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CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
1. The Social Reform Movement: Early Years
2. The DMK and Social Change: 1967 to 1977
3. Social Welfare and MGR: 1977 to 1987
4. The Politics of Welfare: A Case Study of the Midday Meal Programme
5. The Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Programme: A Case Study
6. The AIADMK after MGR: Jayalalithaa and Welfare
7. Welfare as Politics: The Post-1996 Scenario
8. Freebies for Votes: 2006 to 2016
9. Looking at the Future
Notes Bibliography
About the Author
PREFACE
I WAS WITNESS TO FUNDAMENTAL CHANGES IN SOCIETAL structures that occurred in Tamil Nadu after 1967. As a student, I was witness to the movements against the forward communities and the revival of Tamil sentiment and Tamil pride, and later, as a part of the state administration, working closely with different political leaders, I saw ideology being translated into policies, programmes, and their delivery. I do not think such a change happened elsewhere in India. This is an attempt to chronicle what happened, and who made it happen, from the point of view of an insider. The Tamil Nadu archives, where I spent considerable time, are a treasure house of documents on the policies and programmes of the time. These offer insight into the reasons behind several of the policies, as well as how they were implemented.
The Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, where I have been a senior Research Fellow, has supported me enormously in this effort, and I am thankful to Mr Gopinath Pillai, Chairman, the former Director Dr Mitra and all my colleagues there for their encouragement.
I am grateful to Eva Raiber, an intern who worked with me three years ago, for looking up a number of studies on Tamil Nadu by Western scholars. It appeared as though there was a part that was missing—that of politics and administration, and also the expectations of the electorate that changed over the years. This is an attempt to fill that gap, through some examples. Vishali Sairam and Maria Tresa helped me out with several sources. Several of my ex-colleagues in administration were forthcoming with their experiences over this period, and that has enriched this narrative.
I am also grateful to the OUP team that worked on the book for their painstaking efforts.
Tamil Nadu is an example of empowering backward classes, and could well set an example for other states.
INTRODUCTION
DRAVIDIAN PARTIES HAVE BEEN IN POWER IN THE STATE OF Tamil Nadu for fifty years, beginning in 1967. In these fifty years, they have been responsible for changing the social structure of the state, and for implementing a large number of welfare programmes for the poor. In terms of economic performance, social indicators, as well as creating opportunities for the disadvantaged, Tamil Nadu sets an example for many other states. Scholars and policymakers alike have lauded the performance of several programmes, welfare-oriented as well as those that give opportunities to the disadvantaged. Academic literature has analysed the performance of the schemes, and the policies that drove these schemes. The welfare programmes have been strongly identified with the ideas and personalities of the state’s charismatic leaders— J. Jayalalithaa, MGR (Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran), and M. Karunanidhi—who have been at the helm of affairs in the state for most of these fifty years. Recent and forthcoming publications on Jayalalithaa, MGR, and Karunanidhi also shed light on the welfare policies of these Dravidian leaders. 1
The beginnings of Dravidian culture lie in the Social Reform Movement. It eventually morphed into a political movement that gained power and political support. As a person who lived through these changes, and was part of the government machinery at that time, it is interesting to reflect on the transition of the social reform and social justice demands from ideas to a political ideology, and on the administration’s role and involvement in enabling this. This book highlights the interaction between politics and the administration. It examines a few programmes to understand political motives, the eventual interpretation of these motives by the administration,
and whether the end result served the objectives of the political ideology and the administration. The ideology of the Social Reform Movement, which was adopted in governance by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and later by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), was to change the balance of social institutions and structures. The attempt was to create a society that was more reflective of the diversity of the Tamil population and to move away from the dominance of the forward communities. This was achieved through the adoption of welfare policies, programmes, and projects. Interestingly, the administration was soon part of this process of change—and in many cases, it even spearheaded these changes. In some cases, political ideology used the administration to achieve its ends, and in others the administration used the ideology to create programmes for the public good. Public pressure for services, which served to enhance the effectiveness of delivery, as well as deliver a political agenda to the people, accentuated this interesting interplay. The interplay between politics, the administration, and the people appears to be unique to Tamil Nadu in the sense that, in other states of India, there is no evidence of a distinct social ideology driving development during this period.
