socially and politically in the region.

Almost without comprehending the theoretical significance of his rich empirical data, Hardgrave is dealing with the formation of a modern class, drawn from a very depressed social section ritually considered just above the untouchables, of petty bourgeois and nourgeois sections involved in mercantile and moneylending activity. This is the preparatory phase for the origins of the bourgeoisie in the late nineteenth century and in the first quarter of the twentieth century. A most interesting part of the stuidy is the con- sequential impact of this objective transformation, in terms of the stirrings of large masses drawn from this particular caste against social oppression. The formation of loose mercantile associations in the settlements, of caste counI- cils to administer communal funds and administer corporate authority in other respects, of exclusive temples and schools. These are sketched by Hard- grave as part of the process of modern socio-economic articulation.

Hardgrave's narrative identifies ani initial process of imitating the Brahma- nical ctustoms of the higher castes among the more developed mercantile and moneylending sections of the community

as a response to "the incongruity between the economic position of the Six Town Nadars and their low social status".88 He also traces in detail the conflicts that arose with the masses drawn from the higher castes (especially the Maravars, the numerically dominant caste of the region) beginning in 1860 at Aruppukottai and Palayampatti. In 1872, a case was brought by the donmi- nant Brahmin and Vellala interests of Tiruchendur against seven Nadars for entering the temple; in 1874, some Nadars of Madurai unsuccessfully sued in the court of the Second Class Magis- trate of the town on the claim that criminal force had been used by the servants of the Meenakshi temple in expelling one Mooka Nadan from the temple; a similar case, brought two years later at Tiruthangal in Rama- nathapuram, was also unsuccessful.

The situation culminated in a series of bloody and fratricidal clashes, with the superintendent of police in Tirunel- veli recording an 'unstable equilibrium', which he gloated over thus: "Every- where the lower castes are asserting themselves, while denying the caste below the right which they themselves newly claim."89 With zamindars and powerful landlords drawn from the higher castes taking a strong hand in all this, according to Hardgrave's evidence,90 the situation developed towards a major conflagration - which, starting from raids by a confederacy drawn from a wide variety of castes (who considered themselves antagoni- stic to the Nadars) on Nadar villages in the vicinity of Sivakasi, culminated in the murderous sacking of Sivakasi on June 6, 1899.91 The large masses of Maravars who formed the leading force in the attack were sent in retreat, but not before a substantial loss in lives, dwellings, and property, had been inflicted. The fighting once again moved to the rural areas and when the military was finally brought in, nearly 150 villages had been involved and a few thousand houses destroyed.92

The response to all this was to strengthen the urge to form caste associations believed to be for socio-economic uplift. Whereas the Kshatriya Mahajana Sangam, formed by several prominent merchants and traders congregating in Madurai in 1895, never really got going,93 15 years later a plenary session of the caste association in Poraiyur in Thanjavulr district convened and hosted

t)y an educated and extremely wealthy family of akbari contractors resulted in a Tamil Nadu-wide caste association of Nadars, the Nadar Mahajana Sangam. The association became extremely active between 9Il17 and 1921, promoting an upsurge of attempts to speed up educational activity (including education for girls) and Nadar welfare and philanthro- pic activity.94 From then on, the momentum of socio-economic and political transformation gained speed and scale, with a strong push made for securing educational opportunities and government patronage. In addition to schools and colleges, the Sangam was instruimental in founding libraries, read- ing rooms, and even a co-operative bank.95

New antagonisms took shape and suirfaced sporadically between the sharp and powerful Nadar traders, middlemen and moneylenders and other sections of the people - which these powerful interests attempted to ineet by increasingly taking up the banner of all-in Nadar unity and communal uplift.96

In 1922, the first efforts to establish mechanised production of matches by two Nadar traders (with imported German machinery) began to yield results in Sivakasi, but production quicklv switched to hand processes in response to economic factors caused by the higb 'cost of mechanised production and the abundant availability of super-cheap labour.97 From matches, the route of productive activity that the aspiring Nadar bourgeoisie took was fireworks production and litho printing, introduced in 1930.98 Yet, the main character of Nadar bourgeois activity remained trade, with very little movement into industrial spheres other than those mentioned above.99

And what is most significant for our purpose, a differentiated process of response to the developing political situation manifested itself. Whereas, earlier, the leaders of the Nadar caste organisation declared themselves as eter- nally loyal to the British Raj - with a resolution of absolute feisance being a set feature of Nadar conferences from 1910 on - and whereas even with aft upswing in the freedom movement influential persons such as WPA Sounda- rapandian continued to articulate their political positions via the non-Brabrmin movement and the Justice party in favour of the colonial Raj,100 the myth of Nadar political behaviour as a caste bloc began to dissolve with the onset of the first non-co-operation movement. Ac Hardgrave sees it,

Today, in retrospect on the 1920)s

391




and early 1930s, many Tamilians will speak of the solid support of the Nadar community for the government. In fact, however, a major portion of the Nadar community opposed the Justice party and gave its wholehearted support to the Congress and the non-co-operation movement. It was not E V Ramasami Naicker but Gandhi who captured the imagination ... The Nadar Mahajana Sangam... remained essentially an organisation of the mr.erchant community of Ramnad and Madurai. The Sangam's support for the Justice party reflected the solid suipport of the Six Town Nadars for the non-Brahmin party... The situation in Tinne- velly, however, was fundamentally different . .. [here]. The Nadars pre- sented a common Congress face to the Justice Vellalas. . .. During the 1930s, fissures began to appear in the solidity of the Ramnad Nadars for the Justice party ... The Siva- kasi Nadars were unwilling to remain followers of a Virudhunagar clique, and as the justice party began to take on the colour of atheism in the. Self- Respect movement, the more conservative Sivakasi Nadars reacted with profound distaste. .. . In Virudhu- nagar, the Justice leadership did not go unchallenged, but opposition was silenced by the overwhelming power of the justice party group, in both wealth and numbers. The western portion of Virudhiinagar, 'the wrong side of the tracks' at that time, was the section in which many of the poorer Nadars lived, together with Muslims and other castes. Coolie labourers and small shopkeepers, they were a backward community in com- parison with their educationally advanced and wealthy neighbours east of the tank . . .. There was a strong but rarelv voiced sympathy for the Congress.'0' K Kamaraj Nadar, later to become an

important leader of the Congress movement on a national scale, was brought up on Virudhunagar's 'west side'. Be- ginning with defiant activity in the non- co-operation movement, braving the dis- favour of the caste assembly for his participation in the 1920 Vaikom satya- graha against the exclusion of untouchables from the temples, Kamaraj's long and tangled political career began to express the strength as well as the glaring inconsistencies and weaknesses of the Congress leadership of the freedom movement and in relation to social reform. Nevertheless, the story of Kamaraj and his times represents a sharp turn in the political situation among the broad masses of the Tamil people, which reduces to absurdity assumptions of watertight caste-based political behaviour.

