From Discourse To Critique Iyothee Thass

Multilingualism and the
Literary Cultures of India
Edited and Introduced by

M.T. Ansari
The sculpture reproduced on the endpaper depicts a scene where three

soothsayers are interpreting to King Suddhodhana the dream of Queen
Maya, mother of Lord Buddha. Below them is seated a scribe recording
the interpretation. This is perhaps the earliest available pictorial record
of the art of writing in India.
From: Nagarjunakonda, 2nd century A.D.
Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi SAHITYA AKADEMI

Multilingualism and the Literary Cultures of India: Proceedings of v
the seminar on Multilingualism and the Literary Culture organised
by Sahitya Akademi on 27–29 March 2014 at Hyderabad. Edited by
M.T. Ansari. Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi (2019) ` 1??.
Copyright © Sahitya Akademi 2019
M.T. Ansari (b. 1965) : Editor Contents

Genre: Literary Criticism
Introduction M.T. Ansari vii
Published by Sahitya Akademi
First published: 2019 Part A
ISBN: Multilingualism and India’s Literary Culture

Amiya Dev 3
` 1??
My Mother’s House has Many Mansions, but the
Windows are Too Few
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form Jasbir Jain 14
or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from Sahitya Akademi.
Language Diversity in India
G.N. Devy 29
Multilingualism in India: Some Questions and Caveats
SAHITYA AKADEMI
Head Office: Rabindra Bhavan, 35, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi 110 001
Harish Trivedi 49
[email protected], 011-23386626/27/28
Sales Office: ‘Swati’, Mandir Marg, New Delhi 110 001 Living with Many Tongues
[email protected], 011-23745297, 23364204
Kolkata: 4, D.L. Khan Road, Kolkata 700 025 K. Satchidanandan 63
[email protected], 033-24191683, 24191706
Chennai: Guna Building Complex (II floor), 443, (304) Anna Salai Teynampet Chennai 600018 ‘Disciplining’ India: Literature, Region, Modernity
[email protected], 044-24311741
Mumbai: 172, Mumbai Marathi Grantha Sangrahalaya Marg, Dadar Mumbai 400 014 E.V. Ramakrishnan 70
[email protected], 022-24135744, 24131948
Bengaluru: Central College Campus, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Veedhi Bengaluru 560 001 Linguistic Diversity, Interlingualism, Intralingualism and
[email protected], 080-22245152, 22130870
Literary Culture in India
Avadhesh Kumar Singh 92
Pagesetting by Wellwish Printers, Delhi
Printed by Swastik Offsett, Delhi Historical Multilingual Landscape of India:
Through the Prism of Literary Translations
Website: http://www.sahitya-akademi.gov.in
Tharakeshwar V.B. 114
vi Contents vii
Part B
Multilingual Goa’s Battle for Identity

Damodar Mauzo 135
Languages and Shared Literary Worlds: Colonial
Travel and Print Culture in Eastern India
Introduction
Sachidananda Mohanty 145
Textual Editing, Translation and Modern Narratives of M.T. Ansari
Kanakadasa
Shivarama Padikkal 161
Between Languages: Writing, Creativity and Language, as everyone knows, is one of the central features of
Self-Translation being human—even to the extent of becoming all too human!—
M. Sridhar 191 but its Protean nature also ensures that the ‘real’ remains ever
elusive. The infamous Lacanian maxim states that the unconscious
From Discourse to Critique? Iyothee Thass and the is structured like a language, which in its inverse also implies that
Dalit Intellectual Legacy language is structured like the unconscious. Hence, attempts by
Dickens Leonard 200 various disciplines to understand the order of language, despite
Making of a Normative Meetei: Re-reading Khwairakpam being dissimilar from that of the good-old grammarians, have
Chaoba and Lamabam Kamal mostly been descriptive and invariably inconclusive. And nowhere
Thongam Bipin 235 is this confusion, if not chaos, more evident than in the Indian
context: “India’s language disorder, which began with the introduction
Three Sufi Texts and Two Languages: Mawlid and of English as the language of education and administration in
Mala in the Mappila Multilingual World the nineteenth century, remains unresolved to this day” (Prasad,
Shaheen Kelachan Thodika 267 2014: 93).
Gender Politics in Translating Contemporary Indian citizens can be classified as being
Sreedevi K. Nair 285 mono-, bi-, multi-, pluri-, intra- and inter- lingual. But, most often,
we seem to straddle the categories themselves, in a kind of multi-
Notes on Contributors 292 hyphenation, so much as to nullify any given classification scheme
itself. This volume, however, is published in the context of an
increasing global awareness of the demise of various language-
cultures. It has been argued that, unlike Europe which once
perceived multilingualism as a sin, even if not directly related to
the Tower of Babel, in South Asia in general and in India in
particular, difference and diversity “was not a sign of divine wrath,
nor was multilinguality a crime that demanded punishment” (Pollock,
200 Multilingualism and the Literary Cultures of India Dickens Leonard 201
trajectory that produced Thass as an epistemological discourse. It