This book draws from archival material as well as personal interactions with several senior colleagues involved in the programmes. The narrative is personal, as several of the actors were close acquaintances. The approach adopted is to examine the political motivation behind every programme, contextualize it within the objectives of the government at that time, look at how the administrative machinery took up and implemented the programme, and finally comment on whether the end result served political ends, public needs, or both. It is seen that in several programmes, even though the origins may be purely political, the way they were implemented resulted in public welfare enhancement that served political ends along with ensuring that sustainable development initiatives were put in place. Such programmes have often survived several changes in governance, primarily because they enhanced public good. The motivations of the politician in charge at that time, those of the key people who implemented them, and the interactions between the two are examined to illustrate the interplay between the administration and politics, and to attempt to explain why these programmes have been successful in Tamil Nadu. Finally, there is clear
evidence that public awareness and public pressure have sustained several of these programmes.
I was both witness to and a participant in the changes in the social structure of the state, the enhanced access of the backward classes to higher education and to government jobs, and the evolution of several programmes focused on social welfare delivery. I came to Chennai in 1958, having completed my schooling in Kolkata (then Calcutta). Chennai and Tamil Nadu were not familiar territory for me at that time. Until 1965, all through my BSc and MSc, and two years of teaching Physics afterwards, I lived in a hostel in my college, the Madras Christian College. My hostel, St. Thomas Hall, had over 200 inmates, and all of us had single—albeit small—rooms. Early on, I came in contact with the political sentiment in the state at that time. Some of the students came from English-medium schools from urban spaces within India, there were others from Sri Lanka and Malaysia (Singapore became independent only in 1965), and a majority of students were from Tamil Nadu, of whom several had studied in Tamil-medium schools. Political discourse for this group was centred around E.V. Ramasamy Naicker (popularly known as EVR or Periyar), the Justice Party, and the young DMK. The discourse mainly revolved around opportunities for the backward classes, opposition to Hindi, and pride in the Tamil identity. EVR was more focused on social change in these years, and believed that political change would follow social change. Annadurai 2 differed on this, and broke away to form the DMK in 1949, as he wanted to achieve social change through political power. The DMK considered the Congress to be a representative of the old social order, and was politically in opposition to the Congress. EVR, however, felt that the Congress under K. Kamraj, the then chief minister, would advance the cause of social justice for the backward classes, and announced his support for the Congress in the 1957 elections. The DMK was a party opposed to the Congress’ ideology, and the 1957 elections saw the DMK and Periyar in opposite camps. 3 The Election Commission did not recognize DMK as an official party until 1962, but in 1957, the party won 13 seats through independent candidates. Karunanidhi won from Kulithalai, and when I came to Madras, his speeches in the Legislative Assembly, especially those espousing causes like those of the beedi workers in Nangavaram and of agricultural wage labourers, were part of the hostel discourse in my college. Surprisingly, there was much less empathy for left wing movements like
those witnessed in Kerala at that time. 4 Madras was full of Tamil sentiment, and there was opposition to Kula Kalvi Thittam, 5 which was considered to be an attempt to perpetuate the dominance of the upper classes, especially Brahmins. The Social Reform Movement of EVR, and the subsequent discourse leading to the formation of the DMK, had reached the youth in colleges and schools and there was a wave of sentiment wanting change in the existing social order.
DMK oratory, the film dialogues of Annadurai and Karunanidhi, and the movies of MGR were the undercurrent of debates in a college that was still run on staid and conservative Scottish discipline by the Principal, Rev Boyd, and later Rev McPhail.
In the 1962 elections, a number of my college mates and friends actively participated in electioneering for the DMK, and anti-Congress sentiments were already palpable. There was strong objection to Hindi, and my familiarity with that language was looked down upon. In 1963 and 1964, I had been elected Chairman of the College Union, and subsequently Secretary of the University Students’ Council and could see that these sentiments were common across all colleges in Madras state, 6 and students were fervently following the speeches and doctrines of the DMK. In my tenure with the University Students Council, I could also see the differences in the attitudes of students from some city colleges, who were more in tune with the earlier colonial and high-caste sentiments, and those of students from Madras Law College and Pachaiyappa’s College, representing the new social reality.
Then came the food shortages of 1964 and the anti-Hindi agitations of 1965, in which a large number of my friends and students from the Madras Law College participated, and it was evident from the point of view of the younger generation that the days of the Congress government in Madras were numbered.
I wrote the examinations for the IAS in 1964, as soon as I was eligible in age, and joined the service in 1965. After a year at the National Academy of Administration in Mussoorie under probation, I was posted in 1966 as Assistant Collector (Training) to Salem in Madras. It was in 1967, after the elections that swept the DMK into power, that I was given my first independent posting. Several of my college mates contested on DMK
tickets in the elections, and I could see the palpable change in the approach of the administration after 1967.