In contrast to Kamaraj as an activist of the freedom movement drawn from the smaller trading interests of the Nadar caste grouping, stands the public life of W P A Soundrapandian, an ac-

knowledged leader of the caste-based association who entered the camp of the Justice party and yet retained his active involvement in social refornm. Apart from championing what came to be known as a programme of social uplift for Nadars, he made attempts to improve relations between the caste organisation he led and other backward and depressed communities. As a matter of fact, under his leadership, attempts were made to have schools and temples which were exclusively run for Nadars thrown open to untouchables. Soundra- pandian actively entered the Self. Respect movement under inspiration from E V Ramasami, militantly employing his position and influence to take up such causes as the abandon- ment of the Sanskritic pretensions of an earlier generation, the affirmation of Dravidian Self-Respect within his caste, remarriage of widows, a ban on the use of Brahmin priests for Nadar weddings, and Self-Respect marriages.

The combination of activism in the freedom movement and a declining and ineffective concern with a mild brand of social reform on one side, the combination of support for the anti-national Justice party and vigorous involvement in the Self-Respect movement on the other - this sharp variance between two leading representatives drawn from the Nadar caste ranks expresses an essential feature of the overall political development in Tamil Nadu in that epoch.

The historical data on the Nadars have been cited in detail to emphasise the kind of complicated objective processes which provided a backdrop fo the organised political activity of the period as well as to Dravidian social reform efforts. To the extent that it drew attention to the social, ritual and cultural oppression of the njasses of the people of the non-Brahmin and lower castes and made contact with real socio- economic processes, the radical trend represented by E V Ramasami uithin the Dravidian social reform movement identified itself with the assertion of democratic cultual elements in Tamil society. It expressed a radical challenge to the social and cultural foundations of this order.

Although non-Brabminism has been the organising centre and most catchy signboard of the movement that Periyar led over half a century, the content of the movement was by no means res- tricted to that. His attack on Brah- manical pretensions developed on a wide front against the caste system, superstition, ritual hierarchy, Manus- mniti, mythology, temple worship,

Hinduism and religion itself. The idea was popularised that Brabmanical Hinduism was the invention of a small clique in its selfish interests and needed the soil of ignorance, illiteracy, and exploitation of the masses to flourish. This was done with directness and imaginative polemical force. In- gersollian rationalism was picked up and made use of repeatedly over the years of development of the Self-Res- pect movement, but Periyar's own rationalism had a more vigorous atheist orientation and a stronger populist flavour, expressed in the celebrated Periyar saying: "God does not at all exist. The inventor of God is a fool. The propagator of God is a scoundrel. The worshipper of God is a barba- rian. 9102

With the kind of historical data available today, it is clear that his suyamariyathai iyakkam doctrine, after his break with the Congress, went far beyond the bounds of philosophical rationalism, embracing such wide democratic social concerns as: an attack on orthodox Hindu assumptions of 'superio- rity' and 'inferiority'; the right of access to temples and wells of all communities and the rooting out of untouchability; the fierce caricaturing of Brahmanical mythologies; the diversion of temple funds for non-religious purposes; the conduct of marriages on the principle of Self-Respect (i e, rational and equal consent between the man and the woman) without the use of Brahmin priests and rituals, quite frequently with Periyar himself officiating; the abolition of all caste suffixes in names; the uplift of women and a rational approach to numerous other social evils in South India.'03 In particular, the attempts to force the entry of depressed castes into temples and the public ridicule of Hindu texts preach- ing an oppressive Brahmanical code'04 differentiated Self-Respect social concerns from the varieties professed by the Justice party.

At the annual Self-Respect conference at Erode in May 1930, the movement, not only inscribed equal civil rights for depressed castes and for women on its banner, but went so far as to advocate measures to redistribute wealth within society.'05

Baker's research suggests a firm correlation between the radical Dravi- dian social reform movement and a complex of socio-economic changes taking place, by drawing attention to the fact that Periyar's movement struck "deeper root in some of the towns that were being deeply disturbed by economic change"'.l06 'Its headquarters were

393




in Erode, Periyar's home town, and its sweep extended to the two rising manu- facturing centres, Madurai and Goimba- tore, as well as Salem, Tiruchirapalli, the port of Tuticorin, the towns of the Chettinad area in Ramnad, some of ths growing trading towns of thek, cotton tract such as Virudhunagar and the new industrial suburb of Madras city, Peram- bur.10 7 Baker makes another valuable point when he remarks that the compromising "dependence on the patronage of certain leading Justicite politicians ensured that the movement's radicalism remained mostly rhetorical".'08

As it turned out, the contradictions that appeared in the socio-economic and political spheres'proved too much for Periyar's Dravidian programme to tackle in a consistently democratic way. The prominence assumed by caste associations among sections which contributed a substantial and rising mercantile class - such as the Devangas of Salem and Coimbatore, the Nadars, the Komatis of the Andhra districts, the Beri Chettiars of Madras - as well as among castes which comprised wide sections of the peasantry as well as landlord interests, such as the Goun- ders, constituted a new social and political phenomenon of the 1930s. The spontaneous and embryonically organised anti-zamindar feelings and activity,1119 in the Tamil and the Andhra areas demanded a response that could link the militant social agitations of the type led by Periyar with a firm democratic attack on feudal landed relations and its attendant values.

While there was no question of the intelligentsia or the bourgeois leadership of the Congress providing any such programme, the actual historical development emphasised that neither could it be provided by the camp. of Periyar - for reasons that remain to be in- vestigated in detail. In 'a word, the Self-Respect movement could not sus- tain its social radicalism consistently, much less extend it democratically to the sphere of politics in order to develop a combined anti-colonial and anti. feudal movement.

