Tamil Nadu Politics and Bullfighting (Jallikattu)

This is one of the reflections I wrote on a 10-day school trip to Tamil Nadu in February, organized by University of Göttingen.

We traveled to Tamil Nadu during a very crucial time in its political history. The key figure of the Dravidian ruling party All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), Jayalalithaa, recently died. The party was founded on a charismatic leader and former film star, M. G. Ramachandran. He successfully projected “himself as a Hero, as the true Tamil man” in films and campaigns alike. During campaign seasons, many imitations and plays of him are enacted before meetings of AIADMK officials and voters. Jayalalithaa similarly used her charm and chaste feminine image to her electoral benefit. She survived many probes into allegations of corruption since 1996, and has expelled some members from the party to distance herself from the allegations.

Yet the issue of corruption continued to overshadow the consequent debates over political succession after her death. In early February of 2017, the AIADMK declared that Jayalalithaa’s close aide and confidante Sasikala Natarajan would become her successor. The other contender, who was the acting Chief Minister since October 2016, O Panneerselvam, resigned. However, Sasikala was convicted of corruption just prior to our group’s arrival in Tamil Nadu on February 14. She cannot hold public office for the next six years. Edappadi K Palaniswami, another politician from her faction in AIADMK, swore in as the Chief Minister on February 6. Since the change was very sudden, I saw a lot of advertisements in villages portraying Jayalalithaa posing with Sasikala. As of March during the writing of this report, the two factions of AIADMK are still battling over rules and regulations regarding campaigns, e.g., the right to use the party symbol of two leaves. The dust has yet to settle. Based on my understanding, Sasikala’s inability to govern was more due to her failures in the factional contest rather than corruption per se.

Intense action, with Police in Beige uniforms watching over the grounds. Photo taken by author

Overall I heard very little about the dramatic events within AIADMK from the people we had met over the ten day. We did not meet anyone through the excursion with explicit ties to the party. Thus the understanding of the factional split has been mostly based on news reports. However, the trip was filled with discussions and firsthand experience of politics of a different sort. For example, in a village of the Madurai district, we had the golden opportunity to witness traditional Tamil bull fighting (jallikattu) in action on February 17th. This event has a history of more than two thousand years and has been popularized through Tamil cinema. Personally, the brief glimpses of the village jallikattu had the largest participation of people in a grassroots event I have seen in my four visits in India. The air was also charged with exuberant energy. The policemen welcomed us to come to the fore and engaged in the event as spectators, waving at the bull with their lathis with excitement, while also maintaining order. Most attendees and spectators were men, with a handful of women peering behind the fences. It occurs every year during the harvest festival Pongal and the hero who tames the bull is often portrayed in cinema as a masculine hero and appealing to women. The trope of women falling in love with the bull tamer is as old as Tamil Sangam literature. While injuries are inevitable, participants and spectators alike consider taming the bull a matter of honor. While there usually are prizes for the successful tamers, more rewards of the social nature are also at stake.

Advertisement board for Jallikattu. 

Advertisement board for Jallikattu. Notice Ambedkar on the right side of the board. Photo taken by author

Jallikattu was never a static event. While at some points, most people involved were agricultural workers, other points in time landlords also vigorously engaged in the event as organizers. In an 1893 Tamil novel, the landlord skinned “alive his bull that lost in Jallikattu.” The event has recently reached the height of national political debate due to allegations of animal cruelty and threat to public safety. The use of bulls in this event was contested by the Ministry of Environment and Forests in 2010 but still practiced under the Tamil Nadu Regulation of Jallikattu Act No 27 of 2009. In 2014, India’s Supreme Court struck down the state law and banned it. Many people of Tamil Nadu saw it as an affront on Tamil identity and protested the ban in 2016 and 2017. In addition to Tamil nationalism, anti-Modi sentiment was high but underreported by the media. Most protestors were young people—“students, IT professionals, and activists—many of whom, as residents of urban areas, did not regularly witness or participate in Jallikattu.” Prof. Ayyathurai also pointed out during a discussion that he did not witness Jallikattu in action when he lived in his hometown of central Tamil Nadu. This point is interesting in analyzing the construction of Tamil identity through media rather than mere praxis.

Spectators leaving the grounds. Photo taken by author

Spectators. Photo taken by author

Caste is also a point of contention—certain Dalits find the activity to reinforce caste hegemonies. The village jallikattu we witnessed starred the lower-caste group Thevar, who are dominant. They were the one of the major benefitting social groups of the politically foundational anti-Brahmin Self Respect movement. They are considered to favor the AIADMK party and vice versa. In addition to intense conflicts between Thevars and Pallars (a particular Dalit group) since the 1990s, social pressure also plays out in the form of a ban on Dalits from participating in jallikattu. “Dalits are often forced to do markedly less glamorous jobs like playing the melam (a percussion instrument) to set the tone, and take care of the bulls” during jallikattu and are not paid for it. Women are also rarely the center of this sport. Writer Uma Devi, whom we also met during the last event of our trip, pointed that she cannot fathom that the overtly macho sport should represent Tamil culture. Scholar G. A. Aloysius similarly points out that there are many forms of social dominance in his analysis of caste.

Still, the spectacle has interesting connotations for Dalit assertion as well, once have the opportunity to participate. Many Dalit scholars engage in interpreting bull fighting, including some of our trip guides at the Madurai University. As histories of Hinduism shows, one cannot ignore that ownership of rituals is contested and Dalits have the potential to (re)claim certain events. One news narrative that relegates all Dalits who identify as Hindus or participate in Hindu rituals to be pawns of Hindutva significantly neglects Dalit agency.

On a broader point, University of Göttingen’s anthropologist Nate Roberts has argued in a book review that Tamil identity allows for lower caste organization. “In the historical context of modern Tamil Nadu, ‘Tamil’ refers not merely to a particular linguistic identity, but equally to the universal progressive values—anti-caste, feminist, pro-poor, democratic, and humanist—that Dravidian leaders, following the lead of early Dalit leader Iyothee Thass, sought to characterize as inherent to Tamil Nadu’s authentic (pre-Aryan) culture.” Jallikattu could be a key part to this overarching ongoing research on Tamil identity and caste politics.

