Dalit Parties and the Dilemmas of Democratization in Tamil Nadu

Analysis of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi's performance as a political party.

Journal of South Asian Development, 2007

The Wire , 2021

In recent decades, India has witnessed a remarkable uptick in electoral participation among lower caste voters. This broadening social profile of democratic practice has both spurred the formation of autonomous parties advocating on behalf of historically disadvantaged groups and contributed to a pluralization of the party system. Coincident with this transformation of the political arena, the country has recorded an alarming growth in gross electoral expenditure. Today, reasonable estimates peg India as the world’s second most expensive democracy when measured in terms of aggregate campaign spending. This chapter investigates how the largest Dalit (ex-Untouchable) party in Tamil Nadu—the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) or Liberation Panthers Party—navigates challenges associated with election finance, examining how VCK candidates mobilize adequate resources to sustain competitive campaigns. As the chapter illustrates, fiscal constraints incentivize smaller parties to join coalitions spearheaded by their more established counterparts. Yet, these electoral arrangements do not strictly entail a quid pro quo exchange of vote-banks for financial resources and canvassing support, but often entail complex negotiations that structure the terms of electoral participation and may undermine representative institutions.

This article examines contemporary Dalit assertion in India through an ethno-graphic case study of a legal tool being mobilized by Tamil Nadu's lowest-ranking Arunthathiyars in their struggle against caste-based offences. The Arunthathiyars of western Tamil Nadu are increasingly taking recourse to the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act (PoA Act) in an attempt to bring members of higher castes to justice. The article explores how Arunthathiyars are employing the law and how their litigation is reshaping the politics of caste in this region. The authors document how a process of litigation by Arunthathiyars is countered by a politicization of caste by the dominant Gounders of the region, who recently entered electoral politics with a new caste-based party. Even though the litigation route further antagonizes caste relations, it is argued that the PoA Act has provided Dalits with an invaluable tool to seek justice, democratize public space, and challenge the power of the dominant caste in the region. Dalit social movements, it is concluded, are more likely to be successful if they are backed by a legal weapon and accompanied by Dalits' growing economic independence.

Cultural Dynamics, 2010

Drawing on fieldwork with Dalit movements in Tamil Nadu, this article focuses on often neglected aspects of activism. A pervasive lack of resources has rendered Tamil Dalit movements overly incident-sensitive: reacting to caste atrocities rather than pursuing a positive agenda. Movement leaders thus concentrate on community-building by means of exclusive rhetoric that is, at times, divorced from the day-today concerns of their constituents. High-profile events and fiery speeches attract attention and foster collective identity, but are only part of a wider struggle in which the more mundane and everyday aspects of struggle-establishing strong networks, chasing up officials, seeking alternate sources of employment and so on-may be most effective. Changing caste relations, it is argued, requires continual commitment rather than episodic protest. This challenges what we mean by 'movement success' and 'activism'.

The authors identify and analyse the social composition of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) elite at the time of the 2011 assembly election. They argue that the DMK elite need to be understood as a group that is constituted by a set of formal and informal institutional rules. They consider the extent to which family connections or ‘dynastic ties’ alongside other informal rules govern admission to the party elite. They ask to what extent the party elite are drawn from society in general or if the elite are skewed towards a socially privileged segment of Tamil society. This paper disaggregates the party elite in terms of caste, gender and religion. They find that the wider DMK elite of the legislative party bear some microcosmic resemblance to Tamil society but that the elite are segmented so this resemblance is very partial at the more senior levels of the party. They also find that the party has a workable structure and a degree of internal pluralism that is not consistent with claims made in the general literature that parties in India are institutionally weak.

This article examines the development and early politics of the Dalit Panther Iyakkam (DPI), or Dalit Panther Movement, of Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1982, the DPI advanced a political program that petitioned state authorities qua democratic citizens. By submitting formal appeals through official institutional channels, DPI organisers lobbied government bureaucrats to fulfil their professional obligations and advocated an impartial administration of law, delivery of rights, and equitable access to social and economic development. This article examines the earliest phase of Dalit Panther politics in Tamil Nadu through its own documentary evidence, drawing upon DPI Chairman A. Malaichamy's personal letters, written appeals, received correspondence, political pamphlets, and rally handbills. Countering interpretations of subaltern assertion that accentuate 'illiberal' techniques as its primary form and state welfare its principal target, I demonstrate that legal advocacy served as a core feature of early DPI politics. When state institutions proved unresponsive, movement organisers began to consider alternative forms of political practice and came to regard the public sphere as a more conducive arena for making claims on state authority and demanding recognition as democratic citizens.

Outlook India, 2023

Dalit politics in Kerala didn't arise during colonial modernity, rather it has been around for centuries. Since the medieval period, it has encountered and resisted Brahmanism. Dalit politics waged a war against Brahmanism and white colonialism in the last century and continues to do so. Though there aren't enough records about other Dalit movements before the nineteenth century, there are several literary works, including Pachalloor Pathikam and Chenganooraathi Paattu, which give us an explicit idea about cultural resistance against the Brahmanical societal system. However, in the long history of Dalit resistance and politics, it was the movements started during the last decades of the nineteenth century led by Mahatma Ayyankali and Poykayil Appachan that wreaked the most havoc on the Hindu system of social inequality. Unlike other contemporary social movements, these were fundamentally systematic, strong and concerted.