Over the next two decades, I was intimately involved in the happenings of the state at different levels, as Assistant Collector, Collector, Director of Rural Development, and Secretary In Charge of Rural Development Programmes, which gave me the opportunity to witness policy changes at close quarters. During the DMK regime that lasted from 1967 to 1976, I saw existing institutions being revamped and a new social structure being put in place through reservations for appointments and in higher education for the backward classes. The beginnings of welfare programmes for the poor, including subsidized rice at government outlets, assistance and pensions for the poor and the widowed, and other schemes laid the foundations for welfare programmes in future regimes. I witnessed the social justice agenda being slowly dominated by the upper strata of the backward classes (noted by several academics), 7 and the growth of corruption that eventually led to the dismissal of that government. The subsequent MGR regime that lasted until 1987 carried the social welfare programmes forward, and focused on nutrition and mid-day meals in schools as the instruments to reach the poor and the rural disadvantaged, and there is little doubt that there was a political motive behind these programmes. MGR had risen to power on a populist wave that was enhanced by the fact that he frequently played the role of a saviour of the poor in his films. The big growth in social welfare programmes targeted towards the poor in rural areas arose out of his genuine concern for the poor as well as the image he portrayed on screen.
The Jayalalithaa regime that followed, between 1991 and 1996, focused on the political advantages of the welfare programmes, and was less concerned with the Social Reform Movement ideology. Dilution in policy of the original Dravidian ideology was in evidence in this and subsequent regimes. Subsequent governments, which alternated between the DMK and the AIADMK, carried the concept of social welfare into the realm of granting freebies for election gains.
There is a lot of academic literature on Tamil Nadu for this period. There has been analysis of individual programmes, of their relevance and effectiveness, especially of the nutrition and the noon meal programmes. The midday meals programme was the brainchild of MGR, and involved the supply of hot cooked meals to all children between the ages of 2 and 15
years in the state. Such a massive feeding programme had not been tried earlier, and initial criticisms focused on the waste of resources. However, the discourse gradually changed over the years from the sharply critical to the cautiously laudatory. Other scholars have looked at ethnic mobilization as well as sub-cultures and their changing influence on policy and politics in this period. In later years, the pressures of the Most Backward Classes and the Dalits on governments for greater concessions and opportunities are also well documented. There are a large number of micro studies that look at disadvantaged groups and their struggle for political mobilization as well as asserting their claims to public services. There are comparisons with other states, which invariably highlight how Tamil Nadu has effectively implemented many social welfare programmes, in comparison to several other states.
From the point of view of one involved in administration and implementation, there appears to be one discourse that is missing. Between policy formulation and public claims for services, there is the realm of implementation and the role of institutions and hierarchies that convert ideas into action. The first decade of rule of the Dravidian parties involved significant changes in the social and administrative fabric, and it is relevant to look at how the administration coped with these changes. In the background is the hypothesis (supported by some academic literature) that there was politicization of the bureaucracy, and also that over time, the ideas of social justice of the political class were accepted and adopted by the administrative class, and this constitutes a major reason for the success of the programmes, and also for the administrative changes that followed. Efficiency in administration and programme delivery was always a strength of the Tamil Nadu structure; now that was turned towards achieving goals that were more oriented towards achieving social justice and social welfare.
Fifty years is a long time, and it is a period that has seen a large number of development initiatives, changes in policy and governments. In pursuing this hypothesis, the attempt has been to pick up those initiatives that have had significant impact, that is, the flagship interventions. Further, since the political ideology was based on social justice and social welfare, the choice of cases has been biased towards these, rather than industry, infrastructure, energy, or agriculture. The programmes discussed are those with significant government outlay and expenditure, and a substantial organizational structure. These are programmes that have been commented on by
academics, multilateral institutions, and the Government of India and, in several cases, used as models for other states. The study is biased towards specific successful programmes, only because it serves to illustrate the advantages of synergies among politics, administrative capability, and public pressure in achieving welfare goals. There is also an attempt to select programmes from different regimes—Karunanidhi, MGR, and Jayalalithaa, to illustrate the unity as well as diversity in policy and implementation.