Bibliography

Alyosius, G.A. 2010. The Brahminical Inscribed In Body Politic. 1st ed. New Delhi: Critical Quest. 38.

Wit, Joop W. de. 1996. Poverty, Policy And Politics In Madras Slums. 1st ed. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications. 70.

M, Rahul. 2017. "Mimecraft: Tamil Nadu’S MGR". The Caravan. http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/mimecraft-tamil-nadus-mgr.

"Tamil Nadu Jayalalitha Successor 'Forced To Quit' - BBC News". 2017. BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38903568.

"Sasikala: Conviction Ends Jayalalitha Aide's Chief Minister Bid - BBC News". 2017. BBC News. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-38965726.

"Edappadi Palaniswami Sworn In As Tamil Nadu Chief Minister". 2017. The Hindu Business Line. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/tn-governor-to-meet-edappadi-palaniswami-in-raj-bhavan/article9546308.ece.

 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/symbol-row-ec-summons-sasikala-ops-factions-for-meet-on-mar-22/articleshow/57699193.cms

 Sudhir, TS. 2017. "Jallikattu Protests Are Really About Tamil Masculinity, Not Tradition Or Preservation Of Bull Species". Firstpost. http://www.firstpost.com/india/jallikattu-protests-are-really-about-tamil-masculinity-not-tradition-or-preservation-of-bull-species-3211184.html.

Ray, Anulekha. 2017. "Jallikattu Cheat Sheet: 10 Things You Should Know About The Bull-Taming Sport". The Economic Times. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/jallikattu-cheat-sheet-10-things-you-should-know-about-the-bull-taming-sport/articleshow/56664079.cms.

Sebastian, Shawn. 2017. "How The Jallikattu Protests Became An Expression Of Tamil Anger Against Modi And The Centre". The Caravan. http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/jallikattu-tamil-anger-modi-centre.

Muralidharan, Kavitha. 2017. "Inside The Macho, Divisive World Of Tamil Nadu’s Bull-Taming Sport Jallikattu". Hindustan Times. http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/inside-the-macho-divisive-world-of-tamil-nadu-s-bull-taming-sport-jallikattu/story-HyPVBni8jupH0Faagn6oTI.html.

Ravishankar, Sandhya. 2017. "Why Caste Is As Important To Tamil Nadu Politics As Amma Vs Karunanidhi". Scroll.In. https://scroll.in/article/804885/why-caste-is-as-important-to-tamil-nadu-politics-as-amma-vs-karunanidhi.

Kolappan, B., and B. Aravind Kumar. 2017. "Caste, A Fault Line Of AIADMK Politics Now". The Hindu. http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/Caste-a-fault-line-of-AIADMK-politics-now/article16782742.ece.

 Karthikeyan, D., and Hugo Gorringe. 2017. "Anti-Caste Politics And The Tamil Nadu Elections: A Lost Opportunity To Deepen Democracy - The Wire". The Wire. https://thewire.in/38255/anti-caste-politics-and-the-tamil-nadu-elections-a-lost-opportunity-to-deepen-democracy/.

"Row Between Dalits, Upper Caste Hindus Over Temple Ritual; Nagapattinam Festival Suspended". 2017. The Indian Express. http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/row-between-dalits-upper-caste-hindus-over-temple-ritual-nagapattinam-festival-suspended-2946474/.

Roberts, Nathaniel. 2010. "Language, Violence, And The State: Writing Tamil Dalits". South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal. http://samaj.revues.org/index2952.html.

Vipassana Meditation Part III: The Obstacles

Before we left the meditation center, our teacher Vijaya told us that we should practice at least half an hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon. Another former student, a middle aged Indian uncle, chimed in and said at least one hour is necessary to keep up the practice. He came to a meditation retreat a long while ago and stopped altogether. Coming back to it was very difficult for him. At that time I was excited to come back to the real world and share my experiences; I was not so hung up on the advice because I knew once everyone leaves the place, challenges will occur and excuses not to meditate would come by easily. Challenges to the practice already existed inside the well-organized albeit temporary meditation center.

I constantly wanted to write during my meditation hours. I managed to sneak and write a few short notes when I could not hold back, although it was against the rules. I also got bored sometimes even when the electric tingling experience was "happening." Instead, I would reminisce the films I watched before. Italian classic Cinema Paradiso was particularly vivid and when the explosion of the cinema happened in my head, the tingling also intensified surreptitiously. A fellow meditator exclaimed on the last day that she also had replays of Sesame Street songs or unpleasant film scenes.

I recounted these experiences to a friend of mine, a Chinese monk. He also knew before that people's memory becomes extremely sharp during meditation, even in traditions other than Vipassana. He recounted an urban legend: a guy who used to be a butcher terminated his trade and followed the Buddhist path. During a silent group meditation sitting in a temple, he shouted "Ahh!!" Everyone looked at him. Apparently, he remembered how someone short-changed him in exchange for the pork he sold a long time ago. I could definitely relate to these aha moments, although luckily none of my memories were as regretful (e.g., "I should have caught that person who short changed me!"). I also have similar issues nowadays while practicing at home. 

Aside from the neuro-challenges during meditation, one long term obstacle to the practice has been the cultural baggage. I don't want to be seen as someone "looking for a trip," in the words of Goenka, but then to be "committed" to yoga, meditation and/or some other practic has also been tough. Although no one has ever criticized me for testing the waters, I project these judgments at times. Goenka's reassurance has helped settle down some of that baggage.