CONTEXT OF NAITONAL AND DEMOCRAIIC

ADVANcE The larger context in which the Self-

Respect movement worked out its course throtugh the 1930s and 1940s was, ot course, the growing mobilisation 91 very broad masses - above all the working class and the toiling peasant masses - under the banner of overthrowing the colonial oppressor. As early as in 1931, Periyar "found that many of his lieutenants were attracted

by the idea of agitation and political martyrdom, and some abandoned him to join the Civil Disobedience campaign or small underground revolutionary associations"."10

So far as Periyar was concerned, he was clearly no successor to Jyotiba Phule of Maharashtra - "the great iconoclast democrat, the friend of the poor and oppressed" who spearheaded "a liberation challenge to the entire Hindu society and to the colonial structure" and "never wavered in his loyalty to the masses, in giving priority to their interests".1"1 Nor was he cast in the mould of Javalkar who, in the 1930s, refused to turn back to non-Brahmanism but went ahead to combine the anti- caste struggle with a championing ot the peasant and anti-imperialist struggle - talking of a peasant war against capitalism, of an independent peasant organisation, of the Russian revolution, and of a non-violent peasant army."2

The closest Periyar came to linking his militant social reform concerns with an attack on feudal and semi-feudal agrarian relations and advocacy of political power in the hands of the democratic masses was in the immediate aftermath of his return from Europe and the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, when he temporarily espoused the revolutionary cause, participated in anti- moneylender and anti-zamindar activities, and, as Baker puts it (although somewhat patronisingly), "preached revolution throughout Tamilnad, erected a 'Stalin Hall' to house a Self-Respect conference in Coimbatore, and gave the Self-Respect movement the litany that 'capitalism, superstition, caste distinc- tions and untouchability must be rooted out'."'1'3

Such activity was not sustained in the face of intimidation and repression by the colonial regime. "In 1934", as Baker portrays the weakening and surrender, "government started to bring him to heel. They jailed him for a seditious article which, among other things, accused the Justice ministers of 'sharing the spoils' of government, ar- rested him again for conniving in the publication of a revolutionary pamph- let, and, when they started in early 1935 to mop up all ... (communist and leftist organisations in the province) forced him to a recantation of his b)olshevik views."114

And, tragically, in a period when the freedom movement began to make a big impact on the peasantry and other sections of the people, when certain radical and fighting elements who, had once functioned within the confines of the 'Non-Brahmin movement' overcame

their separation from the anti-imperialist current, and when communists arising out of the anti-imperialist struggle were able to attract or combine with other democratic currents - notably in the Kerala and Andhra areas, but also in pockets of Tamil Nadu Periya-r moved into more and more opportunist collaboration with those whose organising credo was servility before the colonial oppressor.

Following the trouncing which the remnants of the Justice party received aL the hands _of the Congress in the Madras Legislative Assembly elections of 1937 - with all the bosses, including the Raja of Bobbili, P T Rajan (a big feudal landlord of Madurai district), the Kumararaja of Venkatagiri, and A P Patro, defeated - Periyar took formal charge of that party in a desperate attempt to find his political moorings. The lesson that he drew from the rout, and from the mass defection of Justi- cites into the Congress camp or into inactivity, was typical:

Now, tnany people change from party to party.... Since the recent foolish election has shown that all those who want jobs and posts should join the Congress, now the people who want positions and those who will not have any respect if they do not have these positions and those who have no other goal in life are fast joining the Congress .... It is my opinion that we should feel happy about this ... (because) the Justice party is being purified.115 In 1937-38, the working class of

India was conducting several extensive strikes for better conditions and for national and social emancipation.'16 A prominent feature of the labour movement during this period was solidarity strike-action and joint worker-peasant demonstrations which succeeded in forg- ing the fighting unity of the working people, irrespective of religion, caste, or nationality. The organised trade union movement made rapid strides in the Madras Presidency, particularly in the Coimbatore industrial centre.U7 The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) increased its strength among the organised working class, made inroads into the strength of other organisations, and became the rallying centre of the whole labour movement. A distinctive feature of the working class action during this period was the clearly political character of the demands raised by vanguard sections.

The period 1937-39 was marked also by the increased strength of the organised peasant movement reflected in an increase in the membership of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), although unevenly in South India."l8 The ad-



Annual Number February 1979 ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

vance, which came in the wake of a series of partial struggles against feudal landlordism and imperialist oppression, was particularly striking in the Malabar region of the Madras Presidency.'19 Following the formation of the Con- gress Ministry headed by C Rajagopala- chari in July 1937, the rural poor, under the leadership of the All Malabar Kar- shaka Sangham, launched mass struggles against landlordism and for agrarian reform. The actions of the peasantry, which sharply exposed the class character of the Congress party and in particular its inability to carry out election promises, played an important role in bringing about the final split within the Congress organisation between the 'Left' and the 'Right' and in the emergence of an influential Communist party in the Kerala region, with leaders of the calibre of P Krishna Pillai, A K Gopalan and E M S Namboodiripad. The active mobilisation of agricultural labourers and poor peasants - the bulk of whom belonged to the lower and untouchable caste - was a feature of mass organisation in only a part of the Presidency and, speaking in general, did not occur in the Tamil-speaking areas during this period. Yet, it represented a rising trend that certainly had an impact on the class configuration and the political development of South India as a whole, including the Dravidar Iyakkam.

The struggle of nationalities, in demanding an end to the hated system of colonial Provinces and the formation of states based on the nationality principle, was particularly advanced in South India during this period. The development of mass political activity that followed the formation of the provincial governments, with all their class limitations, stimulated the national movements of Andhra, Kerala and Karnataka and, in an entirely different way, the national movement in Tamil Nadu. The Congress leadership paid lip-service to the right of nationalities to form independent states, but tended in practice to oppose mass movements in support of this democratic demand. It must be remembered too that students became an organised force in the Presidency in the fight for Independence, democracy and socialism precisely during this period.

It is true that the outbreak of the Second World War affected the growth and development of the fighting movements of the toiling and democratic masses and, in particular, the activity and memrbership of the Kisan Sabha.120 Nevertheless, the war could not stop or reverse the activity of the mnass and

democratic organisations. The protest movement against India's forced involvement in the imperialist war developed on a broad scale, and a spontane- OIus demonstration by workers in Madras city on the first day of the war was a striking feature of this protest.'2' Unrest among the peasantry demanding lower rents and a moratorium on debts manifested itself chiefly in the Andhra and Kerala regions. The glorious struggle of the Kayyoor peasantsT22 which broke out in March 1941 sharply expressed the contradiction between the rural masses on the one side and imperialism and landlordism ranged on the other. The struggle of the nationalities - trapped within the Madras Presidency and also within the princely states - for the formation of autonom- ous states based on the linguistic and nationality principle assumed particularly acute forms among the rnajor non- Tamil nationalities in South India.

