Alia Bhatt in Raazi, Kalank, and Nationhood Anxieties in Bollywood, 2020

Alia Bhatt, the Bollywood actress and “It Girl” known for her ingénue face and dashing style is known for portraying the current struggles of middle class South Asian women. She does not shy away from potentially controversial social issues such as inter-caste dating in 2 States (2014) and seeking treatment for one’s mental illness in Dear Zindagi (2016). She has recently taken upon more historical roles in two well-known films, Raazi (2018) and Kalank (2019); the former became the highest grossing Bollywood film to feature a female protagonist. Both films highlighted the importance of an Indian woman’s contribution towards a collective sense of Indian nationhood. The plots of the films demarcated the gender as well as social boundaries between “Indians” and “others.” While her characters do not explicitly refer to present Indian politics, the structure of the female lead’s love interest in these two Bollywood films successfully addressed anxieties surrounding the nation-state from the 1930s to 1970s.

The two films’ plot revolved around different junctures in South Asian history, one from 1930s to the 1950s, the other covering the period from the mid-1960s to 1971, yet allude to the same anxieties surrounding the “foreign Muslim” of the present. I will discuss the two films chronologically and then move on to comparing both films. Both films have female-centric narratives, which invites audiences to participate in complicated performances of heterosexuality. While moments of the film expose the inner workings of heterosexuality, the endings inevitably affirm the heterosexual female as well as her life choices. In both instances, Alia Bhatt’s characters explorations of her gender roles coincide with the image of the liberal Indian nation-state.

In Kalank (2019), Alia Bhatt plays the newly-wed wife as both a favor for her father’s family friend as well as her family interests in a pre-Partition city. The first wife of a family heir asked Alia Bhatt’s character to be the new wife, due to the first wife’s terminal disease. The film titled which means “blemish,” focused on Alia Bhatt’s character’s purity despite being denied conjugal love (both in as well as outside the bedroom) by her husband, who focused on his first wife. 

Alia Bhatt’s character narrates this story decades later for a historian who wants to recover Partition stories, which has become a recent genre within historical research. The function of print is integral to reconstructing her romantic and “innocent” self, since she also explores the city’s public space as an educated daughter-in-law working for her family’s newspaper. Her gendered innocence is crucial to vindicate “India” from responsibility for partition as well as the newspaper’s uncommitted stance to the politics of their content. An all-male and religiously diverse boardroom discussed heatedly the ads, including those that advertised alcohol, which at times aroused religious sentiments. Alia Bhatt’s character argued from the boardroom’s doorstep that female products could potentially save the day, adding her voice to the newspaper’s future, without showing any explicit “communal” agenda.

In contrast, the film showed that the angry Muslim laborers are first and foremost key to locating “communal” attitudes, a popular trope in history and reports on Partition from post-Partition India. The Muslim illegitimate son, who has little interest in organized politics, attempts to establish a liaison with her to revenge the father who did not give him his due respect. The mother, courtesan, provides a queer space for Alia Bhatt’s character to experience pleasure beyond the domestic realm and train her singing voice. There is a moment of homosocial intimacy between her two love interests at a similarly queer space: the river bank. Under the moonlight, they open up to the perceived stranger about family and love matters, both of immense consequence. Beyond the “serious” boardroom, another kind of inter-religious bonhomie can be established over affections suppressed during the day. 

In the climatic ending, while attempting to board the train to “India” under the heat of the moment, her illicit love interest unfortunately died under the hands of the “communal” Muslims. Alia Bhatt’s character’s innocence in regards to the political aspect of the affair continued over the recorded oral testimonies which will live beyond her own lifetime. While she focused on her personal romantic sentiments, the liberal destination of the India free of “communal Muslims” as a political state is ensured, especially given that her loyalty to her Hindu husband is also preserved. Both endings were crucial to her success as a wife in post-Partition India: she could not be redeemed as an innocent citizen of the new Republic if she either succumbed to the consummation of extramarital love or to communal enmity. The pity of partition was resolved by her ability to articulate through the new state’s language and account for her fallen love’s death, metaphorically and literally. She focused mainly on interpreting her own acts of wifehood-transgressions rather than the broader political anxieties of the 1940s town (qasbah). Yet notably, the patriarch of her family, her husband, is absent during her recounts with the journalist, ensuring a sense of “objectivity” from the female subject. Yet even though the setting is intimate and understanding, Alia Bhatt’s character is aware of the public judgment in the ending’s conclusion, an off-screen voice asked that the people (audience included) can judge whether her story involved a blemish (kalank) or not. But clearly, the question and stake of her purity became connected to the idea of India’s liberalism of the 21st century through the film’s narrative arc.

