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The Question of Populism in Tamil Nadu

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Nuances Of Tamil Politics and Culture

Rethinking Social Justice was published earlier this year in honour of MSS Pandian, the late historian of South India. The volume comprises an array of essays on a wide range of topics that are thematically organized into five sections: ‘Politics of Culture and Identity’, ‘Critical Social History’, ‘Nation and Region’, ‘Political Economy’ and ‘Cinema and Society’. The thematic organization of the book is representative of the range of Pandian’s intellectual interests: the political and social history of Tamil Nadu, caste and agrarian politics, the intimate nexus between cinema and politics in Tamil Nadu and so on. Some of the essays are co-authored by Pandian himself. The main challenge before the reviewer of such a rich and diverse volume is doing justice to unfamiliar terrains of scholarship. As a scholar of modern Tamil literature, reading the book expanded my own knowledge of the nuances of Tamil politics and culture. For the purposes of this review, I provide a broad overview of some of the essays of the book and pose questions that bear significance to some of the essays.

Continue reading this review

The politics of being Tamil: an epistemological enquiry into construction of Tamil identity in India.docx

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Home Other Contributions Book Reviews 2010 Language, Violence, and the State...

Language, Violence, and the State: Writing Tamil Dalits [review essay]

- Viswanathan, S. (2005) Dalits in Dravidian Land: Frontline Reports on Anti-Dalit Violence in Tamil Nadu , Forward by N. Ram, Introduction by Ravikumar, Chennai: Navayana, 318 pages + xxxviii [cited as DLL ]

- Thirumaavalavan, Thol. (2003) Talisman: Extreme Emotions of Dalit Liberation , Translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy, Introduction by Gail Omvedt, Kolkata: Samya, 185 pages + xxviii [cited as TAL ]

- Thirumaavalavan, Thol. (2004) Uproot Hindutva: The Fiery Voice of the Liberation Panthers , Translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy, Forward by Ram Puniyani, Kolkata: Samya, 248 pages + xxvi [cited to as UH ]

- Ravikumar (2009) Venomous Touch: Notes on Caste, Culture and Politics , Translated from the Tamil by R. Azhagarasan, Forward by Susie Tharu, Kolkata: Samya, 298 pages + xxii [cited as VT ]

1 Although Samya, the publisher of Thirumavalavan’s two translated volumes, has chosen to spell his n (...)

1 With the Dalit movement in Maharastra having grown stagnant, and Uttar Pradesh’s Dalit-led Bahujan Samaj Party possibly reaching the limits of its potential development, the vital forefront of Dalit politics has now shifted to Tamil Nadu. So writes Gail Omvedt in her introduction to Thol. Thirumavalan’s Talisman . 1 Whether the recent upsurge of intellectual and political energy among Tamil Dalits shall indeed prove a model for Dalits elsewhere in India—or whether, on the contrary, there are not still more promising movements already afoot in the Dalit hamlets and urban slums of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, or other places yet unknown—is impossible to say. What is a good bit more certain, however, is that for the ferment in Tamil Nadu to succeed it must be translatable. This ‘translation’ cannot be limited simply to the translation of words. On the contrary, its translation must involve not only the translation of one language into another, but also of words into deeds at the national level—into policies that protect Dalits from violent atrocities not merely under law but also in fact, into substantive and not merely formal democracy, or into genuine land reform, to name but a few demands of Tamil Dalits. But before a demand can be implemented, or the argument found persuasive, it must not only be spoken but also heard. It must be taken up, it must be transcribed, translated, repeated, and repeatedly tested in political and intellectual contests. The demand that is spoken but once, or in a single place, fades on the wind. Similarly, when a laborer is beaten to death, or a Dalit hamlet [ cē ṟ i ] burnt to the ground, it only becomes an ‘atrocity’ [ va ṉ ko ṭ umai ] when it is recorded as such, and subjected thereby to universal standards of justice. Insofar as these events remain within an entirely local context, the murderous beating remains a ‘just punishment’ [ tarma a ṭ i ], and the burning of Dalit huts, a restoration of the village order [ ū r ā ṭ ci ].

2 The essence of the Dalit struggle, on the other hand, consists precisely in challenging this localization. What happens to Dalits in one particular village is no longer allowed to stay within that village, but is made known to Dalits throughout the state and, equally importantly, is fashioned as a challenge to extra-local authorities to uphold justice. But as all four books under review attest, extra-local authorities (in this case the Government of Tamil Nadu and its ruling Dravidian parties) have not only failed to meet this challenge but, on the contrary, have joined actively with the dominant castes in violently suppressing Dalits. These volumes, only three of which are translations in the literal sense, respond to this state of affairs by reaching beyond the state of Tamil Nadu and by posing the problems of Tamil Dalits as a matter of fundamental human rights. The impulse to translate local struggles into universal claims, in other words, is an inherent feature of Dalit politics and not merely an additional step. The publications discussed below are not, therefore, merely a documentary record of events and writings—they are themselves the very life of the movement.

3 The themes of translation and the confrontation between local and universal political moralities introduce this review because one of the most frequent charges against the Tamil Dalit movement in recent years has been that it has increasingly retreated from Ambedkarian universalism into a parochial Tamil-centric linguistic cultural nationalism. In making these charges, critics refer in particular to the Vi ṭ utalai Cirutaika ḻ Ka ṭ ci (‘Liberation Panthers,’ henceforth VCK) under Thol. Thirumavalan’s leadership. Yet although Thirumavalan does indeed affirm ‘Tamil,’ a careful reading of his speeches and writings—along with the political and intellectual context Viswanathan’s and Ravikumar’s contributions provide—reveals a complex negotiation between local and universal languages, and a transformation of terms that does not at all support these accusations. To grasp the significance of Thirumavalavan’s and Ravikumar’s interventions in Tamil intellectual and political life, I begin this review with a book that is not a translation, but which delineates the singular predicament of Tamil Dalits at the close of the twentieth century.

2 On police violence, see especially chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 24, 30 and 35 ‘Terror in Uniform,’ ‘ (...)

4 Dalits in Dravidian Land is, as its subtitle tells us, a collection of fifty-two ‘reports on anti-dalit violence’ by investigative journalist S. Viswanathan, originally published in the fortnightly newsmagazine Frontline over the ten-year period from 1995 to 2004. The majority of the reports describe acts of physical violence, which in Tamil Nadu have all too often been perpetrated upon Dalits by the authorized agents of the state—primarily the police—in addition to the usual dominant (BC) caste groups. 2 Indeed, given the caste composition of Tamil Nadu’s police force, and its active support of the castes that dominate among its ranks (i.e. BCs) against Dalits, the distinction between caste- and state sponsored-violence against Dalits is of uncertain theoretical relevance.

3 See, for example, DDL chapters 4 and 44.

4 DDL , chapter 33.

5 DDL , chapters 22, 29 or 36.

6 DDL , chapter 13. On state suppression of Dalit political activism, see also: Human Rights Watch (19 (...)
7 DDL , chapter 24; also, UH pp. 211ff. On the lackadaisical attitude of the Dravidian parties to land (...)

5 This uncertainty is deepened when we expand our optic to include, not just acts of violence in the sense of bodily harm and attacks on property, but also the various forms of structural violence Viswanathan documents, including what we might call ‘epistemic violence’ (Spivak 1999). Structural violence includes the social practices outlawed under India’s constitutional set up, but which nevertheless persist in Tamil Nadu with full knowledge of the state, such as Dalits being coerced into various forms of ‘traditional’ unpaid labor, or denied access to ostensibly ‘public’ resources like water, roads, and temples; 3 elected offices being ‘auctioned’ by caste councils; 4 Dalits being physically prevented from voting as they choose, being forbidden to run for elected office, or being prevented from actually assuming office when elected. 5 While the continuation of the foregoing practices involves the state only negatively—viz., by its failure to stop them from occurring—in other instances the state has been more directly responsible for structural violence against Dalits, for instance by suppressing non-violent Dalit political expression; 6 by refusing to implement reservations policies to the extent that a large portion of positions set aside for Dalits remain permanently vacant (while apparently never failing to fill the much larger number of positions reserved in the state of Tamil Nadu for the members of various politically powerful BC caste groups); by conniving in the subversion of land reform and indeed by practicing what Viswanathan terms ‘land reforms in reverse.’ 7

6 But for the purposes of this review perhaps the most important form of structural violence against Dalits is epistemic—pertaining, that is, to the production of knowledge (or its absence) on the condition of Dalits in Tamil Nadu. This includes, for example, the pervasive failure by police and other responsible bodies to collect vital information about reservations, attacks on Dalits, non-enforcement of Constitutional mandates concerning access to public spaces and other resources including temples. Thus, for example, while it is well-known that a huge backlog of positions reserved for SC/STs in government employment are simply never filled, it is impossible to determine the precise magnitude of the problem. For as Viswanathan explains, 36 of 141 government departments have simply declined to provide the relevant data, including the Department of Education and other educational institutions, which together account for nearly 50% of all government jobs ( DDL : 154).