JNU at dusk, usually the time when people come out to exercise

Politics has also come into the list of challenges to meditation. When I exchanged in JNU, Delhi, the dominant attitude among the Left was to frown down upon certain activities related to the Hindu pantheon. Yoga day was recently introduced by the Modi government and that would obviously be taken up as an issue, since many of the minorities who don't want to bow to the sun. I would sometimes see a person meditating by the tracks under the tree. I wondered when I would ever have the confidence to do that in public. The politics veered towards an automatic, reflexive bent--when the Paris attacks happened, I would overhear a person in JNU my age explaining to his parents (who were strolling with him) about the hypocrisy of the Western world--"no one mourned for [x country] when [y number] of people died!" I was emboldened when I heard it at first, since it reflected my views as well. But sometimes this attitude could become a dogma as well, especially in regards to spirituality. Anything with an "om" becomes the agenda of the Hindutva or Brahminical. My friend Amit, who meditates, also agreed with me on this point. He thought that more JNU students could benefit from meditation. In other words, we all have the obstacles we created on an intellectual level.

One of the rare Hindu events on campus that I attended--Kali Puja

On the other hand, one can also see how meditation can be difficult in a casteist society even if the programs are offered free of cost to all participants (They are sponsored by previous students' donations). When asked by Linda about caste and Buddhism, I said that if one is used to being an outcast, it would be very difficult for him or her on a psychological level to even enter a space that offered Vipassana in India. But that I have yet to corroborate with research. Someone should research on the challenges posed by caste on the Vipassana revival in India! 


Paradoxically, I gained the courage and motivation to treat meditation seriously at JNU, even when I didn't pick up the practice then. My friends here, such as Yogesh, were committed to social issues but also incorporated meditation in their lives. Yogesh would often suggest that I meditate as a way to concentrate on my studies and offered rewards, as if I was in his class as a student. He was a good mentor during difficult times. Alas, other cravings were stronger at the time. Still, I managed to meditate again despite the challenges. I could even say that the challenges helped me look inward: I was in the happiest and liveliest place in India, yet suffering was still all around. Turning inward was indeed an answer, even months after I had left.

Two Talks: Bihar Elections, Caste-Based Affirmative Action

Intellectual life at Jawaharlal Nehru University is on fire. One usually never needs to venture off campus to get food for thought. After submitting three tutorials and a rough draft of two thousand words, I had some breathing space to attend many talks this past week. Four of them were especially interesting and I will reproduce some of the points below of the two which are most related: Bihar elections and Affirmative Action in India. Another post on informal labor and feminist organizing in India will follow soon after. Please note that I did not use a recording device and sometimes left early. This blog post is my takeaway of the talks. Readers can always find the people's original works to follow up on their opinions.

Public meeting at a mess in JNU, Prof. AK Ramakrishnan (the content of that meeting is not discussed in this post)

I went to a panel discussion on Bihar politics. I have also been drawn to this issue because two friends from Bihar, Abhay and Kishlay, are politically conscious youths from Bihar and have been closely following the events. I was puzzled by the extent to which politicians with constituents outside of Bihar even had to make the decision whether or not to enter the state election campaign. One friend said that the elections in Bihar had a coattail effect, akin to that of the president elections in the U.S. 
In acknowledging of this influence, The moderator / chair Prof. Manindranath Thakur said quite aptly that nowadays, most scholars now look to Bihar to understand Indian electoral politics. There are roughly four stages of Bihar politics, from 1952-1967, the Congress Party dominated the scene. From 1967 to 1972, the Congress Party was still central but had to form coalition governments with other parties. From 1972 to 1990, Congress Party had a comeback wile the chief minister changed with a volatile trend. Since 1990 to now, Bihar politics has been dominated by OBC activism by folksy and later corrupt politician Lalu Prasad Yadav and his party Janata Dal, later RJD. Before 1995 there were no special Dalit booths and afterwards their voter turnout increased significantly. Initially Lalu and Nitish Kumar started in politics together, then they split for decades with Nitesh heading the Janata Dal-United (JDU). Now BJP poses a larger threat in the region for this coming election and Nitish Kumar and Lalu have joined arms again against BJP and its NDA coalition. 

Among the four panelists, political analyst Ajit Kumar Jha gave one of the most forthright opinion on the matter. Unlike the elections in 1995, when only 1 survey poll was done by him and Yogendra Yadav, this year there have been around 10 survey polls. Only 3 of the 10 polls indicated that they favored the other parties over BJP. Thus Mr. Jha does not think the secular bloc can stop Modi, not because Modi is strong but because the previous government has bankrupted many constituents' goodwill. Mr. Jha sees Nitish Kumar frantically copying the styles of Narendra Modi's campaign, such as spending large sums on campaigning. Nitish has also built large museums like Modi, while Mr. Jha thinks it would have been better spent on infrastructure for his campaign. But Nitish has not established a successful campaign equivalent to Modia's Smart City for the village-dominated Bihar. Agriculture performance has been dismal and thus constitutes little leverage. Furthermore, according to his poll stats, more and more Dalits and upper castes are voting for the BJP. 

More reading

"Bihar politics is like Game of Thrones. There are no ideologies, no principles and certainly no ethics. Its pure politics, unadulterated and unsparing to the weak."

Caste politics: Why the Bihar election is tragic, regardless of the outcome. 

Ruled or Misruled: Story and Destiny of Bihar

by Santosh Singh

"Ruled or Misruled offers a 360 degree journey of Bihar politics since Independence, especially since the Congress’ downfall in 1990. An out and out reporter’s book, tells an interesting and tumultuous journey of the post-1990 legends of Bihar politics - Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi with the legendary clash between Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi - with the untold version on the 2010 dinner cancellation and Nitish’s ambition, providing the third angle."

So how does the panel relate to the second talk I went to? Caste reservations and caste identity politics, such as the one we see in Bihar, go hand in hand. Many elites and middle class believe that caste politics have ruined Bihar. They often conflate the loud and seemingly rough politicians with the policies, and charge at caste reservations as ways of currying favor. But Professor Ashwini Deshpande's talk on affirmative action in India gives a nuanced and contextual study of Scheduled Castes and Other Backward caste reservations to debunk many of the myths held by the mainstream. In her words, "Everyone has an opinion [about Affirmative Action] but there are few rigorous studies."