The objective change in the character of the war into a people's war and the lifting of the ban on the Communist Party encouraged the development of the kisan and trade union movements extensively. The All India Kisan Sabha steadily increased its membership during the last three years of the war.123 In South India, especially in the Andhra and Kerala areas, the Kisan Sabha led the struggle of the tenants and agricultural labourers against oppression by landlords and moneylenders and against hunger and eviction. It was during this period that the Kisan Sabha and the Communist movement began to take root among the untouchable agricultural labourers of East Thanjavur.124

With the end of the war and the rout of the fascist aggressors, the class contradictions within the country sharpen- ed tremendously. The transfer of power came in a situation of unpre- cedented mass revolutionary upsurge. This upsurge was characterised by peasant revolts, the greatest of which developed in Telangana, general strikes of workers, student strikes, the mass struggles of the peoples of the 'native states' and, above all, the direct involvement of the armed forces in the anti- imperialist movement. Madras Presi- dency became an active scene of this mass revolutionary activity of 1946. Militant demonstrations by workers, students, and the petty bourgeois masses, in solidarity with the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) struggle in Bom-bay, took place in Madras city, Madturai, Tiruchi anid some other parts of the presidency.'25 Apart from these the strike struggle. of the South Indian Rlailway workers in August-S-eptember, and fhe

general strike of the Coimbatore textile workers in November of that year, the struggles of the agricultural labourers and poor peasants in Kerala, culminat- ing in the armed uprising of workers and peasants in Punnapra-Vayalar, the militant upsurge among untouchable agricultural labourers in eastern Than- javur and, above all, the Telangana people's armed struggle - this anti- imperialist and revolutionary upsurge of the toiling and democratic masses profoundly affected the character of the political arena in the Presidency, ushered in independence, and provided the context in which the Dravidian movement had to work out its line and programme of action.

This experience has to be researched in detail in order to draw sober lessons about the course of development in South India, but it is an absurd carica- ture indeed that reduces the mass mobilisation of the late 1930s and 1940s in Tamil Nadu to the mobilisation of backward castes for patronage -"for a greater share of government appointments, power and influence."'126 In fact, the tendency of Western academic researchers to speak of the behaviour of the 'backward castes' in socio-psy- chological and manipulative terms obscures the very essence of the political development of the period: the inten- sification and expansion to new territory of class contradictions and the increasing political initiative and involvement of the toiling and democratic masses drawn from various castes. The edge of this initiative and involvement though the late 1930s and the 1940s was directed against imperialism. This is not at all to deny specific weaknesses in the organisation and consciousness of the people in South India or in India as a whole, or to deny the fact that particular sections belonging to the lower and untouchable castes were driven by an oppressive social order and influ- enced by opportunist leaders to fall victim to the imperialist policy of 'divide and rule'. Such weaknesses and setbacks in the anti-imperialist, democratic and revolutionary movement must, however, be examined in a scientific historical perspective.

It was remarkable that, through all this, Periyar was able to plough his isolated furrow of the 'Non-Brahmin movement' with the slogan of Tamil Nad for the Tamilians', cut off from the broader all-India currents. The anti-communism of this movement was becoming more pronounced dulring this phase. When war broke out in 1939, th-e coablition of the rump of the Justice party and the Seif-Respecters unasha-

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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL W1tEKLY Aniual Number February 1979

mneedly supported the war policy of the colonial government and, leaning upon the Muslim League demand for Pakis- tan, emphasised its own demand for a separate Dravida Nadu12 7- loyal to the British Empire and to be directly admiiinistered by the Secretary of State for India.

The ill-advised decision by the Rajagopalachari ministry to introduce Ilin(di as a compulsory language in schoo's and then, when the first anti- Hindci agitation was organiised by the Dravidian movement, to use the notorious Criminal Law Amendment Act against the demonstratorsl28 gave Periyar and his foflowers an opportunity to pick up a sensitive cultural issue and employ some of the methods of agita- t on developed within the freedon movement against a Congress Minis- try.'29 The occasion also witnessed, as has already been noted, the first explicit demand issued for a separate Dravida Nadu for Dravidians.

Periyar's political perspective in this phase became clear from other kinds of issues he was chamtipioning: for example, as late as in 1940, he was peti- tioninig the Governor of Madras with the complaint that the communal rule hal not lbeen observed properly.'30

Such a line could not but have a serious impact on those (including a part of the leadership) who had been 1umbilised under the banner of the "Dravidar Iyakkam" -even as the line pursued by the Justice party in its heyday, during the 1920s, had its own im.pact, bringing aboout a significant defection to the Congress. During this per; od of ugly collaboration with all that was pro-imnperialist and anti-democratic, Annadurai (who had become atn important leader next only to Periyar) expressed his political differentiation with the policies of the boss. Grasping the need for a less compromising political policy and for fresh efforts to re- vive the movement among the mnasses, he preposed, at the Salem conference of the Justice party in 1944, four resolutions which indicated the response of a significant section within the Dravi- dian movement to the mood of the times:

(1) Those who had been granted honorary titles by the British should immediately surrender them, andl nobody should receive such titles in future.

(2) Those who held honorary positions such as Honorary Presid- ency Magistrate, leader of the local panchayat and so on should resign these posts.

(3) The habit of attaching suffixes

denoting caste to names should be given up, now and for the future.

(4) The name of the South India Liberal Federation or Justice party should be changed to Dra- vida Kazhagam immediately.

in fact, in a certain sense, the f or- ination of the Dravida Kazhagam itself in 1944 out of the decrepit Justice party was a concession to the mood of the titmes. Another round of mass efflux of Justicites to the Congress in the wake of 1937 pointed to a cleai trend. To win over the masses in a radically changed situation, the DK adopted a new political signboard and new slogans. It made a desperate attempt at a political recovery among the masses by offering them a programme that attempted to subsume their class and national oppression to their ritual and social oppression by Brahmins and 'Aryans' as an explanation of their unacceptable condition.