The focus of the following chapters is detailed along these lines: at the forefront is the political objective of the programme, which is a reflection of the political ideology, the nature of leadership, as well as the pragmatic politics of that time. The Karunanidhi and the MGR governments were different, and an attempt is made to underscore the differences in approach and the causes thereof. Jayalalithaa set a different trend, which has been followed by successive governments, and the reaction of the bureaucracy to these changes is documented.
There has been an attempt at examination of the extant literature, as well as examination of government documents in the Tamil Nadu archives about the recorded origins of some of the programmes discussed here. There have been several interactions with senior officers in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) who served in these administrations, as well as other senior people in the know. The files also speak about the way in which the bureaucracy grasped the reins after the formulation of the policy, and the detail and manner in which it ensured execution. The motives for this involvement varied, from the nature of the people involved to a professional drive to perform. Two major programmes, the midday meals programme and the nutrition programme, are examined in detail, as they offer contrasts in ideological origins. One was driven by the chief minister, the other by the World Bank. Yet, at the implementation level, they finally converged on a political objective that was acceptable to politics and participants alike, and therein perhaps lies the uniqueness of Tamil Nadu. Discussions with senior officers involved in implementation have helped piece together a political economy narrative of development. Personal experiences over these years as a witness to such changes, especially from close quarters, on several programmes with anecdotal notes are also documented.
There were also other initiatives, like the public distribution system, separation of public health (with medical education being made a separate organization), and medical education, that were implemented over time and
over regimes, and have drawn approbation across the country. The origin and development of these somewhat apolitical programmes is also discussed briefly, to outline the success of the administrative capability of the administrative machinery in Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu was also developing rapidly on all fronts, and the story would not be complete without looking at information on improvements in standards of living, health, education, and infrastructure. Public awareness and participation was an important ingredient in the success as well as sustainability of these programmes, and there is discussion about how this participation gradually developed over the years, synchronizing with rising prosperity, literacy, prosperity, and urbanization.
The current state of politics and administration forms the concluding piece, arguing that the programmes today are but a deteriorated form of the earlier ones, administered by an ever more politicized bureaucracy. The changes in the motives for current policies are also commented on.
While the narrative is intended to inform the general reader, the author has referred to, among other sources, academic work done on these issues, which gives the content its depth. There are chapters where the narrative would be incomplete without reference to academic work done in these areas. There are others, where the narrative flows more from the examination of the decision-making process as found in government files, as well as discussions and interviews with colleagues.
Chapter 1 gives an overview of the Social Reform Movement and how the DMK evolved as a political party. There is reference to several academic studies in this chapter to contextualize the movement and its implications. The references are illustrative, not exhaustive. Chapter 2 is about the years of DMK rule between 1967 and 1977 and is an attempt to narrate how the social reform ideals of the party were converted into policy and implemented, bringing about a fundamental change in social structures of administration, education, and governance. It also explains the origins of the welfare programmes that became significant signposts of the policies of that and succeeding governments. The reference is to government files and decisions. Chapter 3 deals with the MGR years of 1977 to 1987 and the ascendancy of social welfare programmes in the policy agenda as well as the gradual reduction of the Dravidian agenda. During this period, there were two important programmes that were started, the midday meal programme and the Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Programme (TINP).
One was the chief minister’s initiative, the other, a World Bank initiative. The political agenda, administrative response, and public acceptance for these are discussed in Chapters 4 and 5 respectively. Though distinct in concept, they were merged into the social, administrative, and political agenda, and are presented as two distinct case studies. Chapter 6 deals with the first five years of the Jayalalithaa administration, from 1991 to 1996, and is a chapter where there is continuity as well as change—from a social welfare objective to a political one. I had left the state in 1992 and returned for a year during 1996–97, and after 1997 was continuously posted to the central government in Delhi. Though my remit in later years did involve periodic interactions with the state government, its bureaucracy, and ministers, I was no longer involved with the state administration. The narratives in Chapters 7 and 8 are based on information from government files and from secondary reports. Chapter 7 deals with the period 1996 to 2006 and Chapter 8 with 2006 to 2016, in an attempt to look at how governance and policies were slowly overwhelmed by the need to have freebies to give to the electorate. The last chapter, Chapter 9 , looks at politics in Tamil Nadu in 2017, and the road ahead for politics and governance. All through the narrative is an assessment of how the administration and bureaucracy adapted to the changing political expectations, and the extent to which they were successful in converting these policies into genuine welfare programmes. There is also mention of the aberrations and corruption that occurred during these periods. In the last chapter, there is an attempt to examine the revival of Tamil sentiment and also look at the policies and potential performance of the state in the years ahead. There is a distinct revival of caste sentiments, and of issues of Tamil identity. It is a function of developments in politics as well as economic development in the state. The implications of these developments appear to be significant for politics as well as development in the coming years. This work is a personal view of the social transformation of the state of Tamil Nadu, from the point of view of one who has lived through it. It is for everyone who has an interest in Tamil Nadu and other states, and in how programmes were implemented there. As it includes public policy and governance case studies, it would be of relevance to academics and policymakers alike. For the general reader, the narrative offers an insight into the people, the times, and the programmes. It is also intended to fill a gap in the academic literature that has so far largely ignored the role of
implementation. Youth today, growing up in the post-1967 world, may be interested in how these leaders proceeded to achieve their goals. Most importantly, for the younger generation, this would hold up a mirror to the society they live in, and explain how a transformation happened over the last fifty years.