captures the historical trajectory of studies on Thass and discusses
how he is made part of an anti-caste discourse as a memory and
as a part of Dalit intellectual legacy in the vernacular. This is
possible because of the 1990s intellectual climate that looked-back
From Discourse to Critique? in time, particularly in search of radical anti-caste figures who
positively imagined and worked on the ideas of religion and
Iyothee Thass and the Dalit Intellectual community. Perhaps, this search in the 1990s has a global and a
Legacy local reason. Firstly, in the context of ‘Mandir, Market, and
Mandal’ moments, there was indeed a search for alternative
intellectual figures within the country. This gave rise to the importance
Dickens Leonard of not only Babasaheb Ambedkar, but also Jyotirao Phule and
Periyar E.V. Ramasamy as part of an anti-caste intellectual history.
Important academics have studied Dalit and anti-caste
After a stellar career during the early twentieth century, Iyothee movements across the country. However, in the Tamil intellectual
Thass was rediscovered recently—in the late 1990s—from the and political scenario, there was a serious search for figures who
shadows that loomed large in the aftermath of the late twentieth preceded the Dravidian movement. The increase of caste violence
century social movements. Thass’ rediscovery was a result of against Dalits post-1990s coupled with the intellectual and political
pivotal Dalit movements across the country, much so particularly vacuum that a global Dalit movement created on a post-Dravidian
in the South, in the late 1990s. Aloysivs’ Religion as an present, indeed, paved way to search for a pre-history. This
Emancipatory Identity (1998), Geetha and Rajadurai’s Towards rediscovery brought to light the true foundations of anti-caste in
a Non-Brahmin Millennium (1998), Pandian’s Brahmin and Non- the Tamil public sphere. Thass was literally rediscovered through
Brahmin (2007), and Ayyathurai’s Foundations of Anti-Caste optimal research and work by steadfast intellectuals, activists, and
Consciousness (2011) in English as well as Gowthaman’s Ka. academics. This also signifies the epistemological and ontological
Iyothee Thassar Aaivugal [K. Iyothee Thassar’s Research] (2004), emptiness that Dalits felt by the end of the twentieth century after
Dharmaraj’s Naan Poorva Bouddhan [I’m an Ancient Buddhist] a fifty-year Dravidian regime.
(2007), and Rajangam’s Vaazhum Bouddham [Living Buddhism] What was Thass as a discourse in the works of Aloysius,
(2016) in Tamil are particularly phenomenal in creating Thass as Geetha and Rajadurai, Pandian, and Ayyathurai who wrote in
a discourse and critique.1 English, and Dharmaraj and Gowthaman who wrote in Tamil?
The late 1990s and the early 2000s, just like the earlier century How did Thass’ use of religion, particularly Tamil Buddhism, pave
during which Thass worked (1890s-1910s), were politically vibrant a viable anti-caste critique within the vernacular cosmopolitan?
times. The Tamil intellectual sphere was churned and changed This paper, hence, suggests that at the level of epistemology, Dalits
quite drastically by the ‘little magazine’ movements along with the used writing and reading as acts towards an anti-caste community.
Dalit socio-political emergence across the subcontinent.2 This paper Thass’ and his contemporaries’ efforts, hence, need a historical
endeavours to consider this historical context and study the works re-look when placed in the long nineteenth and early twentieth
that made these writers rediscover Thass. It wishes to track the centuries in the Madras presidency.
In this context, Thass’ important contribution to anti-caste opposition. Besides, Thass never floated the Non-Brahmin
thought and the Tamil Buddhist movement in the late nineteenth conglomeration as an alternative emancipatory identity, which the
and twentieth century could be evaluated for a richer understanding authors state. They claimed that equality was proclaimed as an
of anti-caste history and religion. Social Scientists and writers have ideal by Non-Brahmins, as they came to demonstrate and realize
done so in the recent past and Thass has become a subject for their rights of access to places, events, and honours that were
scholarly interest as well as scorn. The discussion on Thass as a conventionally denied to them. It was under the name of culture
historical discourse and critique evaluates how scholars have treated that the authors took Thass also within the ‘Non-Brahmin’ political
him thus far for various reasons. This paper accounts these themes frame. He clearly opposed even this conglomeration ‘Non-Brahmin’.
as Non-Brahmin discourse and the anti-caste critique. He discouraged any form of fundamental negativity as a form of
ethical life. Dubbing both the Non-Brahmin and the Adi-Dravida
Thass for ‘Non-Brahmin’ Discourse protest as one and the same was just a strategy to challenge the
supremacy of Brahmin power. It does not necessarily become anti-
Geetha and Rajadurai wrote one of the first books on Non- caste, or challenge caste-power as such, when the face of the
Brahminism in Tamil Nadu and they argue that “Non-Brahminism Brahmin challenge changed.
is a historically evolved structure of feeling in the early twentieth
While Thass’ critique of Swadeshi reform and Swaraj movement
century, where Brahmin subjectivity was mediated through well-
was against the conduct of the Brahmin proponents of caste
marked rhetorical tropes and discursive concerns” (1998: xiv). The
through nationalism, Geetha and Rajadurai only highlight the civic
term Non-Brahmin, which reeves on hatred, is attributed to various
fights, and not his work on Tamil Buddhism. They suggest that
trajectories of anti-caste movements beginning with the articulation
his plea for a political ideal that embraced social reform and
of Dalit voices that emerged from the last decades of the nineteenth
democratic political activity, and his criticism of the Swadeshis
century. While they describe that the relationship between political
non-Brahminism and the radical anti-caste politics was complex, seem to underwrite the political philosophy of the Non-Brahmins
they do not, however, find them fundamentally different or (66). In a vague attempt, they club all critiques on Swadeshi
discontinuous. In such an approach, even the critical and creative nationalists as constituting a Non-Brahmin conglomerate. Thass
use of religion for an anti-caste community consciousness by Thass was never given his own autonomy and historical importance. His
is lost, if not given importance. attempts were just clubbed as one which appreciated the work of
They refer to the Tamil Buddhist movement as one that British in India. They were treated as Adi-Dravida narrative that
concerns a group of “Buddhist Parayars” only (44). As it preceded awaited a Non-Brahmin millennium to become a social movement.
the later Non-Brahmin movement, the authors treat the Tamil Secondly, the authors narrate that the socially oppressed Adi-
Buddhist movement as a precursor to the Dravidian ideology and Dravidas in the pages of Tamizhan—the journal that Thass ran—
that of transition. However, the movement itself was not given an evinced faith and good will on the British rulers. Particularly, the
autonomous anti-caste perspective. It is to be noted that the Tamil entry into army, and the fashioning of a martial self in the
Buddhist movement had conceived of the Tamil civilization as emperor’s uniform—the authors claim that these changes increased
integral rather than divisive, interactive rather than exclusionary, the self-perception of the socially oppressed (Geetha and Rajadurai,
and inter-communicative rather than lofty and distant. 1998: 69). However, they do not recognize the multiple means
One could say that Geetha and Rajadurai misrepresent Thass through which the oppressed engaged with the British and it
as one who stands for syncretic Tamil centrism and Sanskrit reflects apathy over not making the oppressed speak for themselves.
Instead, an underlying accusation seems to mask the logic and that Christianity. This, they state, indeed produced an inevitable “anti-
is—the Adi-Dravidas, indeed, showed good faith on the British Aryanism and anti-Sanskritism” (104). They argue that this seems
rule, and this signified the ideology of ‘being ruled’. The Adi- to be the background which makes Thass not to read the past as
Dravida’s faith towards the British presence in India is counter- a history of victimhood and oppression. Therefore, Thass’ foray
posed to be the main element behind the unity of the Non-Brahmin. into history transcends the ground of historiography which reclaims
In many ways, Non-Brahmin, as an anomaly, misrecognizes a hermeneutical trajectory governed by the laws of the imaginative
the anti-caste movement led by the most oppressed. If the Non- rather than that of empirical enquiry. His entire intellectual work
Brahmin millennium had been an anti-caste millennium, the supposed is dependent upon the European interface, they suggest.
possibilities of post-caste interaction and bonding at the social level Hence, though Thass and other anti-caste intellectuals searched
would have emerged in the contemporary. Even though “there for an authentic past, they just facilitated the emergence of Tamil
emerged new modes of perception, new structures of feeling, and classicism, a concern with origins, and of Tamil literati whose
new imaginings of the self” (Geetha and Rajadurai, 1998: 86), the traditional learning was now subverted to serve the anxieties of
deliberate failure to recognize the survival of caste amongst the the present. Thass, hence, was called as ‘an antiquarian ideologue’
Non-Brahmins in this period is a problem that the authors neither (an accusation that Pandian also made). This created the ideological
reflect nor record. And the Non-Brahmin conglomerate’s attitude conditions that made the Adi-Dravida emergence serve a political
towards caste as social oppression is problematic when they do Non-Brahminism with a purposive edge (Geetha and Rajadurai,
not recognize the autonomous possibilities of the anti-caste 1998: 104).
framework propelled by the most oppressed for a post-caste One of the primary reasons for Geetha and Rajadurai to
future. In the words of Dravidian ‘Non-Brahmin’ intellectuals, conceptualize the Non-Brahmin millennium was their foremost
Thass indeed had to wait for Periyar.3 passion to unravel the legacy of Non-Brahminism by examining
The authors falsely treat these critiques of caste, which precede the political and social comradeship between caste Hindus and
the Dravidian movement, as contesting only the pre-eminence of Dalits which they claim that the movement enabled (501). This
the Sanskrit language. This is not true in the case of Thass as he was one of the primary problems. The various ways through which
had treated Pali, Sanskrit, and Tamil as languages through which the most oppressed responded to the continuing violence against
the Buddhist thought was spread across the continent. Hence, the Dalits, and a retrograde male chauvinism that sought to police
work of Thass particularly is not linked with the Aryanist theory, women’s lives and public morality, were never factored in as
rather he inverts it. The authors treated him as an amateur critical and pertinent problems to review the movement. Nor the
philologist, examining words, splitting them up, identifying their history of the ‘Adi-Dravida assertion’, as they claim, was treated