The nature and demand of the times intensified the differences within the Dravida Kazhagam, resulting in the surfacing of two conflicting political lines. One line, represented by Periyar, sut itself in frontal opposition to the movemnent for Indian Independence and demanded freedom from 'Brahmin Raj'. The other trend, represented by Anna- durai, came out for accomimodation with the freedom struggle even while conti- nuing to focus on the demand for freedom from 'Aryan' Congress yoke. Peri- yar's rigid world-view and the organisational methods he pursued, contributed to thui development of these differences. Iln 1947, Annadurai took the party close to a split by publicly disclaiming identification with Periyar's notorious declaration that Independence Day was a 'day of imiourning' by noting in coni- tortionist fashion:

We, the, Dravidians, have been em- phasising that we should not be under British rule ever since 1939. Even at a time when the country was in ferment with anti-Hindi agitation, in the Madras conference we demanded complete freedom and autonomy for us. For years it has been our endeav- our and cherished wish to be free from the foreign yoke. But today, after abolishing alien rule, the Con- gress is trying to impose Aryan domination. We oppose the Congress solely on this grotund.132 Despite conciliatory moves and very

temporary truces, the two trends moved irrevocably towards a split in newly indlependent India. Following the public controversy with Periyar over the In- dlpendenice, isstue, Annaduirai and his supporters actually withdrew themselves from active involvement in party affairs,

boycotting even the conference organised for a separate Dravida Nadu in October 1947.133 Between this time and October 1948, a final effort to bring about a compromise yielded some results, with Annadurai proclaimed as Periyar's successor at the Erode conference of the party.134

However, following 70-year-old Peri- yar's decision to marry a 29-year-old woman and anoint her his 'successor' -which was made out to be in out- rageous contravention of the principles of Self-Respect -Annadurai and his followers abandoned the DK and formed a new political party. The final split in 1949, which brought a whole stage in the development of the Dravidar Iyak- kam to a close, had been brought about bv a combination of factors. Among these were differences over political positions, over tactics, over the issue of participation in elections, over organisational questions (specifically inner-party democracy), and over political morality and style.

The essence of the split, in short, was a significantly divergent response w ithin the Drauvidir Iyakkamn to the new challenges of political development in independent India.

IMPACT OF COMPR}OMISING LINE OF

BOURGEoIS LEADERSHIP OF FBEEDQM STRUGGLE

While placing the various streams emerging from the 'Non-Brahmin move- inent' -and especially the Self-Respect stream-in the historical perspective of the moobilisation, in phases, of the whole people against the colonial oppressor, it is vital to draw the proper conclusions about the character of the leadership of the freedom struggle.

We have already noted how, in the earlier phases of the freedom awakening in South India, the intelligentsia whieh played such a prominent role in giving the movement its shape failed to provide consistently democratic responses to the social, economic, and political issues involved. While the Western-educated sections of the intelligentsia who came under the influence of the bourgeois enlightenment compromised on a whole range of issues connected with the people's quest for liberation, the more militant sections which asserted themselves in the 1890s and the first decade of the twentieth century and identified themselves with the aims and interests of the rising hourgeosie attacked British colonial ritle compromised by making common catise with the old feudal order and its institutions. This section explained all this as directing fire against the

397



enemy first.13-5 The refusal to take up crucial class issues, such as the fight against usury and feudal landlordism and the combating of the values of the old order (including caste and oppressive hierarchical social structure), proved a serious obstacle to unifying the masses oil an anti-imperialist and democratic programme.

And it was not as thoulgh the compromising characteristics of the intelligentsia and the aspiring bourgeoisie were confined to the Brahmin and higher caste sections. The nascent sections of the intelligentsia springing from the lower castes were strongly asserting democratic aspirations by challenging their own inferior social position, but the grave limitation was that, time and again, they failed to go beyond their own narrow worlds of caste and community and link themselves to b)roader democratic currents. In Tamil Nadu, at any rate it is clear that during this transitional period the radical and advanced sections who found a new path were more than matched numerically and in terms of political significance by those who drifted into opportunism or were diverted from the central goals. B T Ranadive puts the matter in clear perspective in relation to the experience of the Non-Brahmin movement in Maharashtra:

The compromising and uncompro- mising trends in a democratic revolution always clash fiercely, as they di(d here. Th-e participants had their own subjective consciouisness 0f fighting a struggle between Brahmans and non-Brabmans. Buit deen historical forces were at work and the tendency to compromise vi th feuidalismii clashed with the tincempromising trend which manifested itself as a wholesale opposition to the caste system and cleminanded all-rouiind liberation . 6

If Periyar spearheaded the uncom- promising trend of overthrowing the old hierarchical social order for a time, it was inevitable that, given the class limitations, his movement would be fairly quickly swamped by opportunism. The camp commanded by Periyar did not, of course, remain stagnant or unaffected. While certain elements broke away to merge with the most advanced democratic and revolutionary currents (as has been noted), by far the preponderant section becan-e part of another type of political development. Ranadive portrays this lucidly, again in relation to Maharashtra:

With the passage of time and the growing grip of opportunism, the earlier form of anti-Brahman opposition becomes its real content.... The newv intelligentsia, nurtured among the non-B rahmans, the product of WesteP~n educaticen4, gzvvrs exact wseight acts as az bourgeois intelligentsia gives ulp the pConeer's unlcompr-omlising principles, merges

in.ide the Congress ... suppresses the people and keeps the castes in existence. This is a histoi.:cal latw. The intelligentsia springing, further. friom the most oppressed communities sooner or late accepts the frame- wourk of b)o,urgeois democracy, satis- fies itself with a general declaration of rq-Hts, leaving the masses in the lurch. (emphasis in original.)134 If these weaknesses and gaps could

he seen clearly in the phases of the development of the freedom movement until the early 1920s, they became much more pronounced after that -despite the fact that Gandhi and the new bourgeois leadership of the Congress marked a significant change from the old orthodox leadership.

The compromising character of the Congress leadership in the Madras Presidency could be seen in the con- fusion and vacillation over Council boycott and a series of tactical questions affecting the freedom struggle. It lay in the failure to adopt a meaningful programme of agrarian reform. The weakness was also sharply exposed in the approach to sensitive social demands. It is significant that a resoltu- tion moved at a meeting of the Madras Provincial Congress Committee in June 1920 by V 0 Chidambaram Pillai (re- nowned for his swadeshi activities earlier in the century), to the effect that the Congress should champion the demand for secuiring proportional representation for non-Brahmins in the public services and representative bodies in the presidency, was adopted most hesitantly and after being watered down substantially.1'8 The inability to face the problem frontally or place the isslle in clemocratic perspective became more and more emphasised duLring the next half decade. It took the form of reluffing repeated attempts by non- Birahmin sections within the Congress to have the issuie of proportional representation for their castes clinched; bypassing a move at a party committee meeting in April 1922 to set up a committee to investigate and recommend ways to bring abouit a better understanding and relationship between Brahmins and non-Brabmins; and developing a quarrel in November 1922 at a Congress meeting in Tiruppur (near Coimbatore) over a resolution to allow Nadars entry into the temple;.139