In the film Raazi, Alia Bhatt’s character is more complex, given her multiple loyalties to the Indian state, to Kashmir’s future, and to her own religious piety. She succeeds her father’s role as a spy for India’s mission, which is poorly defined, but still sustained through spy-centric plot twists. Like her character in Kalank, Alia Bhatt’s character in Raazi similarly outlined the weight of respectability for any daughter-in-law in any middle class South Asian household. The gendered innocence helped her evade most suspicions of espionage, yet it could be argued that this requirement for authenticity and piety on screen is a uniquely post-9/11 phenomena for Indian Muslims. The muhajir servant of the Pakistani military family is the only one suspicious of her “innocence,” since she often usurped his responsibilities while demonstrating loyalty and usefulness within the domestic sphere. It is significant that she ends his life when he discovered her spy identity outside the domestic sphere. 

Soon after Alia Bhatt’s character’s exceptional and murderous act, she frantically searched for her own cover; the thrill of the audience overlaps with the gendered anxiety that the wife of a respectable should not ventures outside her domestic realm. Interestingly, nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi once argued that ‘Western Civilization’ and capital displace women from their homes into the productive sphere. Alia Bhatt’s character in Raazi similarly has been displaced through her commitment to India’s intelligence gathering. Yet this revolting act by Alia Bhatt’s character of murdering of fellow Muslim could be read as nationalist and thus exorable to prevent imminent war between India and Pakistan. It is interesting to think about how the American TV series Homeland, which also starred a female lead might have influenced the plotline and character development of Raazi.

Alia Bhatt’s character’s acceptance (which is also the meaning of the title, Raazi) as a daughter-in-law is connected to Pakistan elite’s efforts to project their image of themselves as upper-caste sharif persons with respectable families. The Pakistani’s state project consists of promoting their pious self-image at times, which often occurred at the expense of religious minorities and non-sharif citizens. Yet the cinematic subversion of such a publicity project occurred when Alia Bhatt’s character used her Islamic duties, such as prayer, as her cover during her espionage-related activities. She often prayed and completed household tasks during her outings for communicating with her Indian intelligence superiors at the bazaar. Such acts also remind the audience of the potentially unfaithful wife of Kalank who used female-specific tasks as a “cover” to seek out her lover towards the middle of the film. Both films seem to leave the question to their audience: does Alia Bhatt’s loyalty as a wife matter more or does the commitment to the national cause trump “domestic” obligations? Such questions posed by the films are very poignant given the contemporary context: in India, certain Hindutva groups have initiated movements such as ghar wapsi in which women married to non-Hindus are encouraged to “return home” to the fold of Hinduism. The agency demonstrated by Alia Bhatt’s character Sehmat in Raazi contrasts to the thousands of repressed voices of sexual violence survivors against crimes that occurred during the War of 1971, incidentally where the film ends. The editing and promotional process of the film in its Youtube trailer that highlighted the agony of Alia Bhatt lying on the bed, seemed to acknowledge the tensions of sexuality and consent South Asian women face from the beginnings of nationhood to this day.

Towards a Non-State Centric Understanding of Iraqi History

While reading historian Eric Davis's Memories of the State, I came across his description about how the British colonizers favored a compliant chess piece, Faisel II, and his regent, Prince Abdullah among the successors for the Hashemite royal family in the mid-1930s. Davis argued that the compliant Prince saw that the British could help him stay in power, and thus allowed for more British interference in Iraq.

Book cover

This description struck me because it seemed that the state harbors a magical "seat" where the person who manages to sit in that place, would become more invincible than other political actors. Thus generations compete for power at the magical seat, which replicates the preexisting organs and arrangements of the state, including colonialism arrangements such as the British mandate. It does not seem to be that much different from a pre-French revolution "monarchy," even though it is clear that the 20th century Hashemite monarchy was anything but like it. While Davis is aware of the differences and impact of colonial designs on the Hashemite monarchy, he still presumes a rather monolithic, state-centered narrative in the unraveling of the Hashemite monarchy for his readers.