Here is a breakdown of the several arguments she responds to and counters.

Common Argument 1: The benefits don't reach the poorest of the poor. 

Yes, that's true. But Affirmative Action is not an anti-poverty program, it only aims for public sector jobs and colleges. To get there they are already the privileged within their backward caste. It won't solve all caste inequalities, but Affirmative Action desegregates the elite and that is a huge development.

Common Argument 2: Job efficiency lowers after introducing Affirmative Action

Her study with Weisskopff of University of Michigan Does Affirmative Action Affect Productivity in the Indian Railways proves otherwise.

Common Argument 3: If lower castes do not get in with the same merit, their confidence decreases while their sense of inferiority increases.

The Shape of the River is a book about African Americans who were accepted in elite universities (Princeton and Ann Arbor); they said despite initial difficulties, it was worth it. Many college graduates reflected that they would go again even if they knew ahead of time about the humiliation they had to face.

Common Argument 4: The clustering effects bring the more privileged backward castes the benefits and positions, while replacing the economically poor upper castes. It's a regressive policy.

Empirical studies on the Indian case (Bertrand et al 2010) showed that in an engineering exam, the Dalits who got in the school were significantly better off than the other Dalits who didn't get in, while the upper castes who didn't get in sought other opportunities and were not so different than the upper caste students who enrolled. Thus the policy is not regressive.

Common Argument 5: Affirmative Action reinforces caste divisions rather than weaken them, such as the Patel agitation.

After the Right to Education Act, there have been reservations based on economic class as well. But the elites continue to complain. In Deshpande's opinion, having to share privilege is the main problem for these elites. 

One important point she made was that many discussions of caste reservations pertain only to the lower caste. The people under general category sounds like they don't have castes, while they do indeed benefit for being Brahmins or Kshatryias. 

I am very heartened to see defenders of progressive policies such as Prof. Deshpande. The same arguments are made by Chinese in the mainland against minorities as well as recent Chinese immigrants in countries that have even more progressive Affirmative Action policies. I hope that there would be more studies similar to Deshpande's angle done on minorities in mainland China as well.

More Reading:

Her book Affirmative Action in India. OUP, Oxford India Short Introductions series, 2013.

Race and Gender in Music

What is the boundary of a tradition or genre? Music grants creative license, and market forces are increasingly determining the success of musicians rather than politics expressed in the music. This creates problems such as cultural appropriation, and the clear solution is not yet to be found. Jazz started as a music genre that expressed black suffering and the African American experience. Nowadays it is often associated with upper-class taste and elevator music. Yet one also finds it hard to call for a purge in all elements that are inauthentic.
The politics of culture remains an important issue for the Indian diaspora in the Caribbeans, as Tejaswani Niranjana shows in her book Mobilizing India: Women, Music, and Migration between India and Trinidad. The diaspora faces the anxiety of trying to prove they are also adherents of “Indian culture,” which dangers on feeding into Orientalist interpretations of hierarchies of authenticity. Some migrants from India have treated caste as a personal ascription and adopted the styles of conduct to appear as a twice-born. Due to the disproportionate ratio of male to female migrants, caste endogamy to the extent of “back home” was almost impossible. This trend has led to people like controversial writer V.S. Naipaul to think of the diaspora in the Caribbean as “mimic men” and have not “produced anything.” Some of them have thus tried to show their continuance of (Hindu) tradition at home and racial similarity and create exclusionist cultural projects. The left in Trinidad thus faces problems of race, where colonialists and racial purists on both sides tried to maintain an antagonist position toward each other’s interests, despite working class similarities.

Derek Walcott responded in a momentous Nobel Prize speech that the Caribbean has always been looked in a way that it is "illegitimate, rootless, mongrelized." It stems from an expansionist idea that the Caribbeans across the ocean “is new, this is the frontier, the boundary of endeavor, and henceforth everything can only be mimicry.”[Women, Music, and Migration between India and Trinidad. 37.] Yet there is undue appreciation to the innovative uses of the mix in chutney-soca, with Trinidadian English as well as Bhojpuri Hindi being featured in explicit songs. In ways chutney-soca songs are more authentic, organic, and egalitarian than some other "traditional" Indian songs. As Walcott eloquently asked, why are these practices "not 'celebrations of a real presence'? Why should India be 'lost' when none of these villagers ever really knew it, and why not 'continuing'?"

Soca music events allows for many working class women to participate in festive cultural expression, even while incurring wrath from conservative commentators. There are many suggestive lyrics, such as those sung by the famous Drupatee, which have suffered the ignominy of vulgar or obscene. Others stated that "no Indian woman has any right to sing calypso."[Ibid. 112-3.] Racial purity, like caste purity, relies heavily on the circumscription of actions of a community’s women. Hindu opinions in Trinidad has are parallels with Confucian projects in China, such as the House of Female Virtue (女德馆) in which claims to tradition and cultural authenticity threaten female self-respect, freedom, and mobility. The question of gender is under-explored in the quest for authenticity. Trinidad provides a great ground for research since it carries many intersectional questions. Tejaswani Niranjana’s book is a great analysis for the politics of class, race and culture.

Fore more: see documentary on Calypso-Soca music, Jahaji Music

Inequality in the Business of Surrogacy

Carvings of men and women on Jagdish Temple, Udaipur. Photo credits: Adrian

Last month, Dr. Sheela Saravanan gave an excellent colloquium talk based on her research of commercial surrogacy in Gujarat. She highlighted the economic and legal inequality in these transactions. For example, Indian surrogates are not even given the copy of the contract and have little knowledge of the legal guidelines, while US surrogates have a choice over closed or open contract and choose the closeness of the ongoing relationship between her and the intended parents. The participants of the colloquium asked great questions, such as the role of doctors. Doctors have a lot of power to conduct this business and there seemed to be minimal regulation; there is still no authoritative data on the number of surrogate births in India. A Mumbai doctor in the business once even replied to Saravanan’s persistent questioning, “We are doing a favor for the mothers.” Another question asked the caste background of the surrogate mothers. One of the clinics Saravanan researched had a book of surrogate profiles for the intended parents to browse. In that book, most of the intended parents ask about religion and usually wanted mothers to be of the same religion. Furthermore, if the surrogate mother was a Brahmin, then she could receive more money. If one is better looking then one would also have higher chances of being chosen from the book. Yet this process does not occur in the reverse: the surrogate would not choose the parents or sometimes not even the number of fetuses inserted in her body.