1
THE SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENT
Early Years
THE DMK CAME TO POWER IN TAMIL NADU IN THE 1967 elections, ending decades of Congress rule. In the fifty years since then, Dravidian parties— either the DMK or the AIADMK—have been in power in the state, and have shaped the political, social, and economic agenda of the state. The changes in the social structure of the state and the development opportunities that have been offered to the backward classes in these two generations have created a social fabric that is quite distinct. It is important to understand the origins and growth of the Dravidian movement in the state, and its metamorphosis from a social justice platform to one focused on economic development and social welfare initiatives.
The origins of the Dravidian movement lay in the Self Respect Movement, which, in many ways, provided the social and political background that led to the growth of the Dravida Kazhagam (DK) and eventually, the DMK. The Dravidian movement had its origins in the struggle between the Brahmins, who were the first to benefit from English education in the southern states of India, especially in the Madras Presidency, and the non-Brahmins, who were later entrants to English education. The movement originated as a protest against the dominance of Brahmins in administration, education, and public services, and sought equal opportunities for all communities. In the British administration, the ruling class belonged mostly to the higher castes that had an interest in
protecting their own hegemony. Rich non-Brahmins served as traders and entrepreneurs. They even helped the English-speaking Brahmins get coveted administrative posts so that they could later make use of them for commercial purposes.
English education was more widespread in the south as compared to the presidencies of Bombay and Bengal, possibly due to the services of Christian missionaries. In 1852, Madras had 1,185 mission schools with around 38,000 students, while the Bombay and the Bengal presidencies together had only 472 mission schools, with around 18,000 students. Brahmins formed the majority of students educated in the Madras Presidency, even though they formed less than 3 per cent of the population. The Madras Brahmin was far ahead of his counterpart in the northern states. Between 1892 and 1904, out of 16 Indian Civil Service (ICS) 1 candidates selected, 15 were Brahmins. In the case of engineers, 21 of the 27 selected candidates were Brahmins. It was a similar picture among Deputy Collectors and even the lower rungs of revenue administration in the Madras Presidency. During the years of the freedom movement, the Congress party in the south, in its initial years, was keen on securing senior positions for Indians, which inevitably meant that Brahmins benefitted the most.
There were earlier movements in Tamil Nadu led by the upper castes that led to the abolition of the Devadasi system, suttee, and child marriages. Urban centres also witnessed movements for women’s rights. Muthulakshmi Reddy and Annie Besant were at the forefront of several social initiatives.
However, the most significant movement for social reform was a movement for self-respect among non-Brahmin communities, who felt alienated from the processes of administration and governance. It was a movement specifically against the Brahmins, who occupied positions far in excess of the numerical proportion they made up of the population. Brahmins dominated in all government jobs, the bar, the university, and the Government Secretariat. Their mastery over English was considered a passport to power, influence, and a means to profit. Brahmins domination was felt even in private business companies and mercantile houses. Most of the leading journalists were from the Brahmin community. They virtually controlled the High Court of Madras. 2 Sixty-seven per cent of those receiving baccalaureate degrees from Madras University were Brahmins.
Those who occupied the higher rungs of the non-Brahmin castes chafed at this hegemony and wanted the benefits of political and social positions for themselves as well. 3
The Madras Presidency was not unique in witnessing the growth of social reform movements. The early 1900s witnessed several social reform movements in the Indian subcontinent. The spread of Western education and English in schools carried with it ideas of egalitarianism, rationalism, and a scientific approach. Christian missionary schools questioned the ritualistic behaviour of traditional Indian society. Organizations like the Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj strove for a less ritualistic society, one in which the upper castes did not dominate. There was also apprehension that the colonial government in power was advocating social compartmentalization between religions and between classes in an attempt to divide Indian society, so that the freedom movement could be weakened.