The implicit question seems to be the age-old one: How can a "modern historical account" explain how an "Oriental despotic regime" becomes a "modern state," which has institutions providing checks and balances?

But this frame seems to be exactly the problem. The frame assumes that everyone is power-hungry as rational decision makers, and thus would definitely seize the opportunity to enter the power vacuum when available. In the Iraqi case, the colonialists could presumably offer anyone that magical seat, and anyone would capitulate. Even idealists such as leftists and nationalists might squander the opportunity during the power machination process. At the same time, states are also in competition with each other, and thus, they would all have to maintain internal stability to "get ahead" in the race. In Arab Spring, Libyan Winter, scholar Vijay Prashad has also noted how "regional stability" is also a key code word for U.S. foreign policy decisions in the Middle East. In this sense, one could see how there are people who support a state-centered narrative (including a wide range of people from U.S. foreign policy heads to certain Ba'athists and Communists), and those who would differ.

Rather than state-centered narratives, I find Foucault's conception of power more nuanced in order to understand these processes. He critiques the idea of power as a magical seat in Society Must Be Defended (p13):

In the case of the classic juridical theory of power, power is regarded as a right which can be  possessed in the way one possesses a commodity, and which can therefore be transferred or alienated, either completely or partly, through  a juridical act or  an act that founds a right—it does not matter which,  for the  moment—thanks to the surrender of something or thanks to a contract. Power is the concrete  power that any individual can hold, and which he can surrender, either as  a  whole or in  part, so  as to constitute a power or a political sovereignty. 

Under the Iraqi state's eyes, "Communists," "Shias," "minorities,"and "women" are separate categories. Davis takes cue from Gramsci in his formulation of the state and anti-state resistance. While Davis's book emphasized that there had been functioning political institutions and democratic activity in Iraq in 1954 and complicates a despotic stereotype of pre-1960s Iraq, his state-centric understanding of power is still limiting and replicates these monolithic categories of women, Shias, minorities and communists. Similarly, the good-intentioned policymakers have made and would continue to make the same mistake while navigating through ethnic loyalties and political affiliations of Iraq if they continue to view society from a state-centric vantage point.

Rather than staring at the magical seat, we should pay more attention to where the power projects itself toward and how it is embodied. Foucault also admits that there are not so many methods outside of this model to understand power. One can read more about that in his lectures. While recognizing the Iraqi Left-leaning intellectuals' enormous contribution in historicizing sectarianism, documenting "voices from below" and analyzing class formation in Iraq, I would also like to see more Foucauldian or non-state-centric analyses of Iraqi history.

Overall, the mainland Chinese academia also suffers from obsession with state-centric narratives. They are also using the same paradigms to understand the outside world as well. That is why I find studies on the effects of colonialism so curative to the current academic obsession. As Timothy Mitchell as written in 1991 in the article "The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics," "Political subjects and their modes of resistance are formed as much within the organizational terrain we call the state, rather than in some wholly exterior social space." This understanding would also become beneficial to critiquing and resisting the communist government: currently many dissidents cannot formulate a strong response to the assumption that "without the communist government, China will surely become chaotic." This assumption similarly uses the overempowering ideal of a sovereign that keeps things in check: Without that sovereign, any opportunist will seize the magical seat. To have any meaningful resistance against the increasingly prevelant communist state, dissidents and resisters have to undo this understanding of the magical seat.

