Suchergebnisse

In this ethnographic account of Dalit politics in Tamil Nadu, the author discusses how caste considerations inform and underpin politics in the state. With its micro-empirical focus on the journey of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panthers Party) in Tamil Nadu, it also explores diverse dimensions of mobilisation and ways in which contentious politics alters political regimes.

Ashok. K. Pankaj and Ajit. K. Pankaj (eds.), Dalits, Subalternity and Social Change in India. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019, HB. pp xv + 207. £115.00.

In 1999, the largest Dalit movement organization in Tamil Nadu abandoned a decade-long boycott of elections and entered party politics as the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panther Party, VCK). The focus of this article will be on the processes of institutionalization both into political institutions and into socio-cultural ways of doing politics. It will chart both how the party has changed as a result of entering formal politics, and the ways in which it has managed to change the institutions it entered. Looking at institutionalization in this way problematizes the usual focus on a party's electoral success or failure and compels us to analyze their political performance within its specific context. I show how institutionalization in Tamil Nadu has taken particular forms which have some benefits for VCK supporters, while also creating a rift between the party and its core support.

Dalits (ex-untouchables) in Tamil Nadu, as in many other places of India, have historically resided in cheris or settlements set apart from the village or oor. Cheris often lack amenities like schools, ration shops, health centers or panchayat buildings and are set off the main road down poorly lit and surfaced roads, revealing the significance of space and the spatiality of social relations to the caste system. As Dalits in Tamil Nadu have mobilized politically, they have challenged the hierarchical nature of social space in the face of much backlash, seeking to create meaningful public spaces that are open to, and representative of, all castes. This article concerns the Dalit contestations over space and the wider ramifications of such struggles in the sociopolitical sphere, and argues that the process of democratization requires alterations to social and well as political spaces and institutions.

In the past decade, there have been an increasing number of academic articles on the dalit drum or parai. For the most part, they note the processes by which this once humiliating caste service has been re-symbolised as an art form and has become central to dalit struggles for liberation. In such articles, there is an easy assumption that the parai is an art that dalits can take pride in. In this article, I problematise such claims by pointing to dissenting voices and campaigns by people who claim that the celebration of the drum merely perpetuates degradation. This raises questions such as who speaks for a community, whether a symbol of oppression can truly become an icon of resistance and how marginalised communities can construct positive identities when their cultural memories and practices are inescapably associated with their subordination.