The focus in Madras was somewhat different. Rather than reforming social and religious structures, the movement focused on the removal of the dominance of Brahmins in government. In this sense, the movement was very different from the rest of the country, where there was no such move against a single dominant class in a concerted manner.
The non-Brahmin movement advocated the allocation of government jobs according to the numerical strength of the communities, a vision that was immediately attractive to all non-Brahmins. In 1916, the Dravidian association that was formed claimed its purpose to be the establishment of a Dravidian state under the British Raj—a government by and for nonBrahmins. The South Indian Liberal Federation (SILF) became the Justice Party in 1917. In 1920, the first elections under the Montague-Chelmsford reforms saw the Justice Party being elected to power in the Madras Presidency. The Congress party had boycotted the elections in the wake of nationalist sentiment around the inadequacy of the Montague reforms in ushering in self-rule. The Justice Party at this time was supportive of colonial rule, and readily participated in the Madras Presidency elections. The Justice Party, while in power, ushered in a number of reforms that were part of its social reform agenda, including the introduction of a communal rotation roster for government jobs and reforms in temple administration. The party was supportive of British rule, and even its social reform agenda for non-Brahmins was limited to being within the existing structures. The members of the party were largely rich merchants, or from the landed
gentry and did not reflect common aspirations. These were the years of the freedom struggle, and the Justice Party soon lost its popularity on account of its implicit support of colonial rule. By 1925, it was looking at opportunities to reinvent itself.
According to N.K. Mangalamurugesan, 4 the genesis of the Self-Respect Movement and the ascendance of EVR in the political landscape of Tamil Nadu could be seen against the background of the increasing trend of Brahmins opposing any change in the caste system and existing customs. Specifically, he talks about the Vaikom Satyagraha (a movement against untouchability) and the Gurukulam controversy (when C. Rajagopalachari, Mahatma Gandhi, and other prominent leaders in the Congress advocated communal restrictions) amongst other movements.
EVR was part of the Congress and had tried, on several occasions, to raise the issue of communal rotation for posts. His final effort was at the Kanchipuram convention of the Congress in 1925. He was outmaneuvered. The Brahmin leaders’ unwillingness to agree to communal restrictions, and the lack of consensus among the non-Brahmin leaders eventually led to EVR leaving the Congress.
He then started the Self-Respect Movement (SRM) as a social protest against the Brahmins and it immediately attracted the support of the lower castes and classes, for they considered the Justice Party an elitist organization. For the Justice Party, anti-Brahminism was not anti-religion or anti-Hindu, while EVR’s movement was against the entire caste system and Hindu rituals. The leaders of this movement believed that the emergence of the Brahmins as a status group arose from the social, religious, and cultural values that prevailed in society. They felt it was important that these values be proven alien, degrading, and sectarian, and that there was a need to restore the status of the non-Brahmins. They considered the term nonBrahmin a misnomer, and wished to be called Dravidians, as inheritors of a tradition superior to that of Brahminism. Christoph Jaffrelot talks of the concept of ethnicization and Sanskritization in his work on South India. 5 According to him, the non-Brahmin movement was instrumental in engineering forms of caste fusion and it succeeded in endowing lower castes with an ethnic identity. Painting Dravidians as the original inhabitants of India resulted in the following:
• In Tamil country, the multilayered ideology of Dravidianism emerged out of opposition to Brahminism and Brahmin institutions of colonial rule and, in the hands of EVS, became associated with a vision of Dravidian and Shudra primacy against Aryan Brahminism.
• Dravidian politics developed into an inclusive Tamil nationalism, associating the Dravidian community with the non-Sanskritic Tamil language and cultural tradition.
Jaffrelot says that the ethnicization process was fostered by the British policy of compensatory discrimination based on the reservation of seats in the bureaucracy and the assemblies. According to him, the decision to grant statutory representation to different groups contributed to their crystallization into new categories that resented under-representation. He also feels that the British in Madras supported this movement explicitly as a counterbalance to the Brahmin-dominated Congress. The process of state engineering, therefore, went hand in hand with the invention of the Dravidian identity of the lower castes and each reinforced the other. This divide between the forward castes and the other castes remains strong in Tamil Nadu even today, even though all the forward castes together account for only around 5 per cent of the population. The British were also active in stoking the inter-party politics of the Congress, creating schisms among different groups.