Potential for Industrialization in China and Europe

The obsession with European economic dominance is widespread among writers writing in Chinese and English alike. Chinese intellectuals particularly became concerned by the end of the 19th century. Many Western countries used their superior command of technology and military to subdue the ailing Qing dynasty and the future of a sovereign state was uncertain. Since industrialization has been a closely connected idea with modernization, Europeans also have celebrated their unrivaled progress across the globe, contrasting itself to other “savage” regions or a “stagnant” Third World.[1] Even as people accept that “China came within a hair's breadth of industrialising in the fourteenth century,” China’s later demise is still subject to much debate and influence of the stagnant-Orient view. [2] David Landes suggested that Europe’s multiple, competing polities in contrast with the “all-encompassing empires of the Orient or of the Ancient World,” which allowed for more technical dynamism. [3]

Stagnation does not out rule economic growth: China experienced economic growth even in the Qing dynasty, which was notorious for its lack of innovation. Thus the indicator of change should not be growth, but rather technological dynamism in for a meaningful comparison of China and Europe. Joel Mokyr argued that “technological opportunities and constraints by and large determined where and when improvements were to occur” in various places. [4] Thus this paper will examine this debate with a focus on technological innovation. In the chapter of The Levers of Riches comparing China and Europe, Mokyr demonstrates how China’s different government-civil relations, different bureaucracy, lower demand for foreign goods, and Luddism ideology against social conflict and rapid change in comparison to Europe created a disadvantage for technological transformation. But many revisionist economists have engaged this debate and demonstrated that Europe only gained certain advantages through technological merit, and most other advantages through fortuitous global conjectures, such as colonial expansion. As historian Kenneth Pomeranz argues, the number of European macroinventions from 1500 to 1750 was very small and the advantages of merit only played a significant role after 1830. [5] Pomeranz holds the view that before then, many trends in China were similar to Europe, such as efficient economic institutions and labor division patterns. Furthermore, Europe had many ecological constraints that could have stalled progress. Thus for him, Europe’s rise was not inevitable based on earlier socioeconomic trends. This paper will first compare Pomeranz and Mokyr’s approach to this debate.


China’s Lead and Disuse of Technological Innovations

Both Mokyr and Pomeranz acknowledge China’s technological innovation prior to Europe. Improvements in plows, rice cultivation through wet-field techniques, new fertilizers, and hydraulic engineering helped a stable supply of nutrition. [6]  China also led by at least one thousand five hundred years in iron casting technology and one thousand years for paper and the modern horse collar prior to Europe’s adaptation. Weaving equipment for spinning silk appeared as early as 200 B.C. and was later adapted to cotton. While the mechanic clock has been lauded as a “macroinvention” in Mokyr’s book, China during the 11th century also created water clocks. (A macroinvention is “an invention without clear-cut parentage, representing a clear break from previous technique.”) In the 15th century, China also created water-worthy ships, but later could not maintain its superiority due to Ming dynasty’s closed-door policy that terminated sea exploration. Many of China’s technologies were often imported or reinvented in Europe later.

Yet certain inventions in China were not used as much as the European scales of capital accumulation. Iron casting was used for weaponry, but not later improved weaponry such as guns and cannons. China thus had to import weapons from the West in the 19th century when it faced invasion. Mokyr also provided many social and political reasons for China’s slowing innovative progress. The imperial state structure placed a heavy emphasis on meritocracy and examinations. The resources and prestige lay in entering the government, which caused the flow of talent towards bureaucracy rather than fields involving technology. The state could also halt projects very quickly with its central control. Once the Chinese state stopped supporting technology and knowledge dissemination as much as the Song dynasty, there was a discontinuation due to lack of support from the private sphere. Many historians interpreted the role of intellectuals inhibiting the progress, from lack of interest in technical knowledge to benevolent intentions to limit social conflict.[7] Pomeranz himself agrees that the elite men-of-letters conducted few scientific discussions. I agree with Mokyr: he has successfully showed the degree which China’s technological edge lessened its chances for industrialization.


Europe’s Inevitable Rise?

