These words point to Raj Gauthaman's satiric and provocative critique, translated into English for the first time by Theodore Baskaran. The essays engage with dalit liberation politics, the relationship of dalits to Tamil history and the many strands that constitute radical dalit culture. There is considerable focus on ancient and medieval history, in particular on the Saivite text the Periyarpuranam, which throws light on the growth of the caste system. Gauthaman discusses dalit history and what the progress of non-brahmin politics in Tamil Nadu has meant for dalits. He uses the methodologies of postmodernism and Subaltern Studies to derive insights on dalit literature and the condition of dalits.
This analysis of the alternative cultural expressions of dalit politics, art and literature comes from essays written in 1992-2002, which remain perennial and startlingly new. Further, the author's discussion of Iyothee Thass, who preceded Ambedkar by 50 years, of Ambedkar and Periyar, of postmodernism and Subaltern Studies, provides a new cultural history that tells us about dalit assertion today.
Raj Gauthaman is a leading Tamil intellectual and writer who was associated with the path-breaking journal Niripirigai. He was awarded the Vishnupuram award for his literary contributions. He retired as Head of the Tamil Department at the Kanchi Mamunivar Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Puducherry.
S. Theodore Baskaran is a distinguished writer in Tamil and English. His book The Eye of the Serpent won the Golden Lotus (Best Book on Cinema) Award in 1997.
The nine essays on Dalit Studies that feature in this collection were written between 1991 and 2002. The first essay "The Dalits of Tamil Nadu and Dalit Literature' (1991) is an expression of the new alertness among the dalits in India and particularly in Tamil Nadu following the centenary celebrations of Ambedkar. This essay, the first to be written in Tamil with a dalit consciousness, was brought out as a monograph by the Madurai-based Institute of Development Education, Action and Studies (IDEAS). In addition to a brief view of Tamil literature from the dalit perspective, an overview of the contemporary dalit novel, short story, play and songs is also presented. The underlying principles of the protest aesthetics of dalit literature, language, discourse are introduced. Even as dalit literature grows fast, in addition to Tamil literature as a whole getting a fillip, dalit literary principles also become complete.
Though this publication was priced at only Rs.2, there were readers who would borrow it to read it. Radical Communist ideologues and structuralist highbrows ridiculed it, but the essay was well received by dalit thinkers and students. Spurred by this encouragement, I wrote with passion three essays which came out in book form: Dalit Panpadu in 1993.
Two essays from this book 'Dalit Culture' and 'Penyapuranam: Hierarchy and Inversion' find place in this collection (Essays 2 and 3). In addition to the ideas of Ambedkar, Self-Respect thoughts of Periyar have also aided in bringing about a new awareness. Marxist social research has also helped the process. The Dalit movement emerging with all these ideological backings has taken a position against Hindu fanaticism and Hindu fascism which have assumed a fierce form in India. Only the Dalit movement has the inherent strength, right and historical responsibility to fight Hindu fascism.
In these two essays devices to be used in the cultural struggle of dalits are discussed. This is just a beginning. These devices have already been discussed by Periyar keeping the shudras in focus. Moreover in these essays feminist ideology is cited for comparison. The dalit struggle is connected with the Feminist movement. Except women and dalits, I do not think there is anyone who is discriminated at birth.
There are many dalit groups active in Tamil Nadu today.
Dalit literature has sprung and is growing. The alternative cultural expressions of the dalits, in spheres such as politics, art and literature have come up. This has started a discourse in many quarters. It was in this background that the essay 'Dalit Culture' was written. It was read at the Dalit Culture Conference in Puducherry on 7 April 1993, and deals with the alternative culture for dalits and argues that it would first take shape as protest culture. The approach of Periyar to these issues was helpful in writing this essay. For dalit discourse the writings of Periyar are a major resource.
The third essay looks from the dalit perspective at Periyapuranam, the Saivite Tamil work, which appeared in Tamil during the medieval era. Dalits cannot discuss the present day situation without going into the past. The cadaver has to be exhumed and subjected to post-mortem. The crimes that have been concealed have to be exposed. Such a work is undertaken in the essay on Periyapuranam. There are two concepts here: Inversion and Reversion. Inversion is a device to be used by the people to protest against hegemony.
AJ GAUTHAMAN HAS been writing for well over thirty years. Brilliant and provocative, he has pushed the boundaries of Tamil literary criticism by imaginative readings of texts and contexts. The essays translated for this volume represent an important part of his work: writing that has engaged with dalit liberation politics and culture. The relationship of dalits to Tamil history and culture, and to the past and present of the Dravidian movement, the progress of non-brahmin politics in the state and what that has meant for dalits, the many strands that constitute radical dalit culture-these are some of the themes foregrounded in these essays.
Gauthaman has provided detailed descriptions of how each of these essays came to be written, including the year of its publication. This is important information because each bears the impress of its occasion and time and helps the reader understand the social and cultural circumstances which informed the publication and reception of these texts. This was the decade of the 1990s, which witnessed accelerated dalit assertion in Tamil Nadu, both in the political and cultural spheres. Writing, publishing, creating new standards of judging culture, organizing cultural festivals-dalit groups and individuals associated with Ambedkarite spaces, the far Left and with radical Church organizations were all involved in this process. It was a heady and exciting time and in retrospect it is clear that dalit intellectual activity of the 1990s redefined the terms of debate in the area of culture, particularly in the manner we receive and process literary texts.
These years also saw intellectuals, writers and fellow-travellers, associated with both parliamentary and radical Left parties reckoning with developments in the former Soviet Union and in Central Europe. Eventually, some of them came to rethink the class question. The journal Nirapinigai emerged as a forum to discuss and argue on these matters; class came to be considered in tandem with the caste question, on the one hand and in the context of other democratic struggles, to do with the environment, the women's question and civil rights campaigns, on the other. Nirapirigai also initiated a serious revisiting of Periyar's legacy and undertook a re-reading of Periyar-given that the late 1980s and the early 1990s saw renewed attacks against dalits in Tamil Nadu and protests against the Mandal Commission report elsewhere in India, such a re-reading appeared in order. All this granted a fillip to dalit assertion and, in turn, was affected by it.
Civil rights groups and women's organizations were also active throughout this period in an unprecedented sort of way and brought together men and women from different class and caste backgrounds, and with differing political beliefs. This made for provisional but exciting partnerships and sustained campaigns against state violence directed at dalits and women-witness, for instance, the public ire over the devastation of the tribal hamlet of Vachathi (1992); as also the widespread condemnation of the massacre of dalits in what has since come to be known as the Tamarabarani massacre (1999).
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