8 On this point, see Human Rights Watch (1999), and Uproot Hindutva , pp. 132–3.

9 See Venomous Touch chapters 21, 29, 31, 36: ‘On the Borderlines: Dalit Rights versus Human Rights,’ (...)
10 See Human Rights Watch (1999), and Venomous Touch , chapters 21, 28, 31: ‘On the Borderlines: Dalit (...)

7 Nor is it possible to gain any clear picture of the extent of violence against Dalits in the state’s predominantly rural society. For despite India’s SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, which is designed to provide Dalits special protection against hate crimes, police have proven highly reluctant to register cases against perpetrators. 8 Thus even assuming Dalit victims gather the courage to report abuses by locally powerful caste groups, their complaints are frequently suppressed; official records thus grossly underestimate the problem. 9 The non-registration of cases under the Atrocities Act, however, merely continues a long-standing police practice of delaying and even outright refusing to file ‘first information reports’ (FIRs) in cases of attacks on Dalits, while vigorously pursuing false cases foisted upon them by village oppressors. 10

11 On the drowning incident itself, see DDL chapters 19–21; on the Mohan report and cover-up, see DDL (...)

8 Moreover, official government commissions have routinely been used to issue false or misleading reports even in cases where attacks are recorded. When the scale of caste violence is such as to force itself upon public attention, it has become commonplace in Tamil Nadu for the state government to appoint a special judicial commission to investigate. By appointing such commissions, the ruling party is able to circumvent the State Human Rights Commission, which is thereby prevented from conducting its own investigation (Human Rights Watch 1999: 124–126). The reports of these special commissions can generally be relied upon to show the state and its ruling party in a good light, and reports that do not are rarely made public (Human Rights Watch 1999: ibid ). One glaring example discussed by Viswanathan is the so-called Mohan Commission, appointed in the wake of an event in which police were alleged to have driven protesting tea plantation workers into the Tamirapalani river (Tirunelveli) with lathis, causing the drowning death of seventeen persons. In preparing his report, Justice S. Mohan simply excluded video taped evidence of police officers actually beating drowning men and preventing them from reaching the shore, and then contradicted what the excluded evidence clearly showed, announcing that ‘The death of the people who fell into the river is only an accident; the police did not beat them while they were swimming’ ( TAL : 78). When activists attempted to publicly screen a documentary film in Chennai containing footage that disproved the official version of events, the DMK government swiftly suppressed the screening. 11

9 Thus one of the key questions that is posed, both explicitly or implicitly, in all four volumes under review concerns the nature of the state itself and its relation to society. As a secular, constitutional democracy, the state is formally distinct from the society it governs and the various particular identities of its citizens; police and administrative bureaucracies are putatively governed by a form of rationality that renders the ‘private’ social characteristics of its offices holders—their caste status for instance—irrelevant. Weberian assumptions such as these, and currently popular political theoretic models that continue to take the ‘rational’ character of bureaucracy as their starting point require rethinking if the arguments and examples put forth in these volumes are taken seriously.

10 What the authors argue is not that the state cannot be distinct from the society it governs—on the contrary, that the state might be distinct from and in some senses antagonistic to the existing social order is not just a theoretical claim for these authors, but a political goal to which they are all committed . Their claim, rather, is that in the particular case of India, the state has shown itself to be largely an extension of (caste) society rather than being distinct from it. And this is especially true of Tamil Nadu where, as Ravikumar writes in the forward to Viswanathan’s book:

12 DDL , p. 29 n.5. 13 DDL chapter 2. 14 DDL chapter 11. 15 DDL chapter 12. 16 DDL chapter 19. the police... have become mercenaries of caste Hindus. In Tamil Nadu, such a state of affairs became obvious after the DMK came to power in 1967... [W]hen antidalit violence was unleashed in Kilvenmani (1968), 12 Villupuram (1978), Kodiyankulam (1995), 13 Melavalavu (1997), 14 Gundupatti (1998) 15 and Thamiraparani (1999), 16 the police abetted the crimes as perpetrators. Both the AIADMK and DMK have been united in the unleashing of violence on dalits. ( DDL : xxvi)

11 Ravikumar’s focus on the post-1967 period is not accidental. For prior to Dravidian rule, according to Ravikumar, the Brahmin-dominated Congress party could at least be counted upon to protect Dalits from BC caste aggression ( DDL : xxvi). Since coming to power, however, the distinction between state and BC aggression has been substantively collapsed.

17 The Dravidian parties never included Dalits in any significant numbers in decision-making positions (...)

12 Let us pause to absorb this claim. It is not that Ravikumar or any of the other authors under review are nostalgic for the days of Brahmin rule. On the contrary, a common complaint of Dalit leaders like Thirumavalavan and Ravikumar is that where they themselves have remained consistently opposed to Brahminical institutions, the heads of both Dravidian parties have long since come to embrace Brahminical Hinduism both in public and private ( UH : 5, Rajendran 2001). And yet Thirumavalan and Ravikumar also recognize that opposition to Brahmins and to Brahminism does not automatically entail attacking caste privilege as such. Thus although Dravidian leaders were, at one time, undoubtedly sincere in their opposition to Brahmins, they failed to interrogate fundamentally the agrarian basis of caste domination, in which landed non-Brahmin castes were every bit as antagonistic to Dalits interests as their Brahmin rivals. And from the 1960s onward, the Dravidian parties unabashedly courted the powerful and populous BC castes, who were at once Dalits’ most immediate oppressors and the foundation of the Dravidian parties’ social and political dominance in rural Tamil Nadu. 17

13 That ‘Dravidian land’ is no sanctuary for Dalits is well understood by those with close ties to Tamil Dalits, or who know the details of the state’s political history (Roberts 2007). But until recently at least, the prevailing assumption outside of Tamil Nadu has been that the allegedly anti-caste Dravidian movement (also known as the non-Brahmin movement) had entailed Dalit uplift in some fundamental sense. Thus Gail Omvedt, a respected authority on Dalit issues, expresses surprise at the lamentable condition of Dalits in Tamil Nadu: ‘Why has Tamil Nadu, once so apparently progressive in its... anti-caste movements, become today the scene of such great violence against Dalits?’ ( TAL : xix, emphasis added). Omvedt’s question is a good one, but in phrasing it this way she appears to assume that there is something fundamentally new in the recent spate of anti-Dalit violence. It is therefore worth asking what exactly is different about the situation today, as compared to, say, the beginning of the twentieth century or earlier. Of the various forms of violence described in the four volumes under review, none are new—routine beatings, murder, ritual humiliation and torture in response to individual acts of insubordination or infringements of ritual proscriptions; social and economic boycotts; and vigilante raids involving the destruction of Dalit homes and property, looting, and arson attacks on their hamlets in response to collective (as well as individual) insubordination. All of these are well-attested in the historical record, and, far from being recent innovations, comprise the traditional arsenal of tactics for the perpetuation of caste society’s dominance over Dalits (Viswanath 2006). Nor is there any evidence of their being used more regularly, or more readily, in recent times; we simply do not possess the data that would allow us to make diachronic comparisons of this type.

18 Previously Dalits who ran for office in independent constituencies were limited to those chosen to (...)

19 Panchayats were only included with the rotating system of reserved constituencies in 1996.

14 What is new to the mid 1990s, rather, has been the particular form of insubordination to which these acts of violence are a predictable response: namely, it has only been in this period that Dalits have begun to assert themselves in the electoral sphere, by mounting credible independent challenges to the authorized candidates of the dominant parties, 18 and by independently contesting panchayat elections. 19 Would a Dalit challenge to Dravidian electoral hegemony have been tolerated in earlier decades any more than it was in the 1990s? We cannot say. Therefore rather than describing the anti-Dalit violence of this decade as ‘increasing intolerance of dalit assertiveness’ ( DDL : 79), it would be more accurate to describe the 1990s simply as a decade of increasingly vigorous Dalit assertion.