Mokyr showed that inventions played a crucial role in the Industrial Revolution. While Pomeranz accepts that Europe had revolutionary inventions, he indicates that the current increase in studies of private initiatives-cum-miracles are due to the dominant pro-market narrative. Pomeranz complicates this claim of technological progress and shows how European state interventions played a significant role. The usual argument was that labor-saving innovations came about because laborers in the “West” were freer and received higher wages compared to the “Rest.” “The Rest” busied over saving over land, capital, or another scarce material. The European exceptionalists often champion the process of Proto-industrialization, in which they saw encouraged people to engage in non-food related work, while the rural areas started creating surplus in food for town. [8] The increase in demographic growth in towns reinforced this process. Historian Andre Gunder Frank holds that China only engaged in a similar process between 1500-1800 (increase in labor and population) after Europe introduced the currency system of New World Silver. Pomeranz challenges this idea on many grounds: China had domestic demand much larger than exports to Europe; China had more labor mobility than Europe and the state facilitated migration; low wage costs do not necessarily inhibit the use of labor-saving technology; many British technologies aimed to save money on fuel, such as coal, rather than labor; finally, the people who did invent technology for saving labor were not aware of it.[The Great Divergence. 52] “In a study of eighteenth-century English patentees, Christine MacLeod finds that most declared the goals of their innovation to be either improving the quality of the product or saving on capital...only 3.7 percent cited saving on labor as a goal.” This is understandable since Europe had used certain land-intensive products inefficiently, such as fuel wood.] Thus Pomeranz supports Jan DeVries’ argument that Europe invested much labor over many years which had high yield--an “industrious revolution” rather than one of rapid productivity increase.

Pomeranz also argues that the while the inventions were labor-saving, only some inventions had long term importance. Global conjectures of colonial conquest mattered more for solving land problems. The expanded land abroad allowed western European countries to feed a growing population despite diminishing per capita resource at home. This development saved labor and allowed the inventions to have larger impacts compared to the marginal technological improvements in China and India.



Female Labor and Involution

Labor output serves a key category in the evidence for proving that China was involuted. Pomeranz also discusses the point made by many social historians regarding China’s female labor and nature of demand. DeVries has argued that in Europe, labor increased and reallocated for industrial and semi-finished goods, such as bread and candles, due to more employment of women in non-domestic workforce. Philip Huang adds that China’s society only increased female labor for domestic needs and thus lacked demand for the same goods. Pomeranz holds that 1) Chinese women also participated in the non-domestic workforce and 2) Empirically, like Europe, China also had an increase in demand for finished goods and services, such as candles and ritual expenses; 3) China also copiously consumed sugar and tobacco and experienced an equivalent rise of the commercialized leisure life in Europe.

Pomeranz uses Jack Goldstone’s studies of Chinese female participation in the workforce and emphasizes that they earned above above subsistence rates in silk production.[ Goldstone, Jack A. 1996. 'Gender, Work, And Culture: Why The Industrial Revolution Came Early To England But Late To China'. Sociological Perspectives 39 (1): 1-21.] But he differs with Goldstone’s explanation that the Chinese society’s reluctance to allow women to leave the house for work hampered industrialization. The ideal was for men to plow the fields and women to weave at home. Yet there were many writings indicating women working alongside men in the Lower Yangzi Delta fields throughout the 17th and 18th century, while writings about Anhui, Guangdong and Fujian indicated women working outdoors throughout the 19th century. Pomeranz also cited the cultural impression made by empresses gathering mulberry leaves for silkworms as evidence of the widespread acceptance of women working out-of-house. He concludes that there is little historical evidence regarding the non-elite attitude towards women and thus he does not accept Goldstone’s hypothesis that China did not industrialize due to cultural norms that promoted female seclusion.

The Military Competition and Property Debate

Pomeranz has observed in the Introduction that recent scholarship tend to explain Europe’s success through endogenous growth. Pomeranz does not hold the Marxist theory of primitive accumulation, since Britain had accumulated surplus values prior to its colonies. Still, he attributes Europe’s crucial aspect of success to its spatial advantage in colonies (“peripheries”), the slave trade, and other forms of overseas coercion. He also revisits Eric Williams’ thesis of colonial accumulation’s role in Britain’s industrialization, and argues that without the military fiscalism, Britain would have later experienced a labor-intensive rather than capital-intensive growth.

Yet this difference deserves attention: China also had tributaries, yet the state did not establish itself as an economically productive empire. Pomeranz also puts forward that Chinese merchants and laborers had large presence in the sparsely populated land of southeast Asia. They created much revenue through land-intensive products, such as sugar and grain, but southeast Asia “never became for coastal China what the New World was for western Europe.” The “state had no interest in directly providing military and political backing” for these merchants. Why did the Chinese state not engage or exploit this linkage? The rulers of the Qing dynasty were more invested in Central Asian expansion and had budget surpluses every year to concern itself with revenues and taxes. Landes, K. N. Chaudhuri and M. N. Pearson to some extent supported variations of an explanation beyond China’s particularity: without intense military competition, major Asian empires did not need as much commercial revenues as Europe; thus these empires did not regard commercial property or revenue as important as tributaries. Pomeranz questions this claim and cites DeVries that argued military competition in Europe urged states to “put more offices, tax farms, and titles on the market was an impediment to this transformation, not an aid.” He also adds that war increased rate of asset and skills lost, and increased business costs.