C Rajagopalachari, a prominent 'no- changer' and a close colleague of E V Ramasami's during this phase, appeared tc embody all the conservative and compromising traits of the bourgeois Congress leadership and came under grave suspicion specifically for clinging on to Brabmanical social hierarchicai institutions and values and for his trend of appointments to party posts.140 The gap between the forces represented

by Rajagopalachari and others (who had the firm support of Gandhi) and the tendencies championed by E V Ramasami within the freedom move- inent widened rapidly through the 1920s. The latter's militant activities in thle Vaikam protest against untouchability'41 - which earned for him the title of Vaikam Veera (Hero of Vaikam) frcm his admirers - had been far ahbad, in terms of significance as well as tactics, of the line worked out, in person, by Gandhi. And the difference was only too glaring on the issue of separate dining at a traditional school in Kallidaikuruchi in Tirunelveli district run on behalf of the Congress by WS Iyer, a former rivolutionary terrorist. The fact that as late as in January 1925 th e Congress leadership of the Presid- ency was vacillating and temporising on thi- issue of non-Brabmins being forced to eat apart from Brabmins, could not but be expected to embitter matters.142 The final break came in the Kancheepu- ram conference of the Tamil Nad Con- gress Committee in November 1925, after two resolutions moved by E V Ramasami recommending that the Con- gress should recognise the principle of commuLinal representation for non- Brabrins in public services and representative bodies were disallowed by the chairman.1'3

The conservative positions of Raja- gopalachari and his close associates on the question of Hindu social hierarchy, varnashramadharma, and quite expli- citly caste, and their frequently ex- pessed conviction that Vedanfic Hindu- isin was a guarantee *of social discipline, have been emphasised in Copley's research into Rajagopalachari's political career.144 The backward-looking attitude was expressed, decades later (in 1953), in the move to promote education according to traditional vocational back- ground. This drew a barrage of justified accusations that it was based on Brah- manical and high-caste prejudices against the masses of the lower castes and it triggered off an inner-party revolt to replace Rajagopalachari as Chief Minister.'45

Even more significantly, there is firm evidence today that E V Ramasami's highly subjective alienation from the freedom movement on account of differences with the top Congress leadership was provoked and fanned by a series of public positions adopted by Gandhi (especially during his visits to Madras) on social questions. For example, Irschick cites the instances of Gandhi telling a gathering in April 1921 that "in Madras I have not a shadow of doubt that Hinduism owes its all to the great traditions that the Brahmins have left for Hinduism.. , the Brahmins



have declared themselves and they ought to remain the custodians of the pturity of our life"; 146 reiteratinig i March 13925 that "if youi but follow Varnashrama Dharma in its spirit, we shall cease to he puiny individuals anL we shall walk in the fear of God";7 and clarifying (in the wake of criticism of his positions in the Tamil districts) in 1927 that, being a non-Brahmin himself, all that he wanted to emphasise was that "Varnashrama Dharma is not an unmitigated evil but. ... one of the foundations on which Hinduism is buiilt ..(and) defines man's mission on

earth".'48

By no means confined to words and actually converging with the highly provocative varnashramadhrama movement being conducted in Tamil Nadu, the conservative stance adopted by the provincial and national leadership of the Congress on sensitive social issues hears a heavy responsibility, indeed for the separation of Self-Respect activists fromn the freedom ranks.

1he lesson, therefore, is clear beyond dispuite in the light of historical data available on modern political development in Souith India. The compromising bourgeois leadership dared not champion the agrarian revolution and attack the basis of the old order and its institutions and values. It failed consistently to advocate democratic solutions to unite the masses and to work out tactics to promote their unfettered strtuggle to overthrow both the colonial structure and the old social order. It couild not unite all the democratic currents in society. Only the working class, guiided by Marxism-Leninism, couild do that. And, while the working class movement linked itself more and more assertively in the advanced phases of the freedom struggle, with various other dei-mocratic currents - including left tendlencies in the Congress as well as from the ranks of the non-Brabmin movement, the State people's progressive aspirations, anti-caste agitations, and the peasant movements - its advance has, to this day, not been rapid enough or on such a scale as to wrest the political initiative in the land of the Tamils from the organisations of the Dravidian movement.

Notes I The hypothesis of the Dravidian

movement as a political effect of the transformation of 'primordial sentiment' was put forward by Rolbert L Hardgrave, Jr, in "The D,ravidian Movement", Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1965; and variouis others have followed it up. The thesis of 'cultural nationalism' is basic to Eugene F Irschick's "Politics and Social CoIn- flict in South India: The Non-

Brahman Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916-1929", Oxford University Press, Bombay, 1969, and has been adventurously developed by Marguierite Ross Barnett in her detailed studclv, "The Poli- tics of Cultural Nationalism in South India", Princeton Universitv Press, Princenton, New Jersey, USA, 1976. For a detailed (and somewhat polemical) critique of Barnett's work, see N Ram, 'Pr e- history and hTistorv of the DMK', pp 59-91 in Social Scientist, Dec- ember 1977, No 65. S Vedaratnam, "A Plea for Under- standing: A Reolv to the Critics of the DTravidaan Proerassive Federation", Vanguard Publishinq House. KancheepuLram (undated, probably written in 1951), p 3.

3 S,ee Ytiri Krasin. 'Some Oniestions of the Metbodolocy of Political Thinking' in "Time, Space and Wl-itics Soviet Stuidies in the Political Sciences", Published bv Soci(77 Sciencees Toda,; Editorial Board, USSR Academv of Sci- ences. Moscow, 1977, especiallv no 40-45.

4 The maior academic stuidlies of the movement are. anart from the

stuidies hv Harderave, Irsehick and Tarnett mentio-ned ahrnve. Chri stopher Tohn Baker's "The Pnlities o f Sou1th Tndia, 1920- 1937'. V;kas P`iblisbing Houise. New Delhi. 1976: and a recent addition. Anita Die'hl's "Perivar , V Ramaqami A Studv of the Tnfluience of a Personality in Con- temporary Soluth India". B T Pib- lications New Delhi, 1978.

5 The stiudies bv Trschick and Barnetf are referred to here.

6 R nStlntbaralinnam, "Politics an(d and Nationalist Avakening in South Tndia, 1852-IR91", the Universitv of Ari7ons Press, Tue- son, Arizona, USA. 1974.