20 On the prevailing silence on Dalit issues in Indian journalism, see also: Ravikumar, ‘Unwritten Wri (...)

15 Niceties of historical epistemology aside, Viswanathan’s reportage on the situation of Dalits in Dravidian land is essential reading for any student of caste politics. Although it comprises previously published work, the volume exceeds the sum of its parts. For what may be somewhat difficult for the casual reader to grasp is the extent to which the information contained in Viswanathan’s reports, although now a matter of public record, could nevertheless remain largely unknown. To understand how this could be, one must first understand how exceptional Viswanathan’s work is and the extent to which, apart from him, the significant features of anti-Dalit violence have been either underreported, reported in ways that distort by omitting critical content, or ignored entirely. 20 Thus to cite just one example Viswanthan himself provides of the prevailing state of journalism in Tamil Nadu: ‘On 23 April 1994, a contingent of 400 policemen supervised the bulldozing of sixty-three [Dalit] huts. All this merited [was] a few centimetres in one newspaper’ ( DDL : 31). In highlighting what others have habitually ignored, Viswanathan not only sheds light on the multiple dimensions of anti-Dalit violence in Tamil Nadu, but begins to reverse the epistemic violence that has rendered anti-Dalit crimes largely invisible to all but their most immediate victims.

16 Thol. Thirumavalavan is the leader of the VCK, Tamil Nadu’s most successful Dalit political party. Uproot Hindutva is a collection of 17 of his speeches, delivered between April 1998 and November 2004; Talisman comprises 34 articles written by Thirumavalavan for the Tamil edition of India Today , a weekly newsmagazine, between August 2001 and February 2003. In translating his words into English, Meena Kandasamy has made them available for the first time—not just to non-Tamil speakers from the West, but more significantly to Dalits from elsewhere in India. For an oft-overlooked feature of Dalit politics in India is the extent to which Dalits from different linguistic regions remain largely cut off from one another, and for whom English remains the only viable lingua franca. For although relatively few Tamil Dalits read English, fewer still read or write in Hindi or other Indian vernaculars. The reverse is also true: although only a minority of Dalits from the Hindi-belt have access to English, their numbers far exceed those who can understand Tamil.

17 This returns us to the theme with which this review began, the meaning and significance of translation itself, and to the question of Thirumavalan and the VCK’s increasingly pro-Tamil rhetoric. This turn to Tamil has been criticized on two grounds: first, that it amounts to a politically retrograde abandonment of the broad, universalistic calls for justice made by Ambedkar, and second, that it is based upon an unrealistic expectation that non-Brahmins will set aside their prejudices and embrace Dalits within a common Tamil identity. Both criticisms bear upon the issue of translation. In the first, a Tamil-focused movement is assumed to be inward looking, centripetal, and inherently inimical to addressing all-India and global issues. Simply put, this criticism assumes an incompatibility between the turn to Tamil and translatability. The second criticism bears upon translation in the extended sense of a translation between words and deeds. For it accuses the movement of embracing a self-defeating strategy. And if the turn to Tamil is strategically self-defeating—if it weakens Dalits even within Tamil Nadu—of what relevance could the movement be to all-India politics or to the struggle of dominated subpopulations more generally? As I will explain, however, neither criticism rests on solid foundations.

21 I owe this analysis to Gajendran Ayyathurai, personal communication.

22 Typically these would include such things as liquor for Dalit men, and cheap saris for women voters

18 I proceed in reverse order, by beginning with the second criticism (which deems the embrace of Tamil identity a strategic dead-end). The assumption here is that the value of invoking a common, caste-free Tamil identity turns on whether non-Brahmins heed Dalits’ call to brotherhood. But this fundamentally misunderstands the nature of the VCK’s predicament and its most pressing political imperative: stripping Dalit voters away from the Dravidian parties. 21 And in this the turn to Tamil has been an unqualified success. For until very recently, virtually all Dalits habitually gave their vote to either one or the other of the major Dravidian parties. It was not that Tamil Dalits maintained any kind of naïve faith that these parties in fact served their interests—on the contrary, Tamil Dalits know from personal experience the extent to which both Dravidian parties have continually sided with their oppressors—but that the DMK and AIADMK were, on one hand, the only game in town, and, on the other, espoused ideals (however much they might contradict them in practice) that ordinary Dalit voters strongly identified with. Not only that, but the Dravidian parties routinely dispensed ‘gifts’ to Dalit voters around election time. 22 Under these circumstances, ordinary Tamil Dalits could be at once wholly cynical about the actualities of Dravidian politics, and yet remain steadfastly loyal to one or the other party in their actual voting behavior (Roberts 2007).

19 By claiming the mantle of ‘Tamil,’ the VCK appropriates for itself the Dravidian parties’ greatest ideological advantages—namely, the progressive idealism that has long been associated, in Dravidian rhetoric, with Tamil-ness itself. In the historical context of modern Tamil Nadu, ‘Tamil’ refers not merely to a particular linguistic identity, but equally to the universal progressive values—anti-caste, feminist, pro-poor, democratic, and humanist—that Dravidian leaders, following the lead of early Dalit leader Iyothee Thass, sought to characterize as inherent to Tamil Nadu’s authentic (pre-Aryan) culture. This appropriation of Tamil identity enables the VCK to claim the moral high ground vis-à-vis the Dravidian parties by calling upon them to live up to their own progressive rhetoric, while simultaneously depriving them of their most credible charge against the VCK (i.e. that it is a narrowly caste-based organization). The erosion of Dalit support, moreover, is of greater significance to Dravidian party dominance than simply the loss of their votes. For until recently Dalits were hired to carry banners and shout political slogans at Dravidian party rallies, and their attendance in large numbers at such functions were critical to Dravidian parties’ ability to produce a visual spectacle of mass subaltern support. But today Dalits frequently refuse to play this role, attending their own rallies instead ( VT : 111–2).

23 That consolidation of the Dalit vote is the key political imperative for their party is explicitly (...)

20 Nevertheless, Dalits make up just under 20% of the population of Tamil Nadu, and in no constituencies do they comprise a majority of voters. Their political future therefore depends on their ability to form successful alliances with non-Dalits, and in the present day this means with either one or the other of the Dravidian parties. And the VCK’s negotiating power in the arena of parliamentary politics depends directly on their ability to consolidate the Dalit vote. 23 Their strategy, in other words, appears to be to strip Dalit voters from both Dravidian parties, only to then return those voters to them via carefully crafted electoral alliances. There is of course nothing paradoxical about this; instead of the Dalit vote being split more or less evenly between, and without any voice within, the two Dravidian political machines, the VCK is potentially in a position to force these parties to compete for votes they had long taken for granted. Nor is the prospect of alliance with Dravidianists necessarily a bad thing so far as politically progressive Dalits are concerned, despite these parties’ admittedly checkered record with respect to Dalit interests—so long as the Dravidian parties can be persuaded to uphold in practice the political values that they already theoretically endorse. By appropriating the Dravidian parties’ own professed progressive and anti-caste ideology (under the heading of ‘Tamil’) and, moreover, by positioning itself as its vanguard, the VCK under Thirumavalavan’s leadership may very well be able to have its cake and eat it too. For by challenging the Dravidian parties on these grounds, the VCK in one fell swoop stakes out an independent basis for Dalit power in the electoral arena, while nevertheless encouraging those parties to reform themselves and leaving open the door to cooperation.

24 Hugo Gorringe (2007) argues that this has already happened.

25 I would like to thank Michael Collins for alerting me to this possibility.

21 Thus the first criticism of the VCK’s embrace of pro-Tamil ideology—viz. that it makes no sense politically—is questionable. There are perfectly good strategic reasons for the VCK to adopt this approach. Will it succeed? It is too early to say. But even as this review was being composed, news arrived that Thirumavalavan had been elected to India’s Parliament in alliance with the DMK. The critical question now is whether the VCK will prove capable of influencing the DMK’s policies towards Dalits, or whether, on the contrary, it will become so dependent on the DMK’s political and financial support that it will effectively forfeit its critical voice. 24 Indeed, the rise of Dalit politics could very well prove a hidden blessing for Dravidian parties—for now, instead of purchasing the Dalit vote directly (i.e. by dispensing innumerable pre-election ‘gifts,’ as mentioned above), they can woo ostensibly independent Dalit parties with lucrative coalition alliances, and then simply use these parties to canvass the Dalit vote. 25

26 Thirumavalavan himself denies any contradiction between his being pro-Tamil and his Ambedkarism ( UH (...)

22 What then of the other, and perhaps more damning, criticism of the turn to Tamil—that it implies an ethno-linguistic chauvinism and an abandonment of Ambedkarite universalism, or that being pro-Tamil entails being opposed to (or at least cut-off from) India’s other linguistic identities, including from Dalits in neighboring states? The test of these claims resides in the actual uses to which ‘Tamil’ is put—in what the term in fact signifies in the context of VCK discourse. 26 Until now commentators who habitually accuse the VCK and Thirumavalavan of ethno-linguistic chauvinism have not based their claims on any textual evidence, but have relied instead on the biased reporting of mainstream Tamil and English periodicals and on select out-of-context quotation. And because his words have not been available heretofore in English, it has not been possible for interested persons elsewhere in India to question the validity of these assessments.