Inequality between the global north and south pervades medical tourism. Indian film Ship of Theseus poses bioethics questions in one of the segment where an illegal organ trader poached a poor Indian man one of his kidneys. The organ trader provided it to man who needed a new kidney in Europe who knew nothing about the source. Later two Indian good Samaritans traced down the European man and questioned him about this problem. The European man coughs up more money for the man who lost a kidney, yet one of the Indians saw this act as an easy way for the European man to buy out of his guilt. The segment ends with the good Samaritans bringing the Indian man the money but still feeling ambivalent regarding the nature of the trade. Surrogates who sign up for money in the global south also are susceptible to deceit. The 10-minute documentary Mothers Anonymous shows that surrogates who give birth to twins or triplets may not always receive the promised compensation and have few legal channels of dispute. Saravanan noted in her paper on surrogacy that “Asymmetries of individual capacity (knowledge, contacts and financial capability) lead to trust amongst actors. This trusting process results in experiences that can either be positive or potentially exploitative.”

But the starkest aspect related to surrogacy among the many forms of medical tourism is the gender aspect. Many kinds of medical tourism arguably can become more transparent and legally regulated for both parties, but the gender issue of surrogacy will still remain a stickler: the social contract has been conveniently neutralizing patriarchy in legalese, and the same may happen to surrogacy. Sarvanan writes,

In her book, The Social Contract, Carole Pateman critiques the social contract theory and asserts that patriarchal control prevails in the marriage contract, the prostitution contract, and the contract for surrogate motherhood. She claims surrogacy contracts are the means by which women’s reproductive capacities are dominated and patriarchy is upheld. In Feminist Morality, Virginia Held regards the social contract theory as inadequate in representing children and women and in capturing the meaningful moral relationship between people.

Surrogates may read, understand and sign a surrogacy contract, but the contract would not signify the same amount of shame and guilt as for a person to read, understand and sign a contract for trading in his or her kidney. Cultural baggage is attached to surrogacy in the South Asian context. While some think that being a surrogate mother is fine for money in an otherwise a conservative society, with patriarchy in mind, I still found it hard to believe that women can ever pursue this chance in the open: understandably many work in collaboration with their husbands and immediate family to keep this as a secret. Another gender question: how does surrogacy threaten the social understanding and definition of motherhood? The surrogate mothers in the documentary feel emotion attachment to the babies, even though they are not genetically related. (In contrast, the popular trope regarding men is that they expect their offspring to be genetically “theirs.”) Women around the world face critiques that they are selling their wombs, which should somehow be regarded as a sanctified zone. Motherhood seems to mean legal ownership of the child, but in the case of surrogacy without the same amount of effort, which is so often labeled as “sacrifice.” The intended parent also may not experience the typical birth defining motherhood but still expects to enjoy all the experiences with “her” child thereafter.

Many surrogates rationalize their decision by citing their economic needs and contribution to family income, as seen in the documentary. This attitude poses is a stark contrast with another group of women who also earn money for their family in Pakistan. Zehran Yasmin Zaidi’s Chaddors and Pink Collars in Pakistan: Gender, Work, and the Global Economy shows in one chapter that oftentimes women can

participate in non-traditional employment outside of home, but requires women to observe cultural norms in non-work related matters. The dynamics of this process can be understood by examining how class and gender operate in Pakistan. Many women workers who were interviewed by the author came from working-class backgrounds, yet made contradictory claims about working out of choice rather than economic necessity.

But in both cases, women earn approval through bringing financial gains to the family despite the acts are against previous convention.

Unfortunately there was not a lot of anthropological data on the gender questions: who makes the decision to become surrogates in the family and what are the different opinions of the informed participants (e.g. Fathers, mothers, in-laws)? How does gender relations impact the surrogates’ economic “rationality?” The intentions are very elusive, compounded with layers of ethics and gender politics. I speculate that it is possible that both sides who are participating in this transaction would not even approve of this kind of deal when asked in a polling exercise.

Dalit Activism in Colonial South India: Pandit Iyothee Thass

I have finally written a paper on Pandit Iyothee Thass that is the precursor of Dalit activist B. R. Ambedkar. The legacy of these two men is also commemorated in my blog title--"Educate, Agitate, Organize." Footnotes have been simplified for the readability of this post. I will include a link formally cited version once I have converted the document into a pdf.

Political thinkers of the South Asian subcontinent who attempt to envision a better society in the nineteenth and twentieth century had to address, if not reconcile, the issue of caste. While most of the exploitation of the lower castes fell under the category of socioeconomic oppression, culture and values also played a role in their subjugation. Like darker skinned populations of post-slavery societies, Dalits and lower castes also faced the issue of social stigma and hegemonic values regarding their status. Some early scholars of the subcontinent, such as the European members of the Asiatic Society, have located utmost importance to these texts to their understanding caste, even though not all social practices originate from texts. These scholars have been accused of Orientalism and essentialism for using these ideas and addressing them to a diverse population and changing the way Indians think of themselves. Yet it is important to acknowledge that the ideas documented in texts wee also important for Indian intellectuals at that time to reconceptualize their society and religion. Rather than just listening to the European interpretation, Indian intellectuals also used the texts to their goals and politics.