roots and reconstructing their meaning, as he desired to recover on par with an anti-caste radicalism which largely altered the world
the past in its own moment (104). This would make him a view of Subaltern movements that used religious and linguistic
maverick and an eccentric at work, and his writing a historiographical sources against caste. Their only account was to equate and bring
adventure. This act of Thass—why would he do what he does— together the genealogy of anti-caste as “Dravidian in content and
was never treated as a serious subject of enquiry. specific in Tamil” (504). Hence, they reject the Dalit critique on
They also construe that the work by the protestant missionaries the Dravidian movement’s claim to political and social power,
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as Ziegenbalg, which seriously discounts the importance of anti-caste Tamil
Rhenius, and Bernard Schmidt made Tamil a popular language of radicalism of the Self-Respect movement.
In fact, Irschick informs that, as early as 1917, the Justice Apart from calling Iyothee Thass as an untouchable “Parayar
party’s political proposals for a unified Non-Brahmin mobilization intellectual”, a term which Thass out rightly rejected, Pandian, just
were rejected by none other than the major Dalit political leader like Geetha and Rajadurai, also termed Thass as an exemplar old-
Rettaimalai Sreenivasan who founded the Parayar Mahajana word intellectual in the Tamil region. Textualism and religious
Sabha. He reportedly rejected them because this would bring a debate were the only modes of cultural intervention, he claimed,
caste Hindu Raj which would mean ruin for the Dalits (Irschick, that Thass practiced. Hence, his critiques of the Brahmin were
1969: 71-72). Hence, scholars critically evaluated the Non-Brahmin primarily in the domain of culture, Pandian clarified. Thass had
movement of 1910s and 1920s in Madras with respect to its started an Advaidananda Sabha (1870), followed by the Dravida
inclusiveness and anti-casteism. Historians have skeptically pointed Mahajana Sabha (1891) in Nilgiris, and much as a grass root
out that the elite social groups from which Non-Brahminism arose organization the Sakya Buddhist Sangam (1898) in Madras and
were no better suited than their Brahmin rivals to bring about any the North-Western region of the presidency. However, Pandian had
real democratization of politics in South India (Irschick, 1969; failed to recognize and acknowledge the organic nature of the
Baker and Washbrook 1975; Washbrook 1977). While these political work that anti-caste intellectuals like Thass were doing
studies are critical in their evaluation of the Non-Brahmin movement, against dominant caste culture, through their works in writing and
even Geetha and Rajadurai’s book-title denotes the simultaneous action, particularly against the caste-Hindu reactions.4
assimilation of Dalit anti-caste sentiment into an elite Non-Brahmin While Thass treats writing history as a pedagogic act, Pandian
movement. The sub-title From Iyothee Thass to Periyar refers to declares that Thass’ history is nothing but an ethnographic curiosity
Thass as a Dalit leader who preceded the Non-Brahmin movement that is based on self-knowledge. An enquiry, he states, that is
who, however, never used or accepted the term (Dharmaraj, fundamentally based on the history of the animosity between the
2008). Parayars and Brahmins. However, he also considers that in the
This is also very true of Pandian’s seminal work Brahmin and absence of any historiographic details, the claims of Thass are
Non-Brahmin (2007), where he studies Thass along with Maraimalai revelatory and mythical. However, messianic claim through religion
Adigal (1876-1950) to conceptualize how the new voice of the has been a universal claim for emancipation and resistance of the
‘Non-Brahmin’ speak of the other and make their own self (102- oppressed across the world (Lanternari, 1964). In fact, Thass’
143). Pandian acknowledges that a network of associational life exegetic journey through numerous Tamil texts such as Thirukkural,
in the Madras presidency during the late nineteenth and the early Silappadhikaram, Manimekalai, Tholkaapiyam, and Nannool
twentieth centuries was run by the oppressed to air their views yielded him further evidence of Buddhist presence in the Tamil
and grievances by setting up publishing tracts and organizations. country. This was through a persistent intellectual labour, ingenious
However, just like Geetha and Rajadurai, he also understands them and idiosyncratic interpretation of etymology, and remarkable
as being talkative only about the Brahmin. This is not necessarily flights of imagination.
a talking—in their own voice—about a community of freedom as Pandian, however, evaluates Thass as emphasizing individual
“untouchables, Sudras, neo-Buddhists, Saivaites, and rationalists” moral conduct, and confines him to the limited realm of religio-
(Pandian, 2007: 102). He observes that Thass had to talk about cultural practices, “directing only the Buddhist Parayars”. Thus,
the Brahmin, to speak of one’s emancipatory self. This is an he charged that Thass’ proposed measures avoided confronting the
inadequate reading as it does not account, if not deny, the role question of uneven power between castes. Much more, he
of oppressed communities’ fight against caste in history. understands Thass only as borrowing Buddhism from Brahminical-
Hinduism (117-118). Thass instructing cleanliness to the Buddhist (1879-1973) Self Respect movement, which propagated a rationalist
masses suddenly became an accusation about imitating the Brahmin. critique couched in everyday Tamil.6 Periyar, according to Pandian,
He interprets that Thass “idealized existing Brahminical practices could mobilize varied identities that came under the Non-Brahmin
and inferiorized Parayar practices such as fire-walking and animal coalition. Pandian reasons that Periyar’s critique of Brahmins and
sacrifices” (118). Thereby, he brands him as “practicing attunement” Hindu religious practices that inferiorized “lower castes, women,
(Connolly, 1996: 17)—a strategy by which members of a community physical labour, and non-sanskritic languages” (120) was a rallying
become closely oriented to a higher direction in being and to the point under which such a bottom of the caste-hierarchy coalition
more harmonious life it renders possible. could be made.
Pandian argues that this initiates nothing but a variety of self- On many levels, such a reading dismisses, if not misleads, an
hate and only by attuning their current religious practices to a anti-caste intellectual to speak for himself. Thass readily engaged
‘higher’ ritual ideal could the oppressed—Dalits—become Buddhist. with the social world of his times. His approach to common
This, he states, is a boringly pedagogic project that causes people’s politics and his activism were organic in many ways.
estrangement and creates a painful artifice of normalization. This Neither did he dwell in a world of splendour nor did he move away
argument is legitimized by the limited followers of Thass’ Tamil from everyday politics. Oppressed subaltern intellectuals have
Buddhism. Importantly, the exegetic strategy of producing always reinterpreted an anti-caste religion of their own, while
commentaries on literary texts and recovering for Buddhism, as contesting the dominant past that locates them as untouchables.
practiced by Thass, made him an elitist who constituted just an Pandian seemed to have not recognized this aspect of the anti-
exclusivist public. This literary public, Pandian states, excluded the caste movement. A Dalit critique of the Dravidian movement
Tamil Subalterns, as it demanded specific forms of literary generates from the position of social experience and emancipatory
competence and interpretive skills (118-119). This accusation is vision. Obliterating such a view is a serious failure to understand
strikingly like the Marxist critique of Ambedkar and Ambedkarites, a resistant critique that emanates from an embodied Dalit occupying
which treats the movement against caste for self-respect as bourgeois an anti-caste position. Instead, Pandian reads the embodied critique
and nationalist.5 of caste from the most oppressed, in their historical attempts, as
While Thass fashioned and laboured as an organic intellectual, enunciating a “politics of attunement” that never concerns wider
Pandian relegates him to the likes of “a Parayar politician” who political publics. This is an act of denial to those for whom it
was constrained and limited by the religio-cultural space. Pandian matters. It is indeed a violent denial. Moreover, translating the
even states that as Thass’ movement did not emerge in the popular, Subaltern attempts towards assertive emancipatory thought as
his followers later had to ‘secularize’ themselves and ‘mobilize as valorising caste is nothing but necessarily refusing to look beyond
Parayars’ to contest the Brahmins in the domain of the political. the world of the dominant—here the discourse on Brahmin as the
Hence, they become foot soldiers of the Dravidian movement central figure.
under the leadership of Periyar Ramasamy. Pandian understands Thass did not just negatively abuse dominant religion, but he
that mobilization had to be a broad coalition of Non-Brahmins of founded a ‘counter-throw’ by re-imagining an emancipatory religion
varied identities against Brahminical dominance and hegemony. that rationalizes sociality against caste immunitas. He produced a
In an ingenious way thus, Pandian equates Thass’ movement creative textuality that contests caste oppression instituted through
with that of Maraimalai Adigal’s (1876-1950) Saivaite Dravidianism, a religion. This counter-throw on history, by Thass, is pedagogic
but differentiates it largely from Periyar E.V. Ramasamy’s because change is the ultimate desire. Texts that have insisted to
place a rationalized community over-written on the idea of a united comparing the social world and the context that produced their
‘Non-Brahmin’ cluster, against the guile of the historical Brahmin, texts. Thass readily engaged with the social world of his times.
do not qualitatively refer and acknowledge the practice of caste His approach to common people’s politics and his activism were
in obliterating their own pre-histories. One is neither ethical nor organic in many ways. He did not dwell in a world of splendour
moral when one does not engage with religions that contest caste. nor did he move away from everyday politics. Oppressed Subaltern
The Dalit engagement with religion then is fundamentally about intellectuals have always reinterpreted an anti-caste religion of their
a textuality of ethics to foreground a political community. own, while contesting the dominant past that locates them as
For instance, Dharmaraj’s “Rebel’s Genealogy” (2008), in this untouchables. On the one hand, Pandian valorises the ‘Non-
context, criticizes Pandian’s formulations on the Brahmin and the Brahmin’ as a political binary to the Brahmin in a discourse situated
Non-Brahmin. He accounts that Pandian’s theoretical concepts in colonialism; while on the other, it is intellectually and politically
lack particular use for the Tamil society as he only writes to the defective when he rejects the unilateral voice of Thass by assimilating
English academia. Especially his use of the term ‘Non-Brahmin’ him with Adigal’s caste-centric sectarian Saivism that was in
is central only to the English scholarship from the twentieth opposition to anything egalitarian and social.