But I still find the military competition argument persuasive and I hold that China’s unique imperial culture inhibited its industrial revolution. Pomeranz discusses Qing rulers’ paranoia regarding militarizing oversea efforts and “suspicion of any combination of mercantile and naval power in the same set of hands” as major reasons for the lack of support for a Chinese East India Company in Southeast Asia. But he does not explore cultural reasons that halted China’s seafaring initiatives in the earlier Ming dynasty. He also does not delve into the Chinese ideologies of the time that could have been comparable to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations or John Locke’s discussion of property. Pomeranz focuses on many aspects that de-emphasizes cultural difference, but these differences cannot be ignored in the discussion when comparing processes of industrialization.

Furthermore, most scholars mentioned have treated China more or less as a nation-state with a coherent citizenry, when in reality it was an ever-changing multi-ethnic empire during many of the periods discussed. Many comparative histories of technology assume China to be a coherent nation while each dynasty had its unique interests and priorities. Yet there is much debate within Chinese history regarding technology that these narratives overlook, such as the extent to which the Mongolian-established Yuan dynasty changed the dynamics and progress created during the Song dynasty. This picture can be lost in comparative approaches between China and the West. Rather than interrogating the multiple Chinas at stake, the discourse is shaped around questions like “how China can take over the West” or why it did not. This is a worthy question for another paper to explore.


[1] Landes, David. 1969. The Unbound Prometheus. Cambridge University Press. 7, 11. “The nations of the Third World have yet to effect their industrial revolution, and the gulf in wealth and standard of living between them and the economically advanced countries has increased to the point of scandal and danger. The disparity has been aggravated by the partial character of their modernization.”
[2] Jones, Eric L. 1981. The European Miracle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 160.
[3] The Unbound Prometheus. 15.
[4]  Mokyr, Joel. 1990. The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress. Oxford University Press. (Kindle Locations 1287-1289).
[5] Pomeranz, Kenneth. 2000. The Great Divergence. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 47.
[6] The Lever of Riches. Kindle Location 3356.
[7] Fei, Hsiao-tung, 1953. China's Gentry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
[8] Kriedte, Peter, Hans Medick, & Jürgen Schlumbohm. 1981. Industrialization before Industrialization. 12.

Fighting Britain's War: India and World War II

Book Review of Yasmin Khan's Raj at War and Raghu Karnad's Farthest Field.  

The World War II has been taught based on the experiences of European countries on either side and the U.S.; the stories of China and India are usually absent from English bookshelves. In South Asia, nationalist agitations and Partition of 1947 dominated the stories of first half of twentieth century. Both Indian and European and people tend to forget the extent to which World War II influenced the Raj and the people under it. Millions of Indian soldiers were enlisted to fight for the allies in World War II and India also provided more than £2 billion worth of goods and services. Strategically, India was also situated between “both the Middle East and the China theatre” and supplied both troops and consumables. The impact in South Asia was also significant: The war increased social tensions and caused inflation. Indians also learned that the White Man was not inherently superior: Polish refugees at home, Japanese gaining upper hand over the British in the air, and Germans killed abroad by their fellow Indians all proved this point. The Raj could not protect its imperial subjects, and its credibility subsequently suffered. The Indian nationalist leaders also learned more about Britain’s political priorities, which were clearly not in favor of South Asian development. For leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, any wishes for the Raj to be a paternalistic leader of the Commonwealth vanished.