In reaction to subjugation through history and narratives, many activists created their own foundation myths in attempts to rectify their status. One of the myths of Dalit and other lower caste activists have tried to address includes the Purusha Sukta’s corresponding each body part to each varna origin, with Brahmins coming from the man’s mouth and Shudras coming from the man’s feet. Notably, Dalits are not even included in the Sukta’s description and their oppression is also justified in many other religious and folkloric texts. These texts gained more prominence in the age of colonial censuses when officers used Puranic justifications for differentiating Shudras and Dalits from other castes. Many Dalits historicize their descent into untouchability because it indicates they are not “inherently menial, since their condition is historical and can therefore be overcome.”

While some of these myths have premodern origins, such as the Chuhras of Punjab, these myths received more attention once they were used to contest caste assignations after the advent of the ethnographic colonial state. Not all of these myths are emancipatory and some may have their own conservatism. Yet many non-Brahmin movements successfully utilized myths to challenge predominant myths, such as Jyotirao Phule’s eulogy of the Maratha king. Neo-Buddhist of Tamil Nadu argued that Arya-Brahmins entered the South, dominated after the decline of egalitarian Buddhism, created the four-fold varna system, and treated women in a different manner as well. Areas of new settlements of lower castes ordered by the colonial regime often became the hotbeds of anti-Brahminical and egalitarian movements and ideologies. For example, massive numbers from the notable Dalit groups in North India, the Chamars, converted to Islam in the 1920s. This paper will focus on the South Indian reinventions of myths regarding their land and society and the intellectual critiques of Dalit oppression and efforts of creating a Buddhist revival centered around Pandit Iyothee Thass.

In face of discussions regarding liberal values on equality in the second half of the eighteenth century, Brahmins felt obligated to defend the caste system. Some argued that caste was interlinked with fundamental tenets of Hinduism, while others argued that the caste system provided a good division of labor. To elite thinkers ranging from conservatives to reformers, the caste order could not and should not be instantly destroyed. They preferred to reform the order out of religious sentiments. They could not “step out” of the social order and regard it as a “historically evolved” one. Other reformers argued for varna as moral categories and that everyone can live the Brahminical way of life through cultivating a good character, devoting oneself to God and avoiding meats and liquor. These reformers included Mahatma Gandhi, who argued for including Dalits into an ideal varna system rather than throwing it away. Yet most of these reformers held back from critiquing the monopoly of certain spiritual acts by the Brahmins who have in turn exploited those who have been excluded from these qualities. Even some intellectuals who denounced caste-by-birth still wished to preserve the supposedly intellectually superior Brahmin caste and endogamous marriage practices to some extent as long as it was “humane.” As scholars Geeta and Rajadurai have argued, while some Brahmins were asserting their traditional rights while others responded positively to historical change, they were involved in imagining a society which would preserve the caste system and their own interests. It is understandable because from a religious perspective, Brahmins as well as other caste Hindus claimed a lot of ritual and spiritual privileges that were denied from Dalits. Brahmins were defined against the category of Dalits, which some regarded as having no "self" and would have been threatened if Dalits could also practice Brahmin rituals and attain spiritual advancement. Many caste Hindus as well as Dalits did not consider Dalits to be Hindus until politicians started scrambling tallies for more “Hindu” votes under representational democracy.

Aside from the notion Brahminism that affected most parts of South Asian society, South Indians also faced an additional challenge that worked against equality of all people: the theory of Aryan superiority. One of the theories that fused nationalism was that Indians enjoyed a high blood status from the northern Aryans. These Aryans were not the original inhabitants within the scope of the Indus river yet brought civilization to the region. While many historians such as Romila Thapar argue that the category of Aryan is most accurately a language group, many people to this day regard Aryans as a superior racial group often associated with Brahminical rituals. Dravidians, on the other hand, were portrayed as a more primitive race by Orientalists and later many northern nationalists. In the late nineteenth and twentieth century, intellectuals fought against these pro-Aryan narratives and stereotypes by arguing that adi dravidas were the "original Dravidians" before the arrival of the Aryan immigrant forces (mlechcha) and also established a rich civilization. These activists highlighted the advanced architecture, metal work and sculptures before Aryans. Symbols like the lingam and temple inscriptions preexisted Aryans as well but were incorporated into Brahminical orthodoxy. M. Masilamani, a neo-Buddhist intellectual, noted the subordination of the upper-caste woman to stringent norms consolidated the Brahmin males’ power and argued that arranging marriages were introduced by Aryans. Textual and scriptural evidence indeed support that caste norms were not solidified until the eleventh century in Tamil Nadu. Activists urged to reject Brahminical elements in Tamil culture. Another issue of divergence between the North and South regards language. Many non-Brahmins who joined the non-Brahmin movement spoke two main Dravidian language groups: Tamil and Telegu. Before the agitations against Hindi in the 1930s, South Indian Justice Party members already noted that Sanskrit was a badge of privilege and the disregard for local “vernaculars” such as Tamil and Telugu, allowed for elitist attitudes to flourish. For many activists, being Dravidian meant reviving an autonomous history before the Aryans and dominance of caste ideology. 

One of most original yet comparatively unknown South Indian intellectuals who championed these views was Pandit Iyothee Thass. Unlike the non-Brahmins, Paraiahs of the farm servant caste, like Thass, were considered lowest on the purity ranks. Their interests were not represented as much as non-Brahmins in later Dravidian movements of the twentieth century. Thass consciously chose the term "Poorva Tamizha," the original Tamil, to distinguish and highlight his community’s status even among the “original Dravidians.” Still, Thass imagined a future where all castes could show solidarity with Dalits and renounce caste order. Thus Thass should command even more attention for not only the similarities with non-Bramin and pro-Dravidian movements but also for his debates against untouchable stigma. Even among the Dravidians, they were not always included in the fraternity. His publication The Tamizhan produced rich content and galvanized Tamil circles and beyond, for reasons which this paper will explore.