century, and not particularly to the Tamil public sphere. The Geetha, Rajadurai, and Pandian, in other words, fail to recognize
concept, Dharmaraj argues, only appears in English and may that concrete experience can become a necessary epistemic resource
wrongly determine the politics of the entire Tamil people, especially for the progression of concepts, “not as a mere journey of concepts
the most oppressed. Importantly, he finds that there is no unity that refer to other concepts alone” (Guru and Sarukkai, 2012:
that is valid behind the term ‘Non-Brahmin’. 121)—here Non-Brahmin as a concept. This is thus a failure to
To bring the question of hereditary land power not only in read the moral and political force of the categories of resistance
with a unified meaning. Buddhism had a hermeneutic and political
cultural and social, but also in political and economic terms, Rupa
power to interrogate Brahminism according to Thass, but perhaps,
Viswanath clearly states that the division between elite Non-
‘Non-Brahmin’ intellectuals had a different take on the experiential
Brahmin castes and Brahmins bears no comparison to that between
hermeneutic as a counter to caste.
landed castes and hereditarily unfree oppressed communities. She
For Thass, critiquing caste and creating an anti-caste community
pitches that it was the depressed classes who most often
imaginary was not just to portray the Brahmin as a figure of scorn
conceptualised a critique of caste in terms of the relation between
with an appropriated ideal status. It was a subversive attempt to
landed elements and landless Dalit labourers (Viswanath, 2014: create a textuality that refutes and creates a religion and culture
247-248). Hence, Pandian’s simplistic understanding of colonialism against caste. Pandian interpreted that the metaphysics of caste as
as the sole cause for the emergence of Brahmin figure, his an enforced hierarchy largely remained intact in Thass; his discourses
inadequate perspective on Iyothee Thass and oppressed only underscored the continuing power of the Brahmin in the Tamil
communities’ engagement with colonialism, and finally the depiction context. This reading is more than vindictive. Pandian refused to
of the Dravidian politics as ‘subaltern’ are problematic.7 Dharmaraj acknowledge that not just ‘Non-Brahmin’, but an anti-caste critique
underlines that the discourses on colonialism and Orientalism has a long historical significance, though a discontinuous one, and
continue to uphold the Brahmin on the one hand, but deny the various Dalits were indeed its active participants.
role of oppressed communities’ fight against caste in the history
of Tamil Nadu. However, anti-Brahminical views have been prevalent in South
Pandian, hence, did not allow an anti-caste intellectual to speak India and Ceylon since the middle of the nineteenth century.
for himself. He read Thass in isolation with Adigal, rather than Nevertheless, what is usually noticed is the Non-Brahmin upper
caste positions against the Brahmins, and never the marginalized symbolic realm. And lastly, religion becomes an “emancipatory
communities’ anti-caste practices that took both the Brahmins and identity” when the new religion is transformed into an identity of
Non-Brahmin upper castes to task. This shields the actors of the the given collectivity as it expresses unity and continuity (Aloysius,
Non-Brahmin movement, the Dravidian movement and the Self- 1998: 14-20).
Respect movement as caste-less, whereas the Dalits who had lead Structuring the movement as one of cultural resistance, Aloysius
anti-caste mobilizations are brushed with significations of caste. studies religion as a space where the oppressed Subaltern
Tamil Dalit intellectuals, particularly, find fault with the self- communities—the lower sections—hark back to their tradition of
presentation of the Non-Brahmin movement’s ‘common sense’ as revolt. Religious movements such as the Tamil Buddhist movement,
radical. They criticize it as being produced, reinforced, and he argues, seek to redefine, improve upon, consolidate, and legitimize
threateningly indoctrinated by a section of English-speaking Dravidian the life-situation of conflicting groups and classes. From conditions
intellectuals (Ravikumar and Azhagarasan, 2012: xxv).8 This is of “liminality” to the experience of “relative deprivation”, these
indeed a serious critique on the foundations of history in India that movements are termed as having a religio-spiritual dimension that
contribute to erase anti-caste public memory. Particularly, the role go against “ascriptive hierarchy”—to emancipate oneself from the
of academics and history-writing in India calls for a critical anti-
prison house of religio-cultural slavery (Aloysius, 1998: 17).
caste perspective.
He foregrounds that the Subaltern life-world and their social
protests in the nineteenth century were religiously expressed. He
Thass for Anti-Caste Critique
finds a pattern in their resistance where religion is often constructed
from outside Hinduism—from “an earlier non/anti-Brahminical
Although Aloysius, Dharmaraj, Gowthaman, and Ayyathurai address
the same issue and use Thass as a point of reference, yet they traditions” of the subcontinent. Secondly, there is also a selective
differ largely from earlier writers. They study Thass’ works by refashioning of several sects of Hindu religion. And lastly, there
giving importance to the ideas of communitary experience and is an appropriation of religious traditions of a non-Indian origin.
experiential community. This part, as a critical counter to the Non- The nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave a larger field across
Brahmin discourse, designates how scholars have insisted on the the sub-continent where ‘oppressed castes’ subjectively constructed
anti-caste critique in Thass by foregrounding religion, culture, “sacred canopies” within a limited context.9 However, they were
thought, and consciousness. experientially located, though they expressed through a textual
cosmology in print. This aspect of the Subaltern emergence is
a. Foregrounding Religion hardly studied in the Indian context. He argues that the nation failed
to democratically emerge in India. The colonial elite just transferred
Aloysius treats the movement as an emergence of the hitherto the power to the nationalist Brahminical casteist elite. Thus,
religiously excluded. Hence, the religion of the oppressed is “an nationalism on the foundations of Hindu culture, with its caste
ethically ideal world-view” as it embodies an egalitarian social practices intact, was promoted as unifying Hinduism and the post-
order. Secondly, this religion comes as “an option”—a choice, and colony in India.
never a given. People move away, consciously rejecting the ascriptive Aloysius particularly studies Thass-led Tamil Buddhist
religion. And thirdly, there is an “emphasis on sociality and movement as an emancipatory movement that articulated religion
collectivity”. Celebration becomes central to the religion of the as its political and cultural content. This first study on Thass
oppressed. It creates “an alternative hegemony” in the cultural and created a discourse on resistant religious practice, particularly, that
appeared for the first time in the weekly Tamizhan, which explored and dwelled on the persistent and meaningful sphere of
came out week after week from 1907 to 1914. The work of human symbolism that encompassed and expressed an emergent
Buddhist Sanghas that worked in the Madras presidency, and those ethical consciousness. It retained a middle-path between religio-
which were spread overseas, were also studied. Seemingly, as cultural and religious symbolism of the oppressed community. It
they independently claimed that the modern-day depressed was a new form of symbolism that expressed collective
classes were the Buddhists of yore, the Tamil Buddhist movement, emancipation. In the struggle against the colonially empowered
Aloysius argues, claimed a discovery of a Tamil past as the Brahminism, this project of emancipation was launched by the
community’s collective identity. This Buddhist movement, he subalternized communities of Northern Tamil Nadu. This was an
claims, actualized and symbolized the collective struggles of the imagination for a new form of religion and cultural symbolism that
oppressed people for social emancipation. Tamil Buddhism was expressed collective emancipatory life. This served as a new
expressed within language, literature, history, and religion in the political meaning for religion as practice.
early twentieth century and it was an expression of an emancipatory This inventory religion also came as a response to the fast-
identity. changing socio-political situation of the times. The earlier framework
Three main points seem to emerge while understanding Aloysius’ of religion and caste for the oppressed was particularly based on
study of Thass and the Tamil Buddhist movement. Firstly, Aloysius rejection, marginalization, dispossession, deprivation, suppression,
identifies that there was a community present which was and oppression. The dominant Brahminism executed them both
representative of a bigger mass of oppressed people. Secondly, in the sacred and secular spheres. Rejection, however, was countered
they decided to recognize themselves as Buddhists. He argues that by equal and opposite rejection of caste by the Tamil Subalterns.
it was certainly an autonomous attempt to rediscover their lost They recognized that caste is enslavement. The emancipatory
identity as marginalized people. Thirdly, this group was led by strategies for a religion of the oppressed were opposite to those
a Siddha expert Pandit Iyothee Thass, a renowned scholar of of the oppressors. Thus, Aloysius argues that casteless-ness became
Tamil language and literature, who was also well versed in Pali the new fundamental tenet of the new emancipatory religion. The
and Sanskrit. He was an organizational genius and a charismatic value of this religion is marked by its rejection of caste principle.
figure. Calling for a casteless fraternity, it envisions a construction of an
The Buddhist project aspired to construct an alternative altogether new society, thereby addressing the existential concerns
hegemonic discourse as an interpretative continuity of the long pre- of the oppressed community.
modern Tamil cultural heritage. The new religion was understood Aloysius places Tamil Buddhism as a historical legacy from
as a religion that directed the oppressed. But it was also open to within. It used print media largely to construct a modern organization
the entire society. Besides, Aloysius claims that from 1907 to 1914, to reject caste primordiality. He identifies it as a well worked out
Thass produced rich interpretative research which was highly and multifaceted ideology to interpret history against caste. He also
original. It contested and invented past while radically interpreting recognized it as an ideological antecedent to Dravidian movement.
history. This paved way to understand historical research that It brought together a Tamil collective life, literature, culture,
emphasized religion as an embodied experience for the oppressed. religion, and history into one compressed and integrated thesis,
Aloysius, importantly, lays open how Tamil Buddhism became while giving a programmatic partnership and mass merger with
an antithetical religion of the oppressed. He suggests that Buddhism other movements for emancipation.
b. Foregrounding Culture movements, Siddha medicine, Tamil linguistics, and hermeneutics.