7 u.untharalingam, cited above, pre- face, n xiv.

8 Sep "A Contemporarv History of India", edcted bY V V Bialabulse0- ovieb: and A M Dvakov. TJSSR Acadlemv of Sciences. published l.v Peonle's Puiblishinq Hou se New Delhi, 1964. nn 1-15. The onaninc wZork of K Kailazanathv. head of the Denartment of Tarnil a t the Taffna University. Sri Lanka, mnicht be expected to throw com- pletelv new liebht on this area when it is puiblished.

.0 1Rarnett, cited above. 1 Barnett, cited above p 8. I1 1B T Ranadive makes this point in

1kis review article. 'Toward,s ani Understanding of the Non-Brab- man Movemnent', a critiouie of (G-ail Omvedt's studv, "Cultural Revolution in Colonial Society - The Non-Brabman Movement in Western India, 1873-19,30", Scien- tific Socialist Education Trust, B3ombay, 1976, in S9cial Scientist, March 1978, No 68, p 78.

12 R Temple, "Men and Events of My Time", London, 1882, cited l)y Suntharalingam p 7.

1.3 These are dealt with, unevenly and wvith differring emphases, in Suntharalingam, Irschick, Barnett,

and Baker (cited already); and also C J Baker and D A Wash- brook, "South India: Political instituitions and l'olitical Change, 1880-1940", Macmillan (India), Delhi, 1974. Washbrook's attack on naive, mega-caste-based models and iinterpretations of South Indian society quickly demolishes the abstract theoretical foundation on which academics like Barnett btiild their case. Mega-lables like 'Non-Brahmin', or even 'Vanniya Kula Kshatriya', did not represent the essence of social reality, although they were certainly derived from a complex soc,al reality. These lables were a(lopted f or specific purposes which can be understood in the cnritext of larger economic, social anti political conditions. Wash- brook and Baker criticise some of the superficialities and untested assumption inflicted on existing academic studies of South Indian society and political development, hut their own standpoint is basi- cally pro-imperialist and clirected towards covering up the connection between the comnlex political development of a historical epoch and the principal contradiction between British imperialism and the masses of the people Of India.

14 See Suntharalingam, pp 151-153. 15 Macdras Mail, August 21, 1878.

cited by Suntharalingam, p 152. 16 Madras Mail, August 5,1878, cited

by Suntharalingam, p 153. 17 AMadras Mail, September 5, 1878.

cited by Suntharalingam, p 153. 18 See analysis of "Hindu Revivalism

and the Age of Consent Bill Con- troversv" by Stuntharalingam, pp .288-337.

19 Trsehick, "Intellecttual Backgrouind of Tamnil Separ-atism", in stiudv citecl ahove, pp 275-.310.

20 IrTschick, p 279. 21 Ib`il. 22 Ibid. 9.3 Irschick, pp 279-280. 24 Jrschick, pp 280-281. 25 Irsehick, p 281. 26 K Srinivasa Raii, "The Crisis in

India", Madras, 1911, cited bv Jrschick p 41.

27 Suintharalingam p 320. 28 Suintharalingam, p 328. 29 Suntharalingam, p 334. 30 Srinivasa Rasi, cited in Irschick,

p 41. 31 Srinivasa Rau, cited in Irschick,

p 41. 32 C Sankarap} Nair, "Two Notable

Lectuires", ead C Krishnan, Cal'- cit, 1910, p 39, cited by Irsehick. p 42.

33 Cited by Irsehick, p 42. 34 Irsehick, p 42. 35 Madras Mail, September 23, 1916,

citedi bv Irschick, p 44. 36 New India, February 24, 1916,

cited by Irschick, pp 44-45. .3 7 Irschick, p 44. 38 The Hindu, September 17, 1917. .39 See Irschick, pp 44-52.7 40) Barnett, p 27. 41 Irschick, pp 12-19. 42 Irschick, pp 12-13. 43 Great Britain, Parliamrentary

Papers, Volume XXI, "Royal

AA1



Commission on the Public Ser- vices", Appendix Volume II, Minuites of Evidence relating to the Indian and Provincial Services takeni in Madras fronm januLary 8 to 17, 1913, cited by irsehick, pp 13-14.

44 GO 1123, October 23. 1917, Home (Miscellaneous), Orclinarlv Series. Government of Madras. cite(l l)v Irschick, nn 1.3-15.

45 GO 22, jantiary 21, 1919 Public. Ord;narv Series, Government of Madras, cited by Irschick, pp 18-19.

46 Ihid. 47 The hypothesis has been taken

over withont (liscussion from Loniisi Diinioiot, '"IIom(o Ilierarchi- cus: An Essav on the Caste Sy s- tem", University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. See Bar- nett, pp 28-29.

48 This is the essence of Barnett's arguminent in pp 3-84.

49 Dravidatn. qu-)ted in Irschick, p 51.

50 C N Annadturai, speech delivered at the reception accordled by the Justice T)artv in Madras on Apr il 20, 1967, in "Occasional Speeches of Anna" edited bY A K Moorthv and G Sankaran, Anna Publishing Ihouise, Thanfavur, 1975-76, pp 49-51.

51 Baker and Washbrook, cited earlier.

53, Baker, pp 32-33. 53 Baker, pp 26-27. 54 Baker, p 33. 55 Irsehick, p 48. 556 Irschick, p 51. 57 Trschick, p)p 61-62. 5 8 New India, December 22, 1977,

cited bv Irschick, p 68. 59 Madras Mail, October 21, 1918.

citedl bv Irschick, n 1.35. 6)0 Irschick, p 135. 61 Trschick, pp 137-138. 62 Trschick, p 150. 633 Irschick, pp 150-151. 64 Trschick, pT)p 151-152. 65 Trschick, p 158. r6 Trsclick, pp 159-170, 67 Trschick, p 178. 68 Trschick, np) 18(0-182. 69 D-avidan, September 19, 1921.

cited bv Irschick. n 183. 70 Justice, Februiar-v 13. 1922, cite(d

bv Irschick, p 183. 71 Verv little research has been

puib lishecl on this imDc)rtant experience of a major stru-ggle led by the first trade union in India, the Madras Labouir Union. For a sketchv account, see C Revri. "The Indian Trade Union Move- ment: An Outline Historv, 1880- 1947", Orient Lonsrman, New Delhi, pp 90-91: an(d for an uncritical disciissi-m of the issutes involved, Irschick, np 189-191.