23 Take the slogan ‘ A ṉ aittu mo ḻ ika ḷ aiyum k a ṟ p ō m, a ṉṉ ai Tami ḻ ai k ā pp ō m! ’ ( UH : 121). The second part of this slogan translates as ‘we will protect Mother Tamil!’ and might very well seem to imply an inward-looking and defensive ethno-linguistic politics. Such an interpretation becomes more difficult, however, when we consider that equal weight is accorded to the preceding phrase: ‘we will study all languages!’ A party’s slogans are not coined haphazardly or by accident, and in conjoining the protection of ‘mother Tamil’ to a proclamation that party members will study all languages the VCK is making a deliberate statement. Personifying Tamil as ‘mother Tamil’ is nothing new in Tamil Nadu, moreover, and has been in fact a mainstay of Dravidianist politics since the 1930s. But where the prior Tamil protection movement revolved precisely around the refusal to learn north Indian languages, Hindi especially, the VCK reverses this by flatly denying any incompatibility between loyalty to one’s mother tongue and the embrace of all languages.

27 It may appear paradoxical, therefore, that VCK members have also rejected Christian and Muslim name (...)

24 Among the most frequently-cited examples of Thirumavalavan’s alleged ethno-linguistic nationalism is the fact that he and most other members of his party have legally changed their names from ‘foreign-influenced’ (i.e. Sanskritic) ones, like Ramasamy, to ‘pure Tamil’ names like Tolkappiyar. What, for Thirumavalavan and the VCK, is at stake? Examining his writings and speeches one does indeed find the rejected names referred to as ‘foreign.’ But in explaining his party’s opposition to these names, the fact that they are foreign appears merely incidental. The reason ‘foreign’ names are rejected is not because they are foreign, but because such names are seen as linked to what Thirumavalan refers to as ‘Hindutva’—a term he uses idiosyncratically to refer, not merely to the modern political movement that bears this name, but to brahminical Hinduism tout court , all forms of casteism, and to the violent suppression of religious minorities throughout Indian history, especially Buddhists, Muslims and Christians. Thus VCK members are also expected to give up names that identify them as members of any specific caste, even though in most cases these names are uniquely Tamil. 27

28 This is not to imply Thirumavalavan’s championing of the LTTE is motivated solely by political one- (...)
29 Ravikumar also writes compellingly on the deep and unacceptable caste divisions among Sri Lankan Ta (...)

25 Another prominent example of Thirumavalavan’s alleged ethno-linguistic nationalism is his vocal support of the LTTE. One should note that support for the LTTE’s cause (if not their methods) is virtually universal in Tamil Nadu, although the leaders of the mainstream Dravidian parties tend to avoid the issue because to openly sympathize with the Tamil Tigers would risk alienating the Dravidian parties’ allies in central government, especially Congress. Thus by openly championing the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils, Thirumavalavan simultaneously calls attention to what is popularly regarded as the hypocrisy of Dravidian leaders. 28 But while the Tigers are consistently described by Thirumavalavan as brave warriors fighting on behalf of an oppressed minority, does this mean he embraces Tamil ethno-linguistic nationalism as such? (Certainly even the LTTE’s sworn enemies will not deny their bravery, and there is no doubt that Tamils are systematically discriminated against in Sri Lanka.) Reading Thirumavalavan’s stance on Sri Lanka closely, we find that as much as he wishes for Tamils to be freed from the yoke of Sinhala dominance, he recognizes that caste divisions exist among Sri Lankan Tamils and openly proclaims that ‘if you merely capture power from the Sinhalese it is not liberation,’ and ‘it will be useless if Hindutva [read: caste] remains’ ( UH : 151). 29

26 Thirumavalavan could not be more clear on this point: ‘We are not for a mere linguistic nationalism, it has to be... a caste-annihilating nationalism ’ ( UH : 153, emphasis added). The ‘nationalism’ Thirumavalavan espouses is defined not (like most modern nationalisms) by ties of blood, but oppositionally—it is a political nationalism premised upon common interests in opposing caste. Indeed, one might even argue that a nationalism based on opposition to caste has to be opposed to the valorization of common birth—for caste is, if nothing else, a political-economic alliance premised on the ideology of common blood. And Thirumavalavan recognizes as much when he proclaims that opposing caste might very well mean opposing one’s own family members: ‘Tamilian unity lies in the opposition of Hindutva. In this opposition, one’s own uncle, one’s own brother-in-law might need to be opposed. One’s siblings might need to be opposed’ ( UH : 153). Thus to return to the question of what Tamil means in Thirumavalavan’s discourse, we find him elsewhere re-defining ‘Tamil’ as a casteless person; the only true Tamils, in other words, are the outcaste Dalits and those who have embraced their cause ( UH : 179). At this point one begins to sense that, far from subordinating Ambedkarite politics to Tamil, what Thirumavalavan is really up to is refashioning Tamil nationalism as a form of Ambedkarism.

27 At any rate, the contrast between Thirumavalavan’s ‘Tamil nationalism’ and what has normally gone under this name is striking. Elsewhere, for instance, he condemns historical kingdoms standard Tamil nationalism hails as paragons of Tamil virtue—the Cholas, Cheras, and Pandyas—and champions the so-called Kalappira period, during which Tamil Nadu was ruled by non-Tamil kings, on the grounds that under their rule anti-caste Buddhism and Jainism flourished ( UH : 131, 145). By championing in the name of ‘Tamil nationalism’ positions that standard Tamil nationalists regard as perverse, Thirumavalavan invents a completely new Tamil nationalism—one that does not define itself in opposition to foreign tongues. Just ‘because Thirumavalavan speaks of Tamil,’ he explains, ‘does not mean that he is against Kannadigas, or that he is against the Kannada language. I [say] to them, ‘You arrange a function to take [pure] Kannada names [i.e. which do not connote caste], and I shall take part in it’ ’ ( UH : 148).

28 Another key feature of ‘Tamil’ in Thirumavalavan’s discourse that mainstream commentators have consistently ignored is its class connotations. For in Tamil Nadu today even the leaders of the allegedly pro-Tamil Dravidian movement, while preaching the greatness of Tamil and the importance of Tamil-medium education, send their own children to be educated in English medium schools just like other elites. Purely Tamil-medium education, by contrast, has become the exclusive domain of Dalits and other very poor people. As we have seen, the VCK has nothing against learning foreign languages; to ‘study all languages’ is not just a slogan, but one of the greatest aspirations of the VCK’s poor cadres. To ‘protect Tamil,’ conversely, does not simply mean preserving the integrity of the Tamil language, nor even does it just mean protecting the casteless ideal that VCK discourse associates with the sign ‘Tamil.’ In addition to these meanings, to ‘protect Tamil’ is simultaneously to assert the dignity of those who have nothing else.

Only the children of the cheris [i.e. Dalit ghettoes] are enrolled into the state-run corporation schools and learn Tamil. Even today, if someone speaks in Tamil, the co-students mock, ‘Why do you speak like someone who has studied in a corporation school?’.... only the poor people living in the villages, particularly the Tamil Dalit people, and the people of the urban slums are the ones who are protecting Tamil.... The trend of mistreating and humiliating those who study in the state-run corporation schools and Tamil-medium schools is prevalent. ( UH : 123, 129).