Publication of the Kudi Arasu magazine started in 1925, and it could be considered to have initiated the spread of SRM ideology. The SRM was more interested in social freedom than in winning political independence, and wanted to achieve some form of social equality before the British left India. EVR believed that social reform should precede political reform. However, EVR did openly lobby for people to vote for the Justice Party. The government order prescribing a community-based rotation for filling vacancies in government posts was issued at this time, and effectively ended the monopoly of any single community on government jobs. Mangalamurugesan also addresses the widely held idea that the SRM evolved out of the Justice Party. In his view, it was only EVR’s anger towards the Congress that made him lean towards the Justice Party. Specifically, he talks of how the concept of social freedom can be traced back to the Congress itself. There were always two sections in the Congress —one consisting of higher caste members who emphasized political
freedom and the other consisting of members from the lower castes who argued for social freedom. It was the schism between the two groups that culminated in the formation of the Self-Respect Movement. The Justice Party at this time was a party that appealed to the landowning class, the middle and upper middle class merchant communities, and therefore represented the bourgeoisie and lacked popular support. The SRM directed its appeal mainly to the socially and economically weaker non-Brahmin communities.
Some important steps taken by ‘Self-Respecters’ were to drop caste appellations appended to their names, avoid caste symbols, encourage intercaste marriages, and other measures that championed social reform. They also argued for the removal of social restrictions that applied to women. Calling for sanctions against Hindu temples, which deprived Brahmins of their income and therefore their power in society was also one of the main focal points of the SRM.
Other significant ideas arose and gained ground around the same time as the inception of the SRM. The Tamil Purist Movement or Thani Tamil Iyakkam began as a movement to avoid loanwords from Sanskrit. The modern revival of the Tamil Purist Movement (also known as the Pure Tamil Movement) is attributed to Maraimalai Adigalar, who publicly pledged to defend pure Tamil in 1916. Kailasapathy talks about how, in many ways, literature was the base for Dravidian ideology. The influences of European writings on the Tamil Purist movement became the basis for the growth of a pure Tamil ideology. Specifically, ‘The enthusiasm and thrill with which the European savants presented the salient features of Tamil language, literature, antiquities and religion also instilled in these Tamil scholars a notion of uniqueness about their past glory that set them apart from other races and peoples of India, especially the Brahmin community.’ 6
The launching of the Purist movement coincided with the formation of the SILF (Justice Party). We see broad parallels between both. Both were started by non-Brahmin upper caste personalities drawing support from educated, wealthy, and pro-British personages. Kailasapathy also says that ‘they were never really popular movements and hidden within them were several contradictions’. 7 The Justice Party was superseded by the SelfRespect Movement, which in time gave rise to the DK and the DMK. The
Tamil Purist Movement on the other hand, was merged with the anti-Hindi protest movement and was later absorbed into DMK ideology.
Academics on the Origins of the Movement
There is a lot of literature on the Self-Respect Movement, its origins, development, as well as its leadership. While an exhaustive analysis may not fit into the current narrative, it is important to examine how the movement has been dealt with in the academic literature.
A.R. Venkatachalapathy’s work 8 on the movement attempts to understand the reasons for the success of the SRM within the context of the Saivite movement. The Saivite movement was an anti-Brahmin movement that argued for the superiority of the Vellala caste. S. Vedachalam Pillai, who changed his name to Maraimalai Adigalar, launched the Thani Tamil Iyakkam in 1916. He attempted to divest Tamil of Sanskrit words. He extolled the Vellalla community for introducing settled agriculture in Tamil Nadu, and argued that they were an indigenous Tamil caste superior to the Brahmins. A number of Tamil purist scholars belong to the Saivite movement—including V. Kanakasabhai, Nallusami Pillai, and Sundaram Pillai.
Venkatachalapathy attempts to juxtapose the success of the Dravidian movement with the sectarian interpretation of the ‘anti-Brahminism’ of the Saivites and the ‘anti-patriarchal’ content of the Self-Respect agenda. He attempts to differentiate between the Saivite interpretation of history and their anti-Brahmin ideologies, and considers how these differences are interpreted. In the Saivite conception of Tamil society, Saivites replaced the Brahmins, and their scriptures replaced the Vedas. Though caste remained, it was occupation-based with no stigma attached to it. He compares this to the Self-Respect Movement and its conception of an ancient Tamil society that was egalitarian and democratic. Neither religion nor caste existed, and perfect equality prevailed. In both cases, the disintegration of this ideal society was the result of Brahmin invasion into Tamil country. Another important factor that Venkatachalapathy attributes to the success of Dravidian movement is its ability to exclude religious texts, which in the Tamil context consisted mostly of Saivite works.