This year, two major books have replenished the scholarship on India and World War II. Historian Yasmin Khan’s book The Raj at War provides a lot of details and the statuses of people from all walks of life, from political leaders to businessmen, from new Tommy recruits, European nurses, and prisoners of war in India to Indian Lascars fighting for better wages. Her scope covers not only the war zone but also the factories and bedrooms. Journalist Raghu Karnad’s Farthest Field also serves to fill the gap of Indians in World War II, partly based on the experiences of his Parsi ancestors. Both books address the issues of political loyalty, the scorched earth policy, memories, and demise of the British Empire’s prestige. Both books acknowledged how different sections of society benefited from the War: businessmen in particular seized the chance for profits through supplying military needs, such as food and accommodation. Yet Karnad provides a more scathing critique of the War and colonialism.

One of the main reason for World War II’s forgotten status in India was its conflict with the national narrative. The main subject of Karnad’s book, Bobby, was not a story told or mentioned to Karnad’s generation. The Indian Army men’s “subaltern service to the British Empire became a quixotic memory, its political valency vague and its heroism diluted.” Like many unpredictable twist-of-fate moments in South Asian history, Bobby’s section, the 2nd Field of the Bengal sappers, was reorganized as a Mussalman unit and became part of Pakistan’s army. An even more cruel twist was that many demobilized soldiers slaughtered Indians of other faiths systematically during Partition. The grand dream of post-colonial countries usually glides over the fact that British Indian Army fought on the Dutch imperial side, against the Indonesian anti-colonial republicans led by Suharto.

Without the hindsight of Partition and Independence, the World War II was a trying time for Indians to determine political loyalties. Like in the case of World War I, the 1939 and 1942 Defence of India Act centralized British control in India for war efforts: state institutions had “powers of preventive detention, internment without trial, restriction of writing, speech, and of movement” over the King’s subjects in India, and in practice, mostly targeted against Indians. Punishments would be meted for “any contraventions which included that of death or transportation for life if the intent was to assist any State at war with His Majesty or that of waging war against His Majesty.” As a result, police and military’s power increased; the state’s civil and military functions blended. Many Indian activists were quashed unlawfully; official British statistics recorded 1,060 protesters killed. Nationalist agitations had increased to a certain level at that time. At the same time, the British and zamindari long-term neglect for agriculture increased the difficulty for the average Indian family to avoid working for the Raj. Even regions like Punjab which had increasing levels of wages suffered from famine. Congress Party leaders were largely uncertain how to take advantage of the situation. While Gandhi launched the Quit India movement and detested foreign soldiers on Indian soil, he did not call for an entire sabotage or even a peaceful hartal against the war effort; rather, he called for the Indians involved to act on their own consciences according to their own situation. Khan argues that it solidified anti-war sentiment despite its less dramatic character. Ironically, due to the War, the previously banned Indian communists now emerged from the underground as allies with the Raj against fascism.

The Raj at War highlighted how this era was truly contradictory and confusing, with South Asia pulled at both sides--Independence through fighting for the Indian National Army and thus aligning with the Japanese? Loyalty to the Raj? For example, writer K. A. Abbas wrote about his anti-fascist inclinations, but also disillusionment with the Raj. Yet India did not lack activists who directly opposed the Raj: The younger generations approached the issue more radically. Quit India activist Aruna Asaf Ali disregarded her husband Asaf Ali’s more moderate approach. She was regarded by the people as the modern day Rani of Jhansi and successfully evaded police search through a game of cat-and-mouse up till 1946. Moreover, there was a huge gap between military and non-military people’s political opinions, and even when they argued with one another, usually none were convinced. Similar to the starving Indian, the Nepali soldiers also lacked agency in the choice, since slavery was just recently abolished and their king volunteered to support the war effort. Karnad also cited how Parsis were traditionally loyal British subjects, even as his own family tried to deter men from entering direct service. Rather than outright support of swaraj, both books showed that the politics of Indians were in flux in the 1940s.

Aruna Asaf Ali

Aruna Asaf Ali

The Japanese were not the ideal allies for the Indian freedom fighters, since they also harbored imperial ambitions. Subhas Chandra Bose ceremonially celebrated the Andaman islands as territory under his government Azad Hind, even though in reality the Japanese authorities did not cede sovereignty. Under the influence of the Axis propaganda as well as material concerns, many Indian soldiers in South East Asia changed sides: Leaflets urged them to join INA and pursue self-determination against the Raj. Still, the INA was a dwarf in comparison to the giant British Indian Army.