30 On the basis of my own ethnographic fieldwork in a Dalit slum in northern Chennai, I can testify to (...)

29 The VCK’s protest against script writing in which the lead characters of Tamil films pepper their speech with English phrases must be understood in this light. The point is not to oppose English as such, but to expose the celebration of an elite caste/class subjectivity in Tamil film that marginalizes Dalits and others who have been denied access to English education. 30

31 Thus if one examines the pages of Putiya K ō ṭ ā ṅ ki or Talit Mu ṟ acu (two prominent Tamil Dalit monthli (...)

30 I have dwelt on Thirumavalavan’s use of ‘Tamil’ because his pro-Tamil rhetoric has been a primary source of accusation against him. In so doing, I risk perpetuating the impression that most of his speeches and writings revolve around Tamil. This is not the case. While interpreting and commenting on the meanings and value of ‘Tamil’ are among his principal themes, readers whose only knowledge of Thirumavalavan comes from secondary sources will be surprised at the catholicity of his interests. In addition to caste, his speeches dwell at length on such issues as privatization ( TAL : 85, 139–142, 169–173), poverty and class ( TAL : 127ff, 175–78), America’s ‘Global “supercop”-ism,’ racist attacks on Sikhs in the United States and the US embargo on Cuba ( TAL : 19ff), and Indian law—especially the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Goondas Act (repressive measures widely criticized by civil rights organizations, and which Thirumavalavan characterizes as a continuation of police practices under the British) ( TAL : 39–42, 51, 123–125; UH : 4, 18–19, 29, 80–81, 91). That Thirumavalavan should see these topics as not only within his natural purview, but matters of vital concern, comes as a surprise only to the extent that we have been taught to regard the Dalit movement as a sectional interest group (Gajendran 1998, Guru 1998). Viewed through their own eyes, however, the concerns of Dalits are not merely universal in aspiration but indeed already universal, whatever others may have to say about them. The truly sectional interests, rather, are the national and sub-national forces in India that seek to confine and exclude them. 31

31 In reviewing the translated speeches and writings of Thirumavalavan I have been at pains to provide an accurate and sympathetic interpretation of his thought and often challenging message. This is the first duty of a reader to any text (Asad 1993). I have not attempted to assess the accuracy of his historical claims or of the sociological account his words imply, because Thirumavalavan does not write as a professional historian or sociologist. He is a politician, an organizer, a thinker, and an instigator. In concluding I would like to note a possible tension among these roles, a tension that turns on the gap between statements and other forms of action. For knowing what Thirumavalavan says, and what kind of vision he espouses, cannot tell us what he and his party will be able to do. Leaders of the Dravidian movement too once espoused radical ideas, and sometimes still do. Whether the VCK will attempt to make good on their radical message by fighting for real structural change—land reform, for example—or whether they will remain content with symbolic measures and adapt to the patronage-based politics of Dravidianism remains an open question.

32 Although Dravidian leaders continue to give speeches in the elevated ‘ m ē ṭ ait tami ḻ ’ style, today’s (...)

33 Kandasamy discusses her choice in a translator’s note ( TAL : xxvii–xxviii).

34 In TAL these notes amount to a full page for every three pages of regular text, and in UH , one page (...)
35 Kandasamy claims specifically that in most parts of Tamil Nadu the cēṟi is positioned to the northe (...)
36 For a discussion of the prevailing anthropological opinion, according to which caste is first and f (...)

32 I conclude with a brief note on Meena Kandasamy’s translations. An additional factor in the VCK’s growing success among Dalit voters has been the party’s ability to appropriate from the Dravidian parties not only the prestige of Tamil, but also—through the voice of Thirumavalavan himself—the genre of Tamil political oratory, at which the Dravidianists once reigned supreme (Bate 2009). 32 For in addition to everything else, Thirumavalavan is widely acclaimed as the greatest orator of his generation. Readers hoping for a sense of what it feels like to listen to one of Thirumavalavan’s speeches, however, will come away disappointed. In part this is because much of the power of his oratory derives from delivery—a well-timed pause, an ironic twist conveyed by tone of voice—as well as from his ability to connect intimately with his audience by drawing upon his own minute understanding of a life-world that he and they share. These are aspects that no translator could hope to convey. Yet there are other aspects of his speeches that do not depend on the form of their delivery or the specificity of context, and these might have been conveyed in English. But the translator, despite being a talented poet, has chosen to translate Thirumavalavan’s words in a strictly literal mode on the basis of the theory that this is more faithful to the original. 33 The result is a technically precise, yet sometimes awkward, document that will be of great use to the scholar (particularly one with some access to Tamil) or to the committed student of Dalit politics, but may perhaps prove somewhat challenging for the casual inquirer. Adding to the volumes’ value as both scholarly and political documents are an immense number of highly detailed footnotes, which make a significant contribution in and of themselves. 34 Apart from the sheer historical detail they provide, Kandasamy’s notes contain numerous original insights. To give but one outstanding example, note three on page seven points out that the physical separation of the Tamil Dalit hamlet ( c ē ṟ i ) from the caste village ( ū r ) is not merely a symbolic expression of caste hierarchy—as generations of anthropologists have described it—but is also of (non-symbolic) strategic value in rendering Dalits perpetually vulnerable to traditional forms of collective punishment by caste people: being positioned several hundred meters downwind, the huts of the c ē ṟ i can be safely torched without endangering caste villagers’ own dwellings. 35 , 36

37 It is also worth mentioning that Ravikumar is, in addition to being an intellectual and an activist (...)

38 Chapters 23 and 24.

39 Chapter 22.

40 Chapter 28.

41 Chapter 16.

42 Chapter 2.

43 Chapter 3.

44 Chapter 5.

45 Chapter 13.

46 Chapter 10.

47 Chapter 21.

48 Chapters 18, 24, 28 and 32.

49 Among writers sympathetic to the Dalit cause it has become standard practice to place the term ‘hig (...)

33 Venomous Touch is a collection of essays by Ravikumar, one of today’s leading Tamil public intellectuals (and a Dalit). 37 These essays, most of which were published between 1992 and 2005, are even more wide-ranging than Thirumavalavan’s. His chapters include literary analyses of modern Tamil fiction, 38 film criticism, 39 an investigative report on electoral violence, 40 a meditation on the death penalty, 41 an analysis of the relations among caste, land control and the state, 42 an historical comparison of Dalit and elite native publishing in the late 19 th and early 20 th century and the present day, 43 an illuminating account of the position of Dalits in Sri Lanka and within the LTTE, 44 a phenomenological investigation of the relations between work and leisure, 45 an essay on the perverse parallels between sport and politics in domestic Indian politics and in the rivalry between India and Pakistan, 46 another on the production of official knowledge of Dalits by both the state and by social science, 47 and several on the meanings of democracy in theory and in practice. 48 Ravikumar’s theoretical influences are as diverse as the topics that engage him, and include Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, the high-caste Tamil writer Pudumai Pithan, 49 B. R. Ambedkar, Jacques Derrida, and the playwright Augusto Boal. I can only touch on a few of these here.

50 Martin Luther King’s maxim provides the epigraph for Ravikumar’s ‘Mystery of Justice’ ( VT : 178–183) (...)

51 Ambedkar’s ‘I have no homeland’ is quoted from Keer (1995: 166).

34 In an essay entitled ‘Boundaries of Dalit Narrative,’ Ravikumar speaks to a central theme of this review: translation, in the extended sense of the relation between particular languages and universal claims. ‘We are told,’ Ravikumar writes, ‘that the pygmy [i.e. small, parochial] dalit discourse must first become a Tamil national discourse, then an Indian national one, before it can aspire to universality’ ( VT : 140). The topical and theoretical range of Ravikumar’s writing itself may be taken as rejecting a well-established division of intellectual labor that would confine Dalits to what is closest to them—a division which, in the world of commercial publishing, has resulted in a proliferation of Dalit autobiographies for non-Dalit consumption, while ceding questions of national and global interest to the professional theoreticians of India’s (Anglophone) elite. But Ravikumar pursues diverse topics not simply in order to resist the idea that Dalit discourse must necessarily be narrow; fundamentally, his intellectual restlessness is driven by a sense of existential struggle and the belief that knowledge may indeed prove a weapon in the hands of the oppressed. Thus underlining the essentially strategic dimension of Martin Luther King’s famous maxim ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ Ravikumar regards it as virtually a matter of survival that those ‘who have been regarded as viruses and isolated from the social body,’ would refuse to be confined by Tamil or Indian national concerns, but would instead find themselves driven ‘to collect information about oppressed communities throughout the world’ ( VT : 140). 50 The flip side of King’s maxim, therefore, is Ambedkar’s statement ‘I have no homeland’—which in the context of Ravikumar’s writings comes to refer not merely to the fact that, as a Dalit, he is treated as a foreigner in his own land, but that in his struggle for justice he cannot afford to be confined by national boundaries ( VT : 121). 51

52 The Melavalavu murders are also covered in DDL , chapters 11, 29 and 31, TAL , ch. 4, and in an exten (...)

35 Ravikumar’s essays are not those of professional academic, as he himself warns readers, nor does he regard himself as ‘serious literary critic’ ( VT : 145). They read instead like the notebooks—desperate, hopeful, and frequently brilliant—of a prisoner who, after already devouring every book in the prison library, has now turned his attention to empirical studies of the prison itself. And his eye for unnoticed details in events that will already be familiar to readers of the other volumes under review can produce startling effects. In describing the pre-mediated murder of six Dalits in Melavalavu, for instance, Ravikumar pauses to contemplate the exact manner and sequence in which they were killed: after hacking off the head of K. Murugesan the attackers held it above the mouth of the mortally wounded but still living K. Cellatthurai, forcing the latter to drink his friend’s blood ( VT : 179). 52 These details were omitted from mainstream media accounts of the event, in which it appeared as just another sad and virtually inexplicable case of violence against Dalits. Murugesan’s only crime, so far as the standard reportage goes, was having defied the orders of the dominant Kallar community and run for the office of panchayat president. The effect of such reporting is to decontextualize rural caste politics to make it appear as if violence begins only with the elections themselves. Ravikumar’s ironic commentary on this matter is worth quoting in extenso .