M.S.S. Pandian 9 discusses the Self-Respect Movement in detail in his work on the history of Dravidian ideology. In specific, he dwells on the
reasons why history favoured the Self-Respect Movement over Saivite ideology. He explains that the Saivite movement valorized the Saivite Vellalas and discursively dethroned the Brahmin, replacing him with the Vellala elite. EVR and the SRM criticized Saivism. In EVR’s view, Hinduism envisaged multiple levels of power relationships, and the Saivaite movement was inadequate in not recognizing this. During the period 1942–44, EVR’s opposition to the Tamil devotional literary works Kamba Ramayanam and Periya Puranam caused a break with Saivite Tamil scholars, who had joined the anti-Hindi agitations.
For EVR, self respect was something to fight for, and each group should fight for its self respect. He thus expanded the realm of politics to a range of oppressed groups. In his view, the ‘telos of history and rationality was interminable, continuously invalidating the past and disclosing newer avenues of freedom all through. Thus, there is no fixed goal—the search for freedom is an ever continuing one.’ 10 Also, EVR’s conception of disempowerment was qualitatively different and significantly more inclusive that of the earlier Dravidian ideology. Over a period of time, the Tamil Purist Movement waned in the face of the stronger SRM arguments.
In another related work, M.S.S. Pandian 11 critiques the Cambridge school of historiography. Christopher John Baker 12 of the Cambridge school of historiography, who is associated with the Endangered Language and Cultures Group, argues that movements which claimed to protect the minority were a common feature of the new politics of India in this period of councils, ministers, and electorates; and it was unusual, if not paradoxical, to find a movement which claimed to defend a majority that included up to 98 per cent of the population and almost all men of wealth and influence in local society. In this argument, caste identity becomes inconsequential, which Pandian refutes. He gives the example of the Dravidian movement as an example against this theory.
Jacob Pandian’s work on Tamil movement revolves around similar debates. He talks about how specific ancient symbols acquired meanings of social revolution and oppression, and how these symbols in turn came to symbolize Tamil nationalism. He says, ‘Tamil re-ethno genesis and reinvention of tradition of the late 19th and 20th centuries proclaimed the boundary between the “Dravidian south” and the “Aryan north,” and the Tamil literary tradition, once again, became the vehicle for the boundarymaintenance, which affirmed the distinctive linguistic-cultural heritage of
the Tamils, providing them with the Dravidian identity.’ 13 For example, he talks about the story of Kannagi written by Ilango Adigal in the third century AD. To Ilango Adigal, Kannagi’s life and acts constituted a metaphor for conceptualizing the spirituality of chaste women, and Tamil values, and of Tamil justice in particular. An important medium for the transmission of these symbols was cinema, which we shall discuss later.
In his work on caste and politics in Tamil Nadu, Hugo Gorringe talks of how the legacies of the non-Brahmin movement shaped Tamil politics. First was the institutionalization of communal or caste-based politics and the belief that social and ritual hierarchies could be challenged and renegotiated through political mobilization. The second legacy was the early institution of affirmative action programmes for backward castes and classes. Gorringe says the communal categories that were established were effective, and new organization forms were directed towards securing economic advancement, jobs, and special concessions.
Kalaiyarasan says that in Tamil Nadu, the village was ideologically seen as the site of oppression while urban space was seen was as liberated. EVR saw Gandhi’s ideas on village reconstruction as a political strategy to keep the masses within traditional caste-bound geographical spaces.
Changes in the SRM
According to Mangalamurugesan, a swift turn of events on the international scene had a tremendous impact on the thinking of Self-Respect leaders. In particular, the rise of communism influenced the SRM movement in significant ways. Between December 1931 and November 1932, EVR toured the UK, Europe, and the Soviet Union and was strongly influenced by communist ideals after this visit. The SRM became very active in spreading atheism and communism in the state. The spirit of the SelfRespect and Social Reform movements yielded place to socialism. When EVR returned from his visit to Russia, he chaired the famous general body meeting of the SRM at Erode. He envisaged the formation of two new wings in SRM—the first was the Self-Respect League, which would be a social reform wing, and the second was the Self-Respect Socialist Party which would put up candidates for elections in the provincial councils and local bodies.