Pilots of Azad Hind Sena, part of INA

Arguably, Indian soldiers for the first time fought for their own sovereignty from the Japanese, even though it was under a foreign master’s command. The Andaman and Nicobar islands were occupied in 1942 and many Indian cities were bombed by the Japanese Army. There were also intertwined destinies between Burma and India as the Raj’s subjects: the Japanese invasion caused many refugees of Indian origins flee from Burma. Many of the poor died on the way due to malaria or starvation.

Still, the War at large a British concern. The subjects who were usually loyal to British interests, such as rulers of princely states and North East tea plantation owners, donated many resources for the war effort. Others involved usually had no political stake, such as the Imphal jail convicts used for carrying loads or the Naga porters who facilitated refugees evacuation, or the tea plantation laborers who participated in building the India-China Ledo road and aerodromes. Even those Indians who did not support the War also could not outright deny the need for it, such as Nehru, who abhorred fascists but also wanted independence. In reality, this meant that the Raj got what it needed.

The war effort diverted most of the resources away from the Indian people. Viceroy Lord Linlithgow to a large extent disregarded the issue and spent no efforts lobbying on behalf of the situation. The viceroy who succeeded Linlithgow also tried to lobby the British parliament to send more grains for relief, but only achieved the promise for a quarter of what he asked. Khan equivocated and pointed to different reasons of the Bengal Famine, such as Bengal’s over reliance on rice, even while she cited evidence of the British being primarily culpable. Many famine victims saw the war as the cause of their plight. The Raj’s premature scorch earth policy destroyed and requisitioned a lot of boats of the fishermen. In comparison to Khan, historian Madhusree Mukerjee argues for a more direct causal link between the Bengal famine and the war effort. She wrote, that Raj’s readiness “to use the resources of India to wage war against Germany and Japan” was the primary reason for the famine. But given theories put forth by Amartya Sen (hoarders were the most responsible for famine), it is difficult to assess due to the varying statistics regarding how much grain was available after grain was given to war efforts.

Why did the British also forget the loyal subjects, especially the troops? This was mostly due to the idea of racial superiority as well as indifference to the native population during as well after the War. For example, when the Indian troops serving outside of India received better equipment than the natives defending the motherland. Winston Churchill, who was notorious for his racism and disdain, had said “by putting modern weapons in the hands of sepoys,” commanders were creating a Frankenstein. The former Commander in Chief Claude Auchinleck proposed the British government to establish a memorial for the men who serviced “Britain and the Empire” for the past two hundred years as well as in the “Old World” territories. But the proposal was delayed due to disagreement over the memorial site, then no funds were acquired and the plan for the memorial was discarded in 1949.

The major difference between the two books, aside from the sources, is that Karnad provides a more existential assessment of World War II: The White Man battled in sites that upheld Western civilization. The “Black men sent running and shooting in the jungle” such as Bobby’s army, would in comparison be seen as “ants disputing anthills.” The purpose of protecting democracy is elusive to most of the colonies; in “North and East Africa, in the Middle East and India’s North-West frontier,” both World Wars had the “climate of imperial control and contestation.” Karnad points out that behind supposed ideological differences between Axis and Allied powers, Germany and Japan “had mainly copied and outstripped Britain’s own example” of empire. He argued that the imperial war continues in different forms, such as 2008 drones over the village Datta Khel, where the Air Force also flew and battled. In contrast, Khan is much more measured in her assessments and hesitant to draw these solely regressive connections. She acknowledges the irony that Commonwealth soldiers helped in liberating Ethiopia from Italy’s colonialism, but the effects on Indian soldiers’ politics are hard to document. She also writes about black G.I.s and Indian soldiers sharing of notions of equality and visions of a new world order. She also addresses how some people viewed the Army as a modernizing force, and cites the increasing level of literacy among soldiers. Through both books’ new narratives, the nature of the War and the impacts on British colonies has become much clearer, but not necessarily clear enough. Further work needs to be done on the relationship between colonialism and the World Wars, with a focus on post-colonial countries and their positions during the Wars as well as the Wars' effects on subsequent nationalism and decolonization.

Edited from a paper for a JNU history course. Please contact me if readers need a footnoted version.

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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