72 Justice, Sentembrer 7, 1921, cite(d 1)y Irschick, p 190.

73 See opinion of L;onel Davidson, Hlonme Member of the Govern ment of Ma(dras, cite(d l)v Irs- chick, pp 190-191.

74 Q)uotedl in Irschick, p 192. 75 Irsehick, pp 192-1933. 76 Irsehick, p 258. 77 Irseh ick, pp 262-26.3. 78 Irschick, pp 313-317. 79 The Hindu4 (weekly edition), July

7, -1927, cited by; Irschbik, p 317.

8() JrSchick, p 320. 81 Irschick, p 341. SS Irschick, p 332. 83 Reu-o!t,. Jutne 23, 1929, cited by

Trschick, p 3.31. 84 R P Dutt, India Today, People's

Publishing Hcuse, Bombay, 1949, ? 30.3.

85 Tn this connec*ion. see B T Bana(live's criticism of Omvedt in the review article cited earlier, mp 89-91.

86 Rohert L Hardgrave, "The Na- dar-s of Tamiland: The Political Cuiltture of a Community in Change", Oxford Universitv Press, Bomhoav. 1969.

87 Hard(lrave, "Nadars", p 94. 9- H Ilardierave, p 106. 89 "Dis-iurbances in Maduira an(l

Tinnevelly", cited bv Hardgrave, "Nadars", pp 110-111.

9Q0 Hard(-,rave, "Nadars", n 111. 91 Hardgrave, "Nadars", pT 115-116. 92 Hardgrave, "Nadars" - p 118. 93 Hardgrave, "Nadars", n 131. 94 Hardgarave, "Nadars", n 132. 95 Har(d acrave, "Nadars", n 147. 96 Hardcrave, "Nadars", p 147. 97 Hardgrave, "Nadars", n 150. 98 Hardgrave, "Nadars". npo 150-151. 99 Hardgyrave, "Nadars" p 151.

100 Hardgrave, "Nadars", pp 174- 175.

101 Hardgrave, "Nadras", pp 184- 186.

102 Quoted by Anita Diehl, cited earlier, p 39.

103 Baker, cite(d earlier, p 83. 104 Baker, p 192. 105 Baker, p 192. 1 03 Baker, p 192. 107 Baker, p 192. 108 Baker, p 192. 109 Baker. pp 200-211. 110 The Hindu, Anril 7, juily 2, 3

and 7, and October 27, 1921: and K Balarl andayuthtam, "rica - Valkkai Varalarni", Madras, 1966, all cite(d by Baker, n 193.

111 B T Ranadive, cited earlier, pp 78-83.

112 See B T Ranadive p) 89. 113 Baker. p 193. This phase of

E V Ramasarni's nolftieal activit- requires to he researched in munch vreater detail than has been done in the academic stuidies cited here.

1 B A 'Raker. p 193. 11 5 Oiioted bv Barnett, -p 67-68. 116 See Balabuschevich and Dvakov,

ed. cited earlier. no 320-393. 117 Ibid. o 321. For more (letails,

see N C Bhocendranath, "Deve- lopmeTt of the Textil.e Incdustry ini Malras (Upto 19.50)", Univer- silv of Madras, 1957, pn 236- 953.

118 Balabiischevich and Dvakov, eci, o 326.

119 Pr akash Kar-at, 'Th e Peasant Movement in Malabar. 1934- 19.40', Social Scientist, Septem- her 1976, No 50.

120 B5alabulschevich and Dyakov, pp .389-.392.

121 Ibid, p 370.

122 For- an outstanding novel based on this revolutionary experience,

see Ni-ranjana, "The Stars Shine PBrightly", translated from the Kannada l)y Tejaswini Niranjana, People's Publishing House, New Delhi, 1.977. Also T V Kri- shoan, "Kerala's First Communist: Life of 'Sakhavu' Krishna Pillai", CPI publlcation, New Delhi, 1971, p) 88.

123 Balabuschevich and Dyakov, pp 391-392.

1 24 Commutnist and Kisan Sabha efforts to organise the agricultural labourers of eastern Thanjavur began seriouslv soon after the First Congress of the CPT held in Bombay in May 1943. The deci- s on to concentrate in this vanguard aerarian area in Tamil Nadi was followed un in a concrete way after the meeting of the Central Kisan Council at Bombay in Auigtust 1943. For a discus- sion of some the objective and ilibjective conditions promoting

the rise of p Kisan movement in this part of Tamil Nadu, see Saraswvathi Menon, 'Certain Fea- tures of the Historical Develop- ment of Thaniavur Kisan Move- ment: Internlay of Class and Caste Factors', published else- wvhere in this issue.

125 See The Hindu, February 2.3. 26, 27 and 28, 1946.

136 Barnett, pp 48-60. 197 Barnett, p 53. 128 See A R H Coplev, "The Politi-

cal Career of C Raiagopalachari, 1937-1954", Macmillan (India), Madras, 1978, pp 97-109.

19 Ibid. 1,0 Btairnett, p 65. 1I Barnett, p 66. 1.32 C N Annadliirai in Dratr;ida Nadu,

.Aurrust 1947, cited by Barnett, p 68.

19. Barnett, p 69. 1:.4 Barnett, p 69. 1.35 B T Rana(live, cited earlier,

np 85-86. 1 "I B T Ranadcive, p 88. 1i37 ibid. 1.3.8 Maldras Mail, june 26, 1920, cited

bv Irschick, p 267. 13N 'See Irschick, pn 267-268. 140 S; tamparanar, "Tamilar Talaivar",

fouirth edition, Erode. 1960, cited bv Trschick, p 268.

141 Irschick, )Tn 268-269: Barnett, p 36; and Baker, 'Leading up to Perivar: the Early Career of F V Ramasami Naicker', in "TL(ac1ership in South Asia", edited by B N Pandey, Vikas Publishing Houise. New Delhi, 1977, pp 513-514.

142 For- accotunts, see Trscbick, pp 269-271: and Baker, "Leading up to Perivar... " cited above, ppJ 515-516.

1413 Irschick, pp 271-272. 144 See esrnec'ally pn 29-.33 and pp

281-286 in Cooley, cited earlier. 145 Copley, pp 283-286. 146 Thie Hindu, April 11, 1921, cited

lv Irschick, p 337. 147 The Hinduz, March 23S, 1925, cited

by Irschick, p 337. 148 The Hindu (weekly ed), Septem-

ber 15, and October 277, 1927, cite l by Irschick, p 388.



Documents

Dravidian Movement in Its Pre-Independence Phases