Dalits in Melavalavu are not allowed to wear smart, ironed clothes. On festive occasions, they are required to serve the village as a whole, as well as individual Kallars, without any remuneration. They cannot use common village property or participate in public functions; they cannot even give money for holding village festivals. That was how things were before the murders shattered the ‘peace’ of the village. It was a place where life ran smoothly ‘like the togetherness of mother and children without any discrimination’ under the regime of the double-tumbler system, separate wells and segregated cremation grounds. All this ‘harmony’ is gone after the panchayat elections! ( VT : 179)

36 Ravikumar’s approach is more often Benjaminian than anthropological—rather than persuading the reader by the sheer weight of accumulated of evidence, he seeks to illuminates the totality of a situation in a single well-chosen detail. But he shares entirely the anthropologist’s belief that apparently peripheral persons and events may disclose insights of more global significance. Thus having outlined the above facts about the murders and the social world within which they took place, he notes that a series of delays by the police and justice system permitted many of the accused to roam free for over a year prior to the trial, intimidating witnesses. When key police personnel are from the same community as the murderers, Ravikumar asks, and virtually the whole of the apparatus of justice is in the hands of caste people, what message does this send to the victims’ families?

53 DDL , chapter 31 describes the verdict.

37 In this particular case in Melavalavu a measure of justice was, against all odds, eventually served. 53 In concluding his essay, Ravikumar lists the names of several other Dalits who had been killed in the vicinity of Melavalavu in preceding years, whose murders were never even brought to trial ( VT : 183). ‘The absolute victim,’ Ravikumar elsewhere writes, quoting Jacques Derrida, ‘is a victim who cannot even protest. One cannot even identify the victim as a victim. He or she is totally excluded...[and] annihilated by history’ ( VT : 238, Derrida 1995: 389). In naming these other victims Ravikumar attempts to write them into history, though he is quite aware that they will in all likelihood soon be forgotten once again, save by loved ones and those directly involved ( VT : 181).

38 ‘Writing Tamil Dalits,’ the subtitle of this review, refers to Ravikumar’s endeavor—as well as that of Viswanathan, Thirumavalavan, and translators Kandasamy and Azhagarasan—to undo the structural violence that is the matrix of this forgetting. However, I could just as well have titled it ‘Translating Tamil Dalits,’ because every act of writing is an act of translation between contexts: from the act of murder to an act of writing, from a small Tamil magazine to an English language volume, from an Indian publishing house to an on-line review article. By way of this translational process, Ravikumar acts upon not only Melavalavu, but also upon Derrida and Boal and the many other ‘foreign’ thinkers like Michel Foucault and B. R. Ambedkar he enlists, and in so doing transforms. Thus neither the Derrida nor the Foucault who appear on the pages of Ravikumar’s essays bear more than a passing resemblance to the ones I thought I knew—and for this very reason they have many new things to teach.

39 I began this review with the thought that if the Tamil Dalit movement is to be of any wider significance it must be in some sense translatable. It must be capable of instigating new arguments and new ideas—ones with not only intellectual, but political and legal consequences—in contexts quite different than those if its origin. And it is my contention that these writers have amply demonstrated this potential.

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1 Although Samya, the publisher of Thirumavalavan’s two translated volumes, has chosen to spell his name with a double ‘a’ following the letter ‘m’ [‘Thirum aa valavan’], in this review I follow the more common spelling, ‘Thirumavalavan,’ the spelling he himself uses (Gowthama Sannah, Vi ṭ utalai Cirutaika ḻ Ka ṭ ci party spokesman; personal communication).

2 On police violence, see especially chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 24, 30 and 35 ‘Terror in Uniform,’ ‘The Caste of Khaki,’ ‘The Importance of Karanai,’ ‘Killing Spree,’ ‘Police Held Guilty,’ ‘Mayhem in Gundupatti,’ ‘A Contentious Report,’ ‘Blaming the Victims,’ and ‘Police in the Dock.’ Another aspect of police violence against Dalits, which is not well covered in this volume (but see chapter 1, ‘Taken to Task’), is jailhouse torture and custodial rape. By contrast, these more quotidian aspects of police violence are amply described and documented in the writings of Thirumavalavan and Ravikumar.

6 DDL , chapter 13. On state suppression of Dalit political activism, see also: Human Rights Watch (1999) and Gorringe (2005).

7 DDL , chapter 24; also, UH pp. 211ff. On the lackadaisical attitude of the Dravidian parties to land reforms more generally, see Sathyamurthy (1977), Washbrook (1989); for a contemporary assessment, explaining the retrogressive character of Tamil Nadu’s land reform policies in comparison to neighboring states like Kerala and Karnataka, see Thangaraj (2003).

9 See Venomous Touch chapters 21, 29, 31, 36: ‘On the Borderlines: Dalit Rights versus Human Rights,’ ‘Caste Clashes and Aftershocks,’ ‘Rule of Law,’ ‘Research and the Armed Forces.’

10 See Human Rights Watch (1999), and Venomous Touch , chapters 21, 28, 31: ‘On the Borderlines: Dalit Rights versus Human Rights,’ ‘Dalits and Parliamentary Democracy: A Report on the Chidambaram Poll Violence,’ and ‘Rule of Law.’

11 On the drowning incident itself, see DDL chapters 19–21; on the Mohan report and cover-up, see DDL chapters 23 and 30. See also DDL chapter 25 on another government report exonerating the police force for a highly-organized attack by 600 of its members on the Dalit hamlet of Kodiyankulam; the Kodiyankulam attack itself is described in DDL chapter 2, ‘Terror in Uniform.’ The Mohan Commission report is also discussed VT ch. 15, ‘Judicial Terrorism,’ and in TAL chs. 8 and 12, ‘Police Terrorism’ and ‘Judgements.’

12 DDL , p. 29 n.5.

13 DDL chapter 2.

14 DDL chapter 11.

15 DDL chapter 12.

16 DDL chapter 19.

17 The Dravidian parties never included Dalits in any significant numbers in decision-making positions. Nevertheless a palpable shift occurred in the 1960s, when party leaders began actively to court BCs at the expense of Dalits and to suppress any vestiges of agrarian or class radicalism that would threaten the parties’ non-Brahmin financial backers who were of landed and merchant caste background (Barnett 1976, Sathyamurthy 1977, Washbrook 1989, de Wit 1996: 64–96).

18 Previously Dalits who ran for office in independent constituencies were limited to those chosen to do so by Brahmin and non-Brahmin lead parties (DMK, AIADMK, Congress, etc.)

20 On the prevailing silence on Dalit issues in Indian journalism, see also: Ravikumar, ‘Unwritten Writing: Dalits and the Media’ ( VT : 15–33), and N. Ram ‘Forward’ ( DDL : vi–vii.

22 Typically these would include such things as liquor for Dalit men, and cheap saris for women voters.

23 That consolidation of the Dalit vote is the key political imperative for their party is explicitly recognized by VCK strategists (Collins 2009).

26 Thirumavalavan himself denies any contradiction between his being pro-Tamil and his Ambedkarism ( UH : 152, 171). But the mere fact that he says it does not make it so, and for this reason I shall devote several paragraphs to examining what ‘Tamil’ in fact means in the texts under review.

27 It may appear paradoxical, therefore, that VCK members have also rejected Christian and Muslim names as well. Thirumavalavan’s explanation for this policy is that in India these names have taken on caste connotations they do not possess elsewhere in the world—and indeed that, insofar as Indian Christians embrace caste, they too are part of what he calls ‘Hindutva’ ( UH :133ff). Thirumavalavan has nevertheless consistently and prominently condemned anti-conversion legislation, and championed the inherent right of all Indians to convert to whatever religions they choose, especially so-called foreign religions like Christianity and Islam (Thirumavalavan 2002, TAL : 143–146, 153–156, 161, UH : 90–91, 103, 105ff, 120ff, 136ff, 154, 170, 179ff, 214, 234–8).