Pariahs from Madras," from 'Naturgeschichte und Abbildungen

Like most places in colonial India, socioeconomic changes in Tamil Nadu helped the Dalits and lower castes. But the policy effects were not felt equally and many they still faced oppression and envy from privileged upper castes. The British efforts to commercialize property and land grants in the early twentieth century facilitated lower castes to acquire land. A British district collector in the Cumbum Valley insisted that granting land was the only solution to elevate the position of Kallars from “criminality.” Yet this intention does not corroborate with successful land reform results, since the British also relied on old institutions like mirasdars for agricultural revenue extraction. Even among places that achieved marginal land redistribution, discrimination from upper castes was still rampant and violent. Newly propertied castes were still vulnerable to upper caste neighbors’ attacks. For example, upper castes destroyed huts and crops raised in adi dravidas kitchen gardens, denied Paraiahs to occupational rights in subtenancies, and cut off water flow to Paraiah-owned fields. The Tamizhan’s initial audience were Thass’ own Pariah community in Madras, nowadays known as Chennai, and North and South Arcot who have have improved their economic conditions through recruitment in the army, migration to mining and urban centers, and employment with British in menial jobs.

Many publications and journals sprung up in South India at the time for these populations that ridiculed Brahminical exclusivity, such as Periyar E. V. Ramasamy’s English journal Revolt. The diaspora of Tamils added to a large audience of Thass’ Tamil-language publication The Tamizhan, such as converts to Catholicism abroad. It was circulated wherever lower caste Tamil people migrated for jobs, including South Africa, Burma, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Mauritius, Singapore, Malaysia, and Tanzania. The Tamizhan’s readership abroad demonstrates the salience of the issues tackled by Iyothee Thass and other contributors. The origins of Tamil migrant workers presence abroad was inseparable from oppressive caste regulations. The British colonizers promoted migration of labor for their own ends, such as ensuring a supply of labor to increase revenue from its colonies. Tamil oversea migration increased in nineteenth century; by the 1820s there were approximately a million and a half Tamils working overseas. Lower castes and Dalits literally escaped from the oppressive caste system and ideology through migration. Large scale migration consisted mostly of lower castes laborers, “from areas of settled agriculture to urban and mining centers, arid areas and to overseas colonies.” Dalits often emigrated to search for work that came with dignity. Workers in plantations received the same wages, lived in labor lines rather than segregated areas according to hierarchy. Also, there were no special ritual concessions for higher castes and all experienced same level of hardship. Main motivations behind these lower caste migrations included anonymity within a larger society and a chance of self-determination. In this context, Thass criticized the nationalists who opposed forced out-migration. Since caste norms prevented a Paraiah from owning land, protesting the migration of these workers who were formerly working in slave conditions seemed to Thass an instance of “misplaced charity.” The contributors used vernacular languages to express opposition to Brahminism, casteism, and Sanskritic culture. One of the Buddhist contributors, Sri Siddhartha Puthagasalai, published in the Tamizhan many tracts on the condition of Paraiahs, their lost Buddhist faith and ancient Tamil texts that appear Hindu but once had Buddhist origins. Along with South Indian neo-Buddhists of his time, Thass argued for the idea of a respected Tamizhan (or Tamil) regardless of his caste for the present and envisioned an adi dravidas community that had an egalitarian Buddhist past. Buddhists were the real Brahmins yet they were subjugated by the fake (vesha) Brahmin Aryans and stigmatized for non-conformity. Similar to Puthagasalai’s argument, Thass thought that the fake Brahmins Hinduized Buddhist scriptures. Thass demonstrated in through studies of Tamil sacred and literary texts how the victory of Brahminism in South Asia occurred in step with the demise of Buddhism and perhaps caused the latter. For example, In The Significance of Meditating on Abigai Amman in the Month of Aadi, Thass argued that the Aadi celebration commemorated the Ambigai of Puna Nadu, formerly a Princess, for her healing powers as a Buddhist female monk (bhikkuni). Yet later her legacy was co-opted into Hindu tradition as an angry goddess. Thass also argued that the Thirikural, highly regarded as the document of Tamil propriety, originated from the three Buddhist pitakas. The Brahmins falsely attributed the authorship to a man with a Brahmin father and a Paraiah mother, Thass argued, or else they would not be able to explain the author’s “extraordinary” intelligence. Later scholars also argued that Thirikural shows strong similarities with Jainist and Buddhist moral teachings. The Tamizhan also included many writings by Thass and neo-Buddhists on the life of the Buddha, his teachings, and Buddhist dharma. Thass converted to Buddhism and also inspired many other Paraiahs’ conversions. The Pariahs in Madras were only one of many instances of Dalit group conversions in India. Later B. R. Ambedkar also argued a similar thesis to Thass, that the Brahmins imposed untouchability on Dalits (“Broken Men” in Marathi) because they refused to convert from Buddhism. Thass considered Christianity and Islam helpful for uplifting Dalits, but Buddhism was more capable of Brahminical oppression than the other traditions because it has combated Brahminism for a long duration, before the arrival of Christianity or Islam, and thus had more philosophical resources to confront Brahminism. Even after Thass’ death, The Tamizhan continued to uphold his legacy: it was among the South Indian publications that publicized the large non-Brahmin movement’s aims and message in 1916. The Non-Brahmin Manifesto listed the absence of non-Brahmins many government institutions and also posed demands, “Progressive Political Development wanted and not unauthorised Constitution-Making; No Caste Rule and Self Government on Equal Distribution of Power.” There were broader similarities among these lower caste movements, such as wide horizontal mobilization, spread education for emancipation, demand to share political power with upper castes, and diversify occupations, and they all posed a challenge to the nationalists.

Many nationalists and anti-imperialists had opinions regarding caste and most were very outspoken, both before and after Thass' times. Annie Besant, once the leader of the Theosophical Society and a fervent Irish participant in the Indian nationalist Home Rule movement, was one of the Brahminical admirers who had paternalistic attitudes towards Dalits. For example, she argued that Dalits should work their karma to break free from their abject position of untouchability. Annie Besant also edited New India, which constantly published columns against the Non-Brahmin Manifesto, including her own. The Justice attacked New India and taunted Besant as an “Irish Brahmani.” After being challenged, she eventually refused to publish any articles related to this subject.