Dharmaraj negotiates with the construction of Buddhism as against
While Aloysius reads religion as an emancipatory category in the caste—particularly its fight against Brahminism—by the Dalit
context of oppression and discrimination in India, Dharmaraj’s intellectuals during the twentieth century. Dharmaraj portrays Thass
important Tamil book Naan Poorva Bouddhan [I’m an Ancient and his writings as an effort to link the Tamil language and
Buddhist] (2007) brings forward a Dalit movement that openly Buddhism. Accordingly, it was Thass who claimed that those who
asserted itself as Buddhist in the Tamil-context. Dharmaraj’s text were oppressed and discriminated through caste—the Tamils who
is more about the intellectual absent-mindedness of the Dalit-self were treated badly than animals as untouchables—were Buddhists
in socio-cultural movements in Tamil Nadu. His book addresses indeed. Hence his struggle was also to prove that Buddhism is a
why and how Thass, as an icon, was conveniently forgotten from living—and hence not a dead—religion in India. It was indeed a
the anti-caste intellectual climate of Tamil public sphere. Accounting counter-Tamil identity against and outside caste. In Tamil Buddhism,
Thass as a life to be studied, Dharmaraj presents him as a political Thass found and interpreted a caste-less cosmology.10
radical—a life that was marked by a heroic passion for justice and Dharmaraj captures the reason for a century’s forgetfulness
self-respect. He presents interesting details of Thass’ multifaceted
of Thass in Tamil Nadu (83-94). He exposes the roots of Dravidian
life as a social revolutionary. His roles as a Buddhist reformer, a
movement in the Tamil Buddhist movement and explains the links
journalist, a public intellectual, a Tamil and Siddha scholar were
Periyar had with it. He accuses that the Tamil intellectual castes
seriously studied and presented. The Dalit intellectual collectives
negated Thass. Asking the simple question why there is such Dalit
projected Thass as a re-discovered anti-caste intellectual of the
anger and distrust on the Dravidian movement and describing how
Tamil country—a vernacular hero.
This very interesting narrative, in the long essay format and casteist Non-Brahmins had humiliated and discriminated the Dalits
in simple Tamil, reads like a story and Dharmaraj depicts Thass as untouchables, he exposes the dominant modes of the Dravidian
as participating in a cultural revolution of his times. He presents movement with respect to caste. In many ways, Dharmaraj’s Tamil
him as an agent whose politics of culture preceded the claim for writings also critically reads Aloysius’ study of Thass by
a change in governance. His movement is socio-cultural, which is foregrounding the Dalit critique of the Non-Brahmin movement.
neatly embedded and paralleled with the political emancipation of Besides, Thass’ enquiry was argued as one that was based on an
the people. It is, hence, at once social, cultural, and political expansive knowledge in Tamil—Grammar, Siddha medicine,
emergence of the oppressed people. Dharmaraj also consents, Astrology, and Astronomy. He claims that it was Thass’ research
along with Aloysius, that the struggle for Independence in India into the Tamil language that made him constitute Tamil Buddhism
was a caste conspiracy. This, he argues, was exposed by many as a vibrant tool against caste.
Dalit and ‘lower’ caste intellectuals, like Thass, in the nineteenth Thass’ interpretation of the literary history and cultural practices
and the twentieth centuries. Thass used it through Tamil Buddhism of Tamils from a Buddhist perspective gains importance for its
as a multi-layered informative response to caste and Brahminism. non-Hindu and anti-discriminatory content. Along with Ravikumar,
Religion was a field with an expansive imagination where Thass Dharmaraj claims that the anti-Brahminism of Thass keeps a
used interpretation as a mode of enquiry and expression. distance from the Non-Brahmin movement as it predates Periyar.
This religious enquiry—a bulwark against caste and Much importantly, Thass’ cultural critique was rooted within
Brahminism—brought out the importance and use of the history of Buddhism and Tamil. Hence, while Aloysius’s
historiographical resources such as oral narratives, literary work on Thass foregrounded religion as a category for emancipation
from oppression, Dharmaraj’s study looked at culture and Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942) published Manimekalai (1898)—
language as categories, where the foundation for emancipatory the Sangam Epic—where he translated the available narrative on
politics lay in asserting oneself as a holistic Buddhist. In both these Buddhism from Rhys Davis, Monier Williams, and Max Mueller;
attempts, caste as a category was countered by other emancipatory but Gowthaman claims that he hinduized the Buddha.11 In this
categories. depiction of the Buddha, Brahminism was never disturbed and
Buddhism was created to protect caste privileges. Whereas,
c. Foregrounding Thought
Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950)—a Saivaite, an early proponent of
Raj Gowthaman’s Iyotheethassar Aaivugal [Iyothee Thass’ ‘Pure Tamil’ movement, and an ideologue of the Dravidian nationalist
Research] (2004) studies Thass’ work primarily as intellectual movement—called for the recovery, revival and celebration of an
history. Hermeneutics and interpretation are used as basis for ancient ‘Non-Brahmin’ Tamil language, religion and culture
intellectual thought and discourse to counter-read religion, language, (Venkatachalapathy, 1995; Vaithees 2014). Adigal described
and culture as a kind of politics against caste. This hermeneutics, Buddhism as Tamil religion—that valorized and celebrated the
as read by Gowthaman, places Thass within a resistant anti-caste ‘Non-Brahmin’ Tamils—especially without ever looking at it from
Tamil intellectual tradition. Gowthaman historicises Thass as an an anti-caste perspective. Buddhism was used to claim a classical
intellectual who used the print public sphere quite efficiently. He and separate Tamil nationalism resurgently forced by Vellalar—a
historicises Thass in his times—placing him within the political dominant, Non-Brahmin, land-holding caste—movement and
climate, his contemporaries and Dalit intellectuals of his times— Saivism. Similarly, Gowthaman identifies that atheistic Self-Respect
by studying his publishing activity along with the Buddhist revivalist
and Dravidian-Shudra movements too used Buddhism for its
work. His creative interpretations, Gowthaman specifies, have
political and cultural content.12
countered the dominant narratives of caste print spheres. The
perspective of social imaginaries as histories, like that of Indhirar However, Gowthaman argues that even before the term ‘engaged
Dhesa Sarithiram, from the most oppressed is presented as a Buddhism’ came up in the 1960s, the oppressed Dalits had
resistant historiography of a kind. reworked on a Buddhist identity in a very engaging way. They
Thass practiced research that was an ethical and political developed it as a new transformatory tradition. Thass engaged with
activity. To Gowthaman, Thass was an extraordinary figure, who other Tamil Buddhists such as P. Lakshmi Narasu and M.
was extremely sophisticated at launching a knowledge-based Singaravelu along with Theosophical Society’s Olcott, Blavatsky,
resistance, by prioritizing the resources and experiences that he got and Dharmapala, in their work for other oppressed Dalits. Thass
as a Tamil Siddha practitioner. In fact, traditions competed to also founded the “South Indian Buddhist Associations” and “Sakhya
rediscover Buddhism especially in the twentieth century through Buddhist Sangams”, while recreating Buddhism through traditional
Friedrich Max Müller (1823-1900), Hermann Oldenberg (1854-
Tamil grammar, literature, ethics, culture, and history but also as
1920), Monier-Williams (1819-1899), and Rhys Davis (1843-
an existential religious route.
1922) from Europe; Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933) from
Srilanka; Rahul Sankrityayan (1893-1963) and D. Kosambi (1876- Gowthaman finds a fundamental difference between Thass
1947) from India. and Lakshmi Narasu—the professor from Madras who was a
Gowthaman places Thass within a Tamil public sphere which pioneer to research and write on Buddhism in English in his The
was making use of print as a medium to create a specific cultural Essence of Buddhism (1907), which had inspired B.R. Ambedkar
lineage through the palm-leaf manuscripts. For instance, U.V. to write a foreword. Gowthaman argues that though Narasu had
a specific critique of the Hinduized Buddhism, Thass strongly Kolar Gold Fields where the oppressed communities had migrated.
contests it. Any rationalistic proposition of Buddhism that rejects They had settled down in these industrial towns during the colonial
a corporal practise of religion is not Buddhism for Thass. In many period. The journal came to these societies as a declaration to claim
ways, Gowthaman states that Thass’ Buddhism was very different the religion of the caste-less Dravidians to counter Brahminism.
from what others were doing at the same time.13 Thass was acting Thass variably used the ancient Tamil Epics, literature, Buddhist
during a socio-historical context where both British imperialistic books and oral narratives to constitute Buddhism as the original
trend and the Brahminized elite merged. Even assertion against religion of the most oppressed—the ones who were the most
colonial domination took the shape of the casteist, Brahminized, affected by caste (Gowthaman, 2004: 70).
Hindu nationalism. R. Sundaralingam designates that the period He had to categorically differentiate the idea of religion as
1820 to 1890 made the Brahmins very powerful in the subcontinent. caste-less, to place the experiential view of the most oppressed by
The reasons he attributes for this power-shift are religious and caste at the centre. He differentiated Buddhism from the religion
socio-cultural hegemony, the change in agrarian economy coupled of the Saivaites and Vaishnavaites. He broke the essential Orientalist
by governmental power, both administrative and state construction that non-Christian, non-Muslim, and non-Sikh people
are Hindus. He requested the oppressed Tamils to register as
(Sundaralingam, 1974: 68).
‘original Tamils’ in the 1881 census of the colonial state. From
However, this period also saw a mushrooming of many societies
1911 to 1921, especially after the death of Thass, Dravidian
and journals. Of importance is the Theosophical Society that
Buddhist numbers increased. It was during this time that Mysore
shifted its base to Adyar, Madras in 1882. It was mostly supported
and the Kolar Gold Field played a significant role in spreading
by the Indian governmental gentry. However, there is a specific
Buddhism and education amongst the oppressed communities.
link between the work of colonel Olcott and work on Tamil
Monks from Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, and Siam preached at
Buddhism. The society, under the leadership of both Olcott and
Kolar Gold Field.
Blavatsky, started schools for Dalits. Until 1907, before the death It was through libraries and printing press that this transformation
of Olcott and the shift of leadership to Annie Besant, Thass had could be engineered by Thass. Marikuppam, for instance, had a
maintained a close relationship with them. Thass met Olcott during library and a Buddhist research centre. Not only did they become
the years 1896 to 1898. He starts the South Indian Sakhya pioneering discussion forums on caste rejection, but also initiated
Buddhist Sangha in 1898, and the South Indian Buddhist Sangha self-respect marriages. They used the books Thirukural and
from 1898 to 1907. S.I.B.A.-s were established in Marikuppam Dhammapadam during the wedding ceremonies. Thass’ books did
(Kolar Gold Field), Bangalore, and Hubli apart from North Arcot, a cultural awakening at the level of writing. His books Buddharadhu
Madras, Royapeta, Perambur, and Rangoon. Thass was a pioneer Aadhivedham and Indhirar Dhesa Sarithiram are interesting treatises
in converting many depressed classes to Buddhism in these cities on history and religion. By reconstructing myths and legends from
through the work of these societies (Kshirsagar, 1994: 387). These an anti-caste location, Thass continuously debated with the
centres became catalysts for transformation of anti-caste politicization Brahminization of Tamil and Indian history in the Tamil weekly
and cultural content of Dalits. Swadesamitran and India (Gowthaman, 2004: 70-75).
Thass worked in these societies first, working among Dalits, Interestingly, Thass had also raised questions about caste in
and then started his journal Tamizhan in 1907 when colonel Olcott the context of South Africa. He particularly contested the complaints
died. The Sanghas were started in Madras, Perambur, and the that Indians reported, on being discriminated differentially, in the
journals. He compared it with other reports where Dalits were (Aloysius, 2010: 270-271). Accordingly, the self-respect movement,
portrayed in a very bad light. His writings against caste were he claims, was not always forthcoming in censuring the Non-
generated from informative political circles. It was during the Brahmin caste atrocities on the Adi-Dravidas. Tamizhan, the
British rule that Dalits worked and progressed as butlers, watchmen, journal, and the anti-caste movement by the Tamil Buddhists
and medicants, and worked in hospitals, railways, and the military. became an inferior partner, and a Brahminical pattern of power