28 This is not to imply Thirumavalavan’s championing of the LTTE is motivated solely by political one-upmanship; his personal sympathies for the Tigers predate his involvement in Dalit politics by many years.

29 Ravikumar also writes compellingly on the deep and unacceptable caste divisions among Sri Lankan Tamils in ‘Caste of the Tigers’ ( VT : 59–75).

30 On the basis of my own ethnographic fieldwork in a Dalit slum in northern Chennai, I can testify to a widespread and deeply held ambition to learn English among those who live there—an ambition that in no way detracts from their profound identification with, and love of, the Tamil language.

31 Thus if one examines the pages of Putiya K ō ṭ ā ṅ ki or Talit Mu ṟ acu (two prominent Tamil Dalit monthlies) one finds a similar range of concerns. The latter, for example, reports regularly on the condition of Palestinians, black South Africans, and is undertaking a serialized translation of Malcolm X.

32 Although Dravidian leaders continue to give speeches in the elevated ‘ m ē ṭ ait tami ḻ ’ style, today’s speeches are a formulaic shadow of their former selves, according to Kandasamy ( UH : xxii–xxiii).

34 In TAL these notes amount to a full page for every three pages of regular text, and in UH , one page for every two.

35 Kandasamy claims specifically that in most parts of Tamil Nadu the cēṟi is positioned to the northeast of the village—and hence leeward of prevailing south-westerly winds ( TAL 7 n.3). If she is correct about cēṟis ’ positioning relative to prevailing wind patterns, this only enhances the significance of her observation. But what is clear is that arson (and the threat of arson) upon the cēṟi is among the traditional techniques of caste domination, and that technique would not be available if cēṟis were not located a safe distance from the main village (as they in fact are). That Dalits were traditionally prohibited from constructing homes with tiled (read: flame resistant) roofs has similarly been interpreted by anthropologists in a purely symbolic register as being merely about the denial of prestige (though it is certainly that too). The point here is not that the positioning of cēṟis (or the sorts of roofing materials used) is without symbolic significance , but about the weakness of anthropological theories that seek a symbolic rationalization for cultural practices without considering how they might be rational from other, non-symbolic standpoints as well (Asad 1979). Additional discussion of the strategic dimensions of cēṟi placement can be found in Viswanath (2006).

36 For a discussion of the prevailing anthropological opinion, according to which caste is first and foremost a symbolic (ritual) order, and only secondarily a political–economic one, see Roberts (2008).

37 It is also worth mentioning that Ravikumar is, in addition to being an intellectual and an activist, also a Member of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and a prominent figure within the VCK, second only to Thirumavalavan himself. Not only that, he is the co-founder of Navayana, the young publishing house to which we owe Viswanathan’s Dalits in Dravidian Land and many other fine books focusing on Dalit issues, including Anand Teltumbde’s Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop (also reviewed in SAMAJ).

49 Among writers sympathetic to the Dalit cause it has become standard practice to place the term ‘high caste’ in quotation marks—the point being to signal one’s rejection of the claim that some people are really ‘higher’ than others. I do not follow this practice; caste is in its very essence a hierarchical system, and to speak of castes (as opposed to, say, ethnic groups) is to refer to entities that are by definition either higher or lower than others. Accurately specifying that position does not imply an endorsement of the ideological system on which it rests.

50 Martin Luther King’s maxim provides the epigraph for Ravikumar’s ‘Mystery of Justice’ ( VT : 178–183), an essay on the Melavalavu murders that I describe in the next paragraph.

52 The Melavalavu murders are also covered in DDL , chapters 11, 29 and 31, TAL , ch. 4, and in an extended translator’s footnote to the first chapter of UH , pp. 14 – 17.

Electronic reference

Nathaniel Roberts , “ Language, Violence, and the State: Writing Tamil Dalits [review essay] ” , South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal [Online], Book Reviews, Online since 31 January 2010 , connection on 30 November 2024 . URL : http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/2952; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.2952

About the author

Nathaniel roberts.

Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania, Department of South Asia Studies

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Politics & Governance

Inclusive growth in Tamil Nadu: The role of political leadership and governance

Briefing 20th January 2020

By multiple experts (2)

Although the culinary and linguistic differences between North and South India are widely known outside the country, less well understood abroad are the differences in how the two groupings of Indian states have fared on development. A comparison of Tamil Nadu, a southern state, and Uttar Pradesh, a northern state, is indicative of broader regional trends. In 1960-61, these two states were not so different across a number of measures related to development, albeit with Tamil Nadu achieving a generally higher performance. For instance, at that time, Tamil Nadu had a per capita income 51% higher than that of Uttar Pradesh—5,053 as compared to 3,338 Indian rupees. [_] This gap, however, narrowed to 39% by the early 1980s. The two states were even closer together when it came to poverty: from the early 1970s (and probably before) to the late 1980s, Tamil Nadu’s poverty rate was equal to or higher than that of Uttar Pradesh. In fact, in 1960, the rural poverty rate in Tamil Nadu checked in at just below 70%, much higher than Uttar Pradesh’s rate of 48%.

Decades later, we see a much different situation. By 2005, Tamil Nadu’s per capita income outpaced Uttar Pradesh’s by 128 percent—a gap more than twice as big as it was in the early 1960s. And in 2009-10, Tamil Nadu’s rural poverty rate dropped to nearly half that of Uttar Pradesh (21.2% vs. 39.4%), and its urban poverty rate was less than half of Uttar Pradesh’s (12.8% vs. 31.7%).

Today, Tamil Nadu is India’s second-largest economy despite being only its sixth most populous state, and among India’s 12 largest states, Tamil Nadu has the third-highest GDP per capita. [_] Located at the southernmost tip of the subcontinent with a population of more than 70 million, it is India’s most urbanised state and one of its most industrialised, with a strong manufacturing base and a large services sector. At the same time, it ranks second on the Human Development Index among India’s 13 largest states. [_] In other words, the state has achieved high growth rates and economic transformation in combination with significant progress on social outcomes, which has been key for enabling broad swathes of the state’s population to share in its growth.

How did Tamil Nadu do this? The state’s development path illuminates some key points regarding how governments can effectively promote inclusive development. Underlying the policies and investments that the Tamil Nadu state government has pursued are:

An inclusive vision traced out by widely popular Tamil cultural figures turned political leaders, such as former chief ministers (the top executive post at the state level) M. Karunanidhi and M.G. Ramachandran (widely known by his initials MGR), for whom social justice and uplifting disadvantaged groups were central concerns

Policy consistency and commitment of the state’s political leadership to industrial development, which cut across the administrations of Karunanidhi, MGR and their successor Jayalalithaa, as well as the predictability that this created over time for investors—despite power alternating between the state’s two primary parties on a regular basis

The effectiveness of the bureaucracy in policy implementation, due to the recruitment of socioeconomically diverse cadres who were attuned to local challenges; the ideological ties between bureaucrats and the regional political parties (and the competitive pressures to deliver that this created); and the establishment of specialised agencies, such as the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) and the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT), to drive delivery of the state’s economic vision.

The state’s competitive, clientelist political system and history of towering political leaders are also common features of politics in many African countries. As a result, Tamil Nadu’s experience in channelling this system towards inclusive development holds important lessons about governance that can be instructive for African countries.

Tamil Nadu has been one of India’s best-performing states when it comes to inclusive development. Since 1994, poverty has declined steadily in the state, resulting in Tamil Nadu having lower levels of poverty than most other states in India. This trend has played out in both rural and urban areas of Tamil Nadu, the former seeing a 35-percentage point reduction in poverty between 1994 and 2012 and the latter seeing a 27-percentage point reduction during the same period. [_]

Population below poverty line across Indian states, 1994-2012

Rapid economic growth over the past several decades has played a major role in the state’s poverty reduction story. From 1991 to 2012, Tamil Nadu averaged 7% growth in GDP and approximately 6% growth in GDP per capita [_] —both clocking in above the all-India average. [_]

Average annual growth rate of per capita income in selected Indian states, by decade

inclusive-growth-tamil-nadu-role-political-leadership-and-governance - Figure 2: Average annual growth rate of per capita income in selected Indian states, by decade

Importantly, economic transformation has underpinned the state’s growth, as people in Tamil Nadu have moved off the farm and into other types of work over time. The state’s non-farm employment share in 2012 ranked fifth among all Indian states.