While these spates happened after Thass’ death, it highlights the tensions between caste self-respect movements and nationalism that continued to haunt India even after its independence. One of Thass’ most controversial stances was his skepticism of the national movement. First of all, he saw Brahminical authority dominating nationalist movements such as swaraj. He criticized the nationalists who blamed British imperialists for the starvation without taking into account their own complicity. For example, many of these Brahmin nationalists in Madras owned land that owned land tilled by workers that lacked adequate wages. Some also planted cash crops over food crops that led to many famines in Madras. Instead of focusing on the British, Thass criticized the greed of the landlord and the merchant and the Brahmin’s indifference who were complicit since they would not give any portion of his earnings towards famine relief.

Both Iyothee Thass and members of the non-Brahmin Justice Party questioned the legitimacy of the Indian National Congress to represent all Indians, stemming from two questions: caste as an identity issue and as a labor issue. The Madras Congress was predominantly Brahmin twenty years after its existence. Only swadeshi protests sent out their message more effectively across society to non-Brahmin. Thass held that Brahmin usually protected his own caste interests and historically expended unnecessary energy on tasks defining "rules of touchability, seeability and approachability" and these rules still influenced everyday actions. Thass also listed cases of discrimination exhibited by the largely Brahmin-owned press who constructed public opinion. Swaraj and Swadeshi seemed insincere to Thass where the social norms were governed by untouchability. Thass regarded social reform of caste should be prior to political reform and that swaraj should be not just Indians’ self-government, but also a “state of social and economic well-being.” He questioned whether or not the slums occupied by Paraiahs, called paracheris, could also be included under the grand scheme nationalists had for their ideal “Motherland.” In this context of criticizing nationalism for upholding the abstract notion of sovereign land, Thass even defended Lord Curzon's decision to partition Bengal as an administrative move and that the nationalists despised Curzon because he sought to improve the conditions of all castes. His skepticism was not unfounded, for non-Brahmin leaders of swadeshi like M. K. Gandhi did not break rules of inter-caste dining. In 1946, even as Gandhi showed solidarity, he tactically refused to take food from a Dalit group Balmikis when he attempted to show solidarity. Many anti-imperialists considered British benevolence for Dalits as well as Muslims to be part of a “divide and rule” agenda. Nationalist leaders and supporters of Home Rule, such as Annie Besant, did not put the status of Dalits at the forefront of its initiatives partly due to Brahmin dominance in the Congress Party.

Second of all, for Thass, swadeshi nationalism could not link its politics with transforming labor systems that exploited Dalits. Yet he did not highlight the the British rule’s tolerance of the existing labor arrangements. The adi dravida intellectuals at the time generally did not associate colonial rule presence with local matters. For example, Thass had argued that the British presence had use for it led to roads and railways, which facilitated the delivery of grain to famine-struck places. Many non-Brahmins feared that once the British left, there would be no arbiter left for caste relations and Brahmins might return to the old way of governance. The raja of Panagal once said that Home Rule might "push back the non-Brahmin communities to their original state of dependence and enslavement and re-install in the place of our British rulers the very priestly class who were responsible for unenviable state in which the non-Brahmin communities were stagnating before the advent of the British rule." Many South Indian non-Brahmin intellectuals and social figures considered the British colonial presence effectively polices Brahminical dominance.

But the British could not directly feel the negative impacts themselves and they did not share the similar urgency for abolishing caste rules as the victimized Dalits. As the ruling authority, a British official did not have to comply with rules of ritual purity--he could eat beef and still socialize with all classes without being stigmatized from locals. Furthermore, the British rulers were self-interested even as they promoted varying degrees of equality on the surface. Authors have argued that the British also circumscribed the politically active Brahmin through accommodating rival interests such as lower castes through social reform policies. This move also added to their perception among non-Brahmins as benevolent rulers.

The Kalaram Temple of Nashik city in Maharashtra, India

The non-Brahmin intellectuals and Thass’ view of the British intentions was overly optimistic, especially in regards to the issue of caste. Even though the British rulers knew that there was slavery practiced in Madras ryotwaris, they did not abolish it because they retained revenue from these farms. the government should not meddle with the ideal of private property. A ruling in 1819 expressed that the raiyats possess their slaves as private property. Consistent with the British attitudes towards caste, the court wrote that "it must be dangerous to disturb the long established relations subsisting between these two orders." After an official and some missionaries raised the Paraiah question in London, the Tamil Nadu Revenue Board still refused to acknowledge the existence of slavery and even allowed for bondage to continue in an intransigent statement. Yet the notion that all members of society can access public property and the expansion of what should be defined as “public” rather than community-based had to be continuously fought through several Dalit leaders’ agitations in the twentieth century, such as B. R. Ambedkar’s Kalaram Temple movement in 1930. The Congress Party also supported instances, such as the 1924 Vaikom Satyagraha in Travancore, Kerala, spearheaded by the lower-caste Ezhavas. The British officials of the Madras region were obviously not in the front lines for redefining or defending the ideal of public property as much as private. While criticizing caste rules and norms, the British also worked to solidify them when it worked in their political and economic interest.

In conclusion, Iyothee Thass produced a lot of significant works and opinions that carved an intellectual space for Dalits in Madras to reflect on their religious identity and social existence. His publication joined many others that aided the Dravidian movement call to eradicate Brahminical and Aryan domination, while also saving a distance from pan-South Indian Dravidianism for Dalit-focused activities through theorizing and practicing Buddhism. while also remaining a distance for Dalit-focused activities through theorizing and practicing Buddhism. His ideas on pre-Hindu culture, such as the origins of Thirikural, were surprisingly original and many of his theories of "Hinduization" were corroborated with later scholarship as well. Thass resisted the predominant tendency to glorify the anti-imperialist movement, critically examined Home Rule, and engaged with leaders of the other movements. While he overestimated how much the British colonial rulers were committed to the uplifting of Depressed Classes such as Dalits, along with members of the Justice Party he was an extremely important voice of dissent in turbulent times.

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