Thass could work among them and write, while using resurgent congruence seem to work as caste-power among the Non-Brahmin
Buddhism, education, medicine (Siddha), and journalism as basic conglomerates, particularly against the Adi-Dravidas. Hence the
frames. This was transforming him into an intellectual who primary goal of the anti-caste movement, which is ‘the abolition
foregrounded a civilizational memory that rooted in a treatise of of caste’, was relegated (Aloysius, 2010: 270). He suggests,
ethics. Buddhism was not only propounded as an alternative within however, that Thass’ movement was a scintillating attack for the
vernacular (Tamil) to Brahminical violence, but also its ideological abolition of caste and varna that would secure a holistic
frames were rooted in a textuality of non-violence. transformation for its worst victims. Though an active and hegemonic
Thass’ intellectual enterprise is an effort to contest history and presence of the dominant forces engaged in the ceaseless process
reject the fatal hermeneutics of birth-centrism. Along with the of thwarting or co-opting the Subaltern agenda, Aloysius argues
Dalits of his time, his work primarily described a desire for a just that an effective and inclusive identity was instituted throughout
world that is against birth-sanctioned Brahminism. The Societies, the life of the journal (272).
Sabhas, and Sanghas—a communitas of a kind—that were formed
during this time, fundamentally, mobilized the Dalits to seek d. Foregrounding Consciousness
emancipation from the resources that they possessed. In other
words, they operated from within where Buddhism was sought Gajendran Ayyathurai, in turn, concretely supports the argument
as a textual resource towards a self-emancipation (Gowthaman, to understand the Tamil Buddhist as an emancipated identity
2004: 81). particularly founded on anti-caste consciousness. He argues that
Gowthaman rightly criticizes, in his own wit, and shares the the Tamizhan archives (1907-1914) reveal three discursive modes
Dalit critique of the Dravidian movement. He asks whether the of identification namely—oppositional, re-constructional, and
Non-Brahmin atheists contested and annihilated caste-religious representational.14 He systematically studies the movement and
traditions which were propagated by the Brahmins. In other words, suggests that these modes are not just to contest the colonial and
has the Non-Brahmin conglomeration de-Brahminized themselves? caste power that categorizes and marginalizes people in terms of
In a way, he did not differentiate too much from the Dalit critiques oppression such as lower castes, depressed classes, Sakkiliars,
on the Non-Brahmin category and identity. In fact, he places Thass Pallars, Parayars and so on. Rather, these are “articulations about
at the centre of the critique against the Non-Brahmin Dravidian the self-perception and self-identity of such people beyond the
movement. terms of caste” (Ayyathurai, 2011: 213).
In a rather prolific critique and self-introspection, it was G. He suggests that this Subaltern consciousness emerged at a
Aloysius who clearly states that even “the later Tamizhan’s time when civil society was dominated by three axes of power;
resentment on the Dravidian-Self Respect movement”, after Thass, first, the Brahmin “brokered, glibly secular, nationalist movement”
and “the generosity which the Tamil Buddhist movement showed (213); secondly, an emergent Non-Brahmin upper-caste movement
on other anti-caste movements were not sufficiently reciprocated” to displace the Brahmins; and thirdly, the scholarly world which
was dominated by colonialists, Orientalists, and nationalists which Lastly to summarize the take on the Dravidian movement,
assumed the inabilities of Dalits (213-214). Hence, this movement, Ayyathurai argues that the Buddhist movement of Thass and his
he states, worked against the scholarly world by critically exposing associates took two different routes. Firstly, there are generations
their social conditions, while continuously speaking and writing that followed Thass which have continued to hold onto ideas of
about them. He contrasts by stating that the Tamil Buddhists Tamil Buddhism to the present. They trace their legacy as
demonstrated their “anti-caste imaginare discursively, to compel ‘descendants’ of Tamil Buddhism (Ayyathurai, 2011: 218). On the
us to rethink the way the marginalized of the caste system are other hand, he states that, it influenced two strands of the ‘Non-
viewed” (214). Hence, their stand point of Tamil Buddhism was Brahmin movement’—the Saivaite self-respecters and the Self-
against the caste system; their anti-caste consciousness and religion Respect movement itself.15 However, Thass’ venture into the
was inclusive and open to people irrespective of their linguistic and notions of ethics, castelessness, and critical humanism need
ex-caste status. investigation in the context where Non-Brahmin politics has lent
Moreover, Ayyathurai hints that a holistic view of Thass places itself to accommodating various castes other than the Brahmins,
him as “a man who was taking in and reacting to global developments particularly those who stand against social transformation of the
and socio-religious movements on the one hand, and the Indian most oppressed—the Dalits (Ayyathurai, 2011: 220).
Taking this a little forward, Thass tries to conceptualize a
anti-colonial movement, on the other” (215). Therefore, his primarily
caste-less community as a way of life against Brahminism or caste-
goal, annihilation of caste was inseparably linked with reorganizing
immunization, which is possible through recovering from history
the land to which he belonged, which was mediated through what
a Buddhism in the Tamil language. The texts on Buddhism and
he saw around the world. Thass, hence, took up Buddhism as the
history calls for a serious study to critically evaluate casteless-ness
most viable religion that could open up the possibility of a casteless
in the vernacular. These texts have been written to reconstruct a
nation. Ayyathurai further builds the argument that Thass’
critical anti-caste tradition as a Buddhist way of life. This leads
understanding of Buddhism was actually transnational, though one to think that the anti-caste intellectual thought that the Dalit
founded particularly in Tamil. He unveils an openness to other intellectuals produced in the early twentieth century has a counter
‘nations’ and cultures. This propels against a ritualized Tamil view on caste and religion. In this, they are making a civilizational
nationalism that encourage orthodoxies and divisions between claim. Thass, through his Buddhist writings, reworks a genealogy
women and men. Hence, Ayyathurai claims that Thass cannot be of loss. However, he recovers it through a civilizational memory
a religious nationalist. in Tamil Buddhism—a civilizational claim against caste that envisions
Importantly, he theorizes that Thass’ Tamil Buddhism a post-caste imaginary as genealogy.
constructed a political identity including religious and linguistic
elements that would enable an inclusionary collective and a casteless Conclusion
society. Hence, Thass was not a Dravidian nationalist as well.
Thass viewed Buddhism as an anti-caste way of life in the This paper captures the academic discourse of Thass within Tamil
subcontinent, but insisted on regionalizing Buddhism in the lingua and anti-caste studies and highlights the case for a rereading of
franca, instead of any other language of the past or present his texts for the political present. It lays out the debates that had
hegemony (Ayyathurai, 2011: 217). Hence, Ayyathurai states that happened within the English academia and the Tamil public sphere
Thass is not a rabid nationalist because he advocates intermixtures and studies Thass as discourse and critique through two trajectories—
between people and linguistic diversity. Non-Brahmin discourse and Anti-Caste critique. The paper discusses
how Thass was made part of an anti-caste discourse, as a memory was ably supported by the rise of ‘little magazines’ in the publication
and as a part of Dalit intellectual legacy in the vernacular during field especially with the circulation of Dalit Murasu and Nirapirakai.
the 1990s, where new radical anti-caste figures were discovered. This promoted writers, particularly Dalits, to express and study anti-
Besides, the paper also suggests that a hermeneutics of experience caste history and thought that had politically a Dalit foregrounding. Many
and community would offer a different way to study Thass’ writers explored Dalit poetry, prose, intellectual thought and history, and
writings and argues why religious texts that were produced by figures like Iyothee Thass, Rettamalai Srinivasan, Gurusamy, M.C. Rajah,
Thass should be taken seriously to conceptualize an open, caste- N. Sivaraj, Meenambal, Appaduraiyar etc., were rediscovered.
less community in practice. 3. To exaggerate and extend a little bit, it is not hard to notice that Ambedkar
While scholars have debated over this anti-caste legacy, it is and his followers claimed that Jyotirao Phule was his/their pre-cursor
also true that an insistence on studying Ambedkar as the only anti- and guide for the movement against caste in Maharashtra and elsewhere.
caste philosopher singularly for a nationalist and/or post-colonialist Whereas, no such claims are made by either Periyar or his followers.
political thought, or even the Dravidian ideologues as exemplars Ayyathurai tritely argues that the Dalits never assumed the egalitarian
of Self-Respect movement for the Tamil country, seem to cut-short treatment in Non-Brahmin consciousness. They were ambiguously placed,
the genealogy on which anti-caste thought as a legacy stand on. he claims, in the Non-Brahmin discourse. This led to “the retention of
In fact, an attempt to even conceptualize the deadly attack on a dichotomy between the Dalits and non-brahmins unsurprisingly, as it
Brahminism and Hinduism through Thass’ writings on Buddhism was between the non-brahmins and brahmins” (Ayyathurai, 2011: 25).
are rarely highlighted. One needs to conceptualize the radical anti- He concludes thus—while Thass’ articulations precede Periyar’s critique
caste thought that expressed itself through religion as a civilizational of caste and Brahminism “by more than three decades”, what remains
claim and as a coming community. Hence a radical rereading of unexamined or acknowledged is the connection between their palpable
past through history as pedagogy is to be practiced. resonations (219).
4. Though these organizations have disappeared after the death of Thass—
some even during his life-time—discontinuity of centres of activism as
Endnotes a mark to evaluate or reject a social movement is ineffectual and not
genuine. This reading surely belies Pandian’s credentials as a brilliant
1. Aloysius, Geetha, and Rajadurai are independent scholars who have scholar and exponent of Subaltern and Dravidian Studies—he could have
written extensively on the anti-caste, Dravidian, Non-Brahmin and Self- been just better. Meanwhile, Geetha (2017) too, changing her earlier
Respect movements. Pandian, a historian and academic, has also contributed position, came-up with an evocative critique on the hinduization of the
in this field. Ayyathurai is a Historical Anthropologist based in Germany Non-Brahmins titled “Paarpanaraladhar Saadhi Indhukkalaga Maariya
who works on Iyothee Thass and the Tamil Buddhist movement. Gowthaman, Kadhai” [How Non-Brahmins became Caste-Hindus—The Story] in
Dharmaraj, and Rajangam are Tamil scholars and writers based in Tamil Tamil, but not in English. In contrast, works by Aloysius (1998), Gowthaman
Nadu. (2004), Dharmaraj (2007), Ayyathurai (2011), and Rajangam (2016)
2. It is generally understood that Dalit writing—as a political act—emerged study Thass through different modes of enquiry—sociological, religious,
during the late 1990s, particularly during the hundredth birth anniversary cultural, historical-anthropology, and literary—as an anti-caste organic
of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the unparalleled leader and icon of the oppressed intellectual, who also worked on an epistemology against Hinduism as
across post-Independent India. Dalit politics too emerged, particularly a social movement. I discuss this in the later part of the paper.
in the Tamil political sphere with the rise of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal 5. Accusing the Dalit movement as compliant agents of capitalism and its
(Liberation Panthers) and Puthiya Tamizhagam (New Tamil Nadu). This political regime, Ambedkar and Ambedkarites are also termed as
treacherous. They subordinate the poor and toiling sections of lower caste propounded by European missionaries and the ancient glory of Hinduism
masses to the regime of rich and elite Marxists blames, despite their discovered by Orientalists like Annie Besant were the causes; but
demagogy for the poor and the downtrodden. Accounting 29 venomous Dharmaraj pin points that the marginalized communities used the missionaries
essential differences between the Ambedkarites and the Marxists, the as ‘tools to give them voice’. They were served through them what they
article purports that Ambedkar must be opposed. It also substantially formerly lacked access to—education, jobs, and economic opportunities.
reproduces a partial biography of Ambedkar, which apparently terms Thus, it was often the case with movements such as: Muthu Kutty Samigal
him as a bourgeois liberal, an avowed anti-Marxist, a coward Brahminical, and the Ayyavazhi movement in Southern Tamil Nadu, and Iyothee Thassa