Employment share by sector in Tamil Nadu, 1994-2012

Services have led the way in terms of contributing to growth and employment, but industry has also played a critical role—accounting for approximately 30% of Tamil Nadu’s growth between 1991 and 2012. [_] The state ranks first among all Indian states in terms of number of factories and industrial workers, and has a diversified manufacturing sector. It is among the leading states in automobiles, components, textiles and garments, leather products, pharmaceuticals and other industries. [_] Major automobile manufacturers, such as Hyundai, Ford, Renault and BMW, have had production facilities in and around Chennai (the capital of Tamil Nadu) for years, and the Tiruppur-Coimbatore-Salem corridor has been dubbed the “Manchester of South India” due to its large cluster of textile firms.

This economic success has coincided with substantial progress on human development. Infant mortality has declined substantially and rates are now among the lowest in India. Malnutrition is also among the lowest in the country, and is below the national average for all income groups. [_] Across a range of health indicators, Tamil Nadu stacks up well against other high-growth, high-income states, such as Gujarat.

Table 4: Basic Health Indicators in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, 2005-06

On education, children in Tamil Nadu are staying in school longer, and the share of adults with secondary schooling is above the national average. In terms of educational attainment across socioeconomic groups, Tamil Nadu again compares favourably with Gujarat. [_]

To be clear, Tamil Nadu still has much room for improvement: non-farm job growth has been slow in recent years, and is not keeping up with the expansion of the working-age population; women have dropped out of the labour force (mirroring a countrywide trend); open defecation remains commonplace among low-income households; and learning outcomes in primary school are no better than the all-India average. Nonetheless, the state’s significant economic and social progress both during and after economic liberalisation in 1991 should not be brushed off, as its experience demonstrates what can be achieved when political leadership and governance set out and follow through on a strong, inclusive development agenda.

Tamil Nadu has successfully combined a coherent industrial policy with social welfare programmes, which has generated a virtuous cycle of development. Industrialisation has provided the resources to invest in social policies, and these social policies have bolstered the health, productivity and skill base of the state’s population. [_] Higher skills among workers, in turn, have allowed the state to move into more complex economic activities, diversify its economy and thus sustain growth.

Industrial policy

Tamil Nadu’s industrial policy has focused on a few key elements. First, the state has invested in infrastructure—upgrading road, rail and port networks—to enhance connectivity between its hinterland, industrial clusters and urban markets. [_] For instance, major ports, such as Chennai, were essential in making the state an attractive location for export industries. Investments in communications infrastructure were also prioritised to enhance connectivity, enabling Tamil Nadu to become one of India’s major IT centres. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the government invested heavily in boosting the state’s electricity generation capacity, a critical input for manufacturing. These investments created suitable background conditions for foreign manufacturers—ranging from Standard Motors in the 1950s to Hyundai and Ford in the 1990s—and domestic business houses—such as the TVS Group, Rane and Amalgamations Group—alike to set up shop and to grow. [_]

Second, the state government emphasised the spatial dimension of industrial development, by promoting industrial parks and clustering. Industrial estates have been a part of Tamil Nadu’s economic landscape since India’s independence in 1947. The accession to power of Karunanidhi and his regional party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), in the late 1960s reinforced this trend by leveraging new state agencies—and capable Cabinet members, such as the Minister of Industry S. Madhavan—to accelerate industrial development. The Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), set up in 1965 by the previous Congress Party-led government, obtained many industrial licences and regularly partnered with the private sector to establish new industrial activities in the state, including various IT parks in the 1990s. [_] The State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT) was established in 1971, and, through aggressive land acquisition, created land banks that enabled foreign investors to obtain land in a more streamlined fashion. These were used to successfully develop many industrial projects and complexes. [_] In particular, industrial clusters and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been set up in specific sectors, including in footwear, engineering products, automobiles and IT. Consequently, Tamil Nadu now has the most SEZs in the country and is among India’s highest recipients of FDI. [_] Another result of this spatial focus is that Tamil Nadu’s industrial development is spread out across the state (more so than in most other Indian states), and is diversified across a number of sectors. This has allowed both domestic SMEs and foreign investors to contribute to technological upgrading and the expansion of export capabilities. [_]

Third, the state government pursued complementary policy measures prior to India’s liberalisation in 1991 that readied Tamil Nadu to grasp new opportunities as they arose in post-liberalisation India. [_] For instance, MGR opened new avenues for education, particularly geared towards industry. His administration expanded lower-level technical education by setting up a variety of industrial training institutes and polytechnic colleges all over the state—thereby laying the foundation for Tamil Nadu’s successful automobile industry. [_] Starting in the 1980s, he also allowed private groups to establish engineering and medical colleges. While this was a means to distribute patronage (e.g. land below market-value rates, privileged access to a lucrative business opportunity) in exchange for political support, it helped to create a pool of human capital that has effectively served the state’s fast-growing IT sector since the 1990s. [_] Forward-thinking policymaking in the state has continued long after liberalisation—for example, on the contentious issue of land acquisition, where Tamil Nadu amended the process at the state level in 2015 to make it less time-consuming while other states have yet to take such steps. [_]

Social Policies

While other Indian states have pursued similar industrial policies, Tamil Nadu stands out in its parallel focus on social welfare policies, in the areas of public education, social security and healthcare. In addition to technical education, MGR vastly increased the educational quota for disadvantaged communities, from 30% to 69%. [_] Successive governments have strongly supported public education, with concerted efforts aimed at expanding free education and developing a large network of schools and universities. [_] Since the 1970s, various initiatives have been designed to encourage school participation, including the provision of free uniforms, textbooks and laptops, as well as cash incentives to reduce dropout rates. Among these, MGR’s universalisation of the existing midday meal scheme is still widely seen as one of the state’s most noteworthy accomplishments. [_] As a result, Tamil Nadu today has universal primary school attendance, and the highest gross enrolment in higher education in India. [_] These advances have played a crucial role in equipping Tamil Nadu with an educated and technically skilled workforce, making it an attractive state for investment.

Midday Meal Scheme (MMS)

The launch of the universal midday meal scheme (MMS) in 1982 is widely seen as a pioneering idea that had a major impact on health and education outcomes in Tamil Nadu. While similar initiatives had been in place since independence, it was MGR, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1977 to 1987 and leader of the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (an offshoot of the DMK party), who universalised the idea. It initially served primary schoolchildren in rural areas, and within a few years, all children up to the age of 15 were entitled to a nutritious meal each day in school. [_] At the time of its implementation, the scheme was widely derided by economists as a “populist” programme and a waste of resources.

However, World Bank appraisals have shown that the MMS has curbed malnutrition, reduced infant mortality and lowered birth rates. [_] It has also driven school enrolment rates and led to greater classroom participation. In fact, various studies have found a dramatic positive effect on learning achievements, making the school meal programme a highly cost-effective way to improve skills among future workers. The extent of the MMS’s success can be seen in the fact that the central government adopted the Tamil Nadu model as a template for its own national scheme 20 years later. [_]

In the provision of essential public services, Tamil Nadu follows a universalistic principle, making services as broadly available as possible. [_] This approach has several advantages. Households below the poverty line can be difficult to identify, both conceptually and practically, meaning that targeting public services can lead to substantial exclusion errors. Moreover, when everyone has a stake in the system, its likelihood of working greatly increases. Otherwise, it is often the case that “services for the poor will always be poor services”. India’s public distribution system (PDS), designed to provide households with a minimum quota of subsidised food, is a case in point. From the late 1990s, many states targeted the PDS towards poor households, though Tamil Nadu continued with a universal approach. This is widely acknowledged as one of the primary reasons why Tamil Nadu is one of the states with the fewest leakages of funds in its PDS system. As a result, it has reduced the poverty gap in the state by up to 60%. [_] The experience of Gujarat, another high-growth state, contrasts sharply with this: leakages are as high as 63% and half of the state’s poorest people do not receive any subsidies due to poor coverage. [_]

A similar story can be told regarding healthcare. Unlike most of India’s large states, Tamil Nadu has a clear commitment to widespread access and affordability in healthcare. From the late 1980s, significant investments have transformed the state’s health infrastructure. Initiatives that were launched by the central government were vigorously implemented, such as the large-scale expansion of primary health centres. [_] Moreover, the state has launched its own schemes to complement these, such as the provision of around-the-clock services to improve women’s access to obstetric care or decentralised immunisation programmes. Overall, health outcomes have been transformed in Tamil Nadu. Today, it has the country’s second-lowest infant mortality rate and has achieved a 70% reduction in maternal mortality in the nearly 30 years since liberalisation, an area in which India as a whole is doing poorly. [_] It achieved the Millennium Development Goals far ahead of most states and is well on the way to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. [_] This focus on healthcare has not only protected public health, but also helped to build the state’s developmental infrastructure, aiding rapid industrialisation. This is illustrated by the fact that areas like Hosur, which have long suffered from endemic plague and cholera