and a servant of the capital. See “Why Marxists must Oppose Ambedkar Pandithar and the Tamil Buddhist movement in Northern Tamil Nadu,
and Ambedkarism?” http://workersocialist.blogspot.de/2015/04/why- which particularly focused on emancipation from oppression. Pandian fails
marxists-oppose-ambedkar-and.html. to recognize, he argues, that they sought to uproot cultural domination
6. Pandian opined that Thass is closer to Maraimalai Adigal, though not by rejecting Hinduism and caste. While Thass, like other such tall anti-
similar, because there was a parallel between the Tamil they deployed. caste figures, constructed a collective identity for the marginalized, Pandian
He states that the discursive strategies used by both were common. They inappropriately relegated him as a “Parayar Buddhist”.
both used ideas of: ‘golden ageism’, the deployment of the conceit of 8. Tamil Dalit intellectual Ravikumar criticizes the academic works of M.S.S.
the Brahmin, Brahminical religious practices as selective borrowings from Pandian, V. Geetha, S.V. Rajadurai, and S. Anandhi for uncritically
indigenous Tamils, and foregrounding a hierarchy of values to define overlooking the flaws and problems of the Dravidian movement and history
oneself. However, Pandian uncritically equates Thass with Adigal. Unlike that had at its core a Brahmin and Non-Brahmin alliance of dominance.
many Subaltern Tamil intellectuals of his times, Thass used the classical He states that the academic Non-Brahmin antagonism against Brahmins
commentarial style in writing selectively. Extremely known for his wit, historically alternated between conflict and cooperation. He counters the
Thass’ use of Epic-style, narrative based, historical investigations, as well Non-Brahmin histories with the works by historians such as David
as, recording oral traditions present among the oppressed castes were Washbrook and Eugene Irschick who had, on the other hand, engaged
also written in the journalistic prose form. The style of writing, hence, critically with the thrust of the Non-Brahmin movement. He suggests that
was also experimental as it went against external resource-based historical the Brahmin and higher Non-Brahmin caste alliance played a crucial role
writing. He used this style well, to create a cosmology of anti-caste in the institutionalization of untouchability and the caste-system in Tamil
imaginary within a resistant tradition in Tamil language. In that, he was Nadu. Much clearly, he identifies that, the enthusiastic Non-Brahmin
countering received notions of caste cosmologies of Brahminical Hinduism alliance with the Brahmins led to the destruction of Buddhism and Jainism
through Tamil Buddhism. He wrote and worked through Subaltern religious in Tamil Nadu, Vedic-Brahmin religion taking root, caste-system getting
movements to differentiate them from the dominant ones in the early strengthened, and untouchability becoming entrenched (Ravikumar and
twentieth century. In comparison, hence, though Adigal started a federation Azhagarasan, 2012: xv-xxxiii).
called Podhu Nilai Kazhagam (Common Value Federation), he conveniently 9. Along with the Tamil Buddhist movement, Aloysius particularly mentions
declined and refused equality to a multitude of lower caste Tamils in about the Sri Narayana Guru Dharma Paripalana (S.N.D.P.) amongst
his writings. Thass, though used a supposedly high-Tamil register, worked Ezhavas of Kerala, the Ayyavazhi of Sri Muthukuttysamy among Shanars
amongst the oppressed masses; but was dismissively equated with Adigal of Tamil Nadu, Rajayogi-Mallas, Narsiah sects among Madigas, Bhima
by Pandian 2007: 138-141. Boi and Mahima Dharam among Baunis of Orissa, Matua cult of popular
7. Dharmaraj disagrees with the reasons Pandian gives for the sudden and Vaishnavasim, Other ‘lower’ caste Subaltern movements such as—
simultaneous emergence of the Brahmin caste along with the configuration Ramdeo Panth, Satnami, Naval Dharm, etc. as well as conversions
of Hinduism and nationalism. Pandian indicates that the scathing critiques to Christianity in Brethren church and the Prathyaksha Raksha Deiva
Sabha in Kerala, ‘Hindu church’ and Salvation Army in Tamil Nadu. quotes from fifty-nine Tamil works and twenty-nine Sanskrit works and
These religious movements of colonial India were categorized as religions their commentaries to claim an encyclopaedic authority on the text (Lal,
of the oppressed. They sought, he argues, a “universal-ethics” as a 1992: 4255-4258).
continuity of the age-old heterodox traditions of the subcontinent. They 12. Maraimalai Adigal’s works seem to have envisioned a religious pre-history
symbolized a life-world were religious cultures were optional and choice- to the radical Dravidian or ‘Tamil-only’ movement. In this, his attempt
based. They prioritized commitment and congruence which thrusts towards was also to see the writings within a dominant caste (Vellalar) perspective,
democracy and egalitarianism. An “elective affinity” between Buddhism while celebrating a ‘Non-Brahmin’ cultural and social world (Vaithees,
and the life-world of non-privileged classes (Aloysius, 1998: 17-20). 2014).
10. Dharmaraj explains the false discourse on Buddhism in the Tamil public 13. Lakshmi Narasu created an engaged Buddhism that is modern and
sphere during the nineteenth century. Buddhism is understood as an ethics- scientific. It became a tool for opposing caste, religion, and Vedic
based disciplinary code that had script and written language. The fault Brahminism through a scientific religion. However, Thass at the same
line of Tamil history teaches, exposes Thass, that the defeat of Tamil time built another Buddhism with a different content. Gowthaman accounts
is due to the Jain and Buddhist encroachment from outside. Vaishnavism their differences, along with the basic principles forwarded by Lakshmi
and Saivism, invested through Tamil—which was treated as a religion— Narasu (Gowthaman, 2004: 32-65).
gave an outsider status to Tamil-Jainism and Buddhism. It was projected 14. Ayyathurai delineates these three modes of self-identification and perception
that to care for Saivism and Vaishnavism was to care and develop Tamil, as—firstly, that the marginalized communities, such as the Parayars,
Tamil People and Tamil culture. Language, religion, and culture triad was discursively opposed their subjugation in anti-caste terms against both caste
developed to protect caste in the Tamil region. Saivaites and Vaishnavaites and colonial power of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries;
used Tamil to develop a canonical triad to protect caste culture. It was, secondly, they went on to reject the classifications made by caste and colonial
hence, Dalits like Iyothee Thass who used expansive Tamil Buddhism authorities as Parayars, and re-articulated themselves as Tamil Buddhists in
that united Samanam (indigenous Jainism) and Bouddham (indigenous a variety of ways as they established a positive collective identity and history;
Buddhism) in Tamil to create a caste-less cosmology (Dharmaraj, 2007: and thirdly, they shaped their material histories and potentialities not only
56-82). through conventional practices of petitioning the colonial government, but
11. U.V. Swaminatha Iyer (1855-1942) was a distinguished scholar-editor, also by mobilizing their own resources to establish inclusive casteless
who is claimed to have resurrected Tamil’s rich ancient literature and institutions of social change (Ayyathurai, 2011).
cultural heritage from the appalling neglect and destruction. He brought 15. Ayyathurai states that the Tamil Saivaite movement through Vedachalam’s
a major bulk of Tamil’s ancient and medieval literature—particularly books such as Tamizhar Madham (1941) internalized Tamil Buddhist ideas
Sangam—from palm-leaf manuscripts into print, starting from such as anti-caste and anti-Brahmin vibes, and particularly the significance
Sivakachinthamani (1887), Silappadhikaram (1892), and Manimekalai of Tamil as a vehicle of castelessness. It wanted to create a Saivaite effect
(1898) and so on. Often glaringly celebrated as the deacon of Tamil on the basis of Tamil Buddhist arguments, he argues. However, despite its
classical studies, Swaminatha Iyer is credited with studying multiple palm- postures, Vedachalam upholds caste divisions among those he calls Non-
leaf manuscript, which set him on journeys to comparatively study and Brahmins; notably the Parayars are put back in the most marginalized state
fill the gaps in order to eliminate any interpolations. On Manimekalai, in much the same ways as the Brahmins did, he continues. Hence, the
particularly, Iyer dealt with the Buddhist philosophy, its institutions etc., Tamizhar of the Saivaite movement and Vedachalam was not caste-free
as if he had nothing to go by at all in Tamil; and as he found no Buddhists despite the traces of Tamil Buddhist ideas, he claims. In the case of the Self-
at all in the Tamil speaking world nor in the subcontinent, he had to Respect movement, Ayyathurai states after firmly going through the archival
take recourse to some commentaries on Kundalakesi, while appending proofs that, many of Periyar’s views on idol worship, religious superstitions,
gender issues, on the one hand, and welcoming science and technologies as Geetha, V. and S.V. Rajadurai. 1998. Towards a Non-Brahmin Millennium:
a way out of caste, religious obscurantism, and poverty in India, on the From Iyothee Thass to Periyar. Kolkata: Samya.
other, resonate with the articulations of Thass (218-219). Geetha, V. 2017. “Paarpanaraladhar Saadhi Indhukkalaga Maariya Kadhai”
[How Non-Brahmins became Caste-Hindus—The Story]. Ungal
Noolagam 9.2 (May). http://keetru.com/index.php/2010-06-24-04-31-11/
References 3655-ungal-noolagam-may17/33154-2017-05-25-19-05-17. Web. 26
June 2017.
Aloysius, G. 1997. Nationalism Without a Nation in India. New Delhi: Oxford Guru, Gopal and Sundar Sarukkai, eds. 2012. The Cracked Mirror. New Delhi:
University Press. Oxford University Press.
Aloysius, G. 1998. Religion as Emancipatory Identity: A Buddhist Movement Gowthaman, Raj. 2004. Ka. Iyotheethassarin Aaivugal [K. Iyothee Thass’
among the Tamils under Colonialism. New Delhi: New Age International. Research]. Nagercoil: Kalachuvadu.
Aloysius, G. 2004. “Transcendence in Modern Tamil Buddhism: A Note on the Irschick, Eugene F. 1969. Politics and Social Conflict in South India: The
Liberative in Popular Religious Perceptions”. Reconstructing the World: B Non-Brahmin Movement and Tamil Separatism, 1916-29. Berkeley:
R Ambedkar and Buddhism in India. Eds. Surendra Jondhale and Johannes University of California Press.
Beltz. New Delhi: Oxford University Press: 205-220. Irschick, Eugene F. 1994. Dialogue and History: Constructing South India,
Aloysius, G. 2007. Dalit-Subaltern Emergence in Religio-Cultural Subjectivity. 1795-1895. Berkeley: University of California Press.
New Delhi: Critical Quest. Kshirsagar, R.K. 1994. Dalit Movement in India and its Leaders, 1857-1956.
Aloysius, G. 2010. “Vicissitudes of Subaltern Self-Identification: A Reading of New Delhi: M.D. Publications.
Tamizhan”. Ritual, Caste, and Religion in Colonial South India. Eds. Lal, Mohan. 1992. Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature: Sasay to Zorgot,
Michael Bergunder et al. Halle: Neue Hallesche Berichte 9: 238-274. Vol. 5. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi: 4255-4258.
Aloysius, G. 2015. Iyothee Thassar and Tamil Buddhist Movement: Religion Lanternari, Vittorio. 1964. The Religions of the Oppressed: A Study of Modern
as Emancipatory Movement. New Delhi: Critical Quest. Messianic Cults. New York: Alfred A Knopf.
Ayyathurai, Gajendran. 2011. Foundations of Anti-Caste Consciousness: Leonard, Dickens. 2017. “One Step Inside Tamilian: On the Anti-Caste Writing
Pandit Iyothee Thass, Tamil Buddhism and the Marginalized in South of Language”. Social Scientist 45.1-2 (January-February): 19-32.
India. Ph.D. Thesis. New York: Columbia University. Pandian, M.S.S. 2007. The Brahmin and the Non-Brahmin: Genealogies of
Ayyathurai, Gajendran. 2014. “The Making of the Postcolonial Theory and the Tamil Political Present. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
Practice Brahminical and Post-colonial”. South Asian History and Culture Rajangam, Stalin. 2016. Vaazhum Bouddham [Living Buddhism]. Nagercoil:
5.1: 133-140. Kalachuvadu.
Baker, Christopher and David Washbrook, eds. 1975. South India: Political Rajesh, V. 2011. “Patrons and Networks of Patronage in the Publication of
Institutions and Social Change. New Delhi: Vikas Publication House. Tamil Classics, c1800-1920”. Social Scientist 39.3-4 (Mar-Apr): 64-91.
Dharmaraj, T. 2007. Naan Poorva Bouddhan [I’m an Ancient Buddhist]. Ravikumar and R. Azhagarasan, eds. 2012. The Oxford India Anthology of
Palayamkottai: Ambedkar Research Centre. Tamil Dalit Writing. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Dharmaraj, T. 2009. “Rebel’s Genealogy: A Review on M.S.S. Pandian’s Brahmin Shankar, Subramanian. 2012. Flesh and Fish Blood: Postcolonialism,
and Non-Brahmin”. Trans. Gajendran Ayyathurai. (29 November). http:// Translation and the Vernacular. California: University of California
tdharmarajan.blogspot.de/2010/11/rebels-geneology-review-on-mss- Press.
pandians.html (Original Pub. in Kalachuvadu 98.34 [February 2008] in Sundaralingam, R. 1974. Politics and Nationalist Awakening in South India,
Tamil). Web. 26 June 2017. 1820-1891. Arizona: Arizona University Press.
234 Multilingualism and the Literary Cultures of India 235
Vaithees, Ravi V. 2014. Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India:

Maraimalai Adigal, the Neo-Saivite Movement, and Tamil Nationalism,
1876-1950. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Venkatachalapathy, A.R. 1995. “The Dravidian Movement and the Saivaites
1927-1944”. Economic and Political Weekly 30.14 (April): 761-768.
Viswanath, Rupa. 2014. The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social Making of a Normative Meetei:
in Modern India. New York: Columbia University Press.
Washbrook, David A. 1977. The Emergence of Provincial Politics: The Re-reading Khwairakpam Chaoba
Madras Presidency 1870-1920. New Delhi: Vikas Publication House. and Lamabam Kamal
Thongam Bipin1
Literatures have emerged as representations of a region or a nation

with a fixed or certain idea of territory in various phases of history.
The attribution of territory and nationhood to literatures and
languages has been happening in the last two and a half centuries
with the encounter between literatures and modernity.2 Sudipta
Kaviraj states that linguistic identity is not a primordially available
category for communities as nationalists would tend to propagate.
He says, “Political identities based on language are .... modern
though the languages on which they are based have a distinct
historical existence from much earlier times”3 (148). Same can be
said of literatures. Literatures representing a nation or a community
are a recent phenomenon. He further illustrates the link between
colonialism and the growth of linguistic identity in the Indian sub-
continent. In the case of South Indian languages as well, linguistic
identities are comparatively new. Languages were not a political
category and did not have a fixed territorial boundary for a long
time.4 Correlation and assigning of language with a boundary and
an association of languages with individual and community identities
happened at a particular historical juncture of modernity in the sub-
continent (Mitchel, 2009).
The “affective relation” (Mitchel, 2009) with languages and
the emergence of terms like Tamilpattra5 and Meetei Chanu6

From Discourse To Critique Iyothee Thass

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

From Discourse To Critique Iyothee Thass

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

From Discourse To Critique Iyothee Thass

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Multilingualism and the

Literary Cultures of India

Edited and Introduced by

The sculpture reproduced on the endpaper depicts a scene where three

From: Nagarjunakonda, 2nd century A.D.

Courtesy: National Museum, New Delhi SAHITYA AKADEMI

Copyright © Sahitya Akademi 2019

M.T. Ansari (b. 1965) : Editor Contents

First published: 2019 Part A

ISBN: Multilingualism and India’s Literary Culture

Multilingual Goa’s Battle for Identity

trajectory that produced Thass as an epistemological discourse. It

b. Foregrounding Culture movements, Siddha medicine, Tamil linguistics, and hermeneutics.

Vaithees, Ravi V. 2014. Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India:

Literatures have emerged as representations of a region or a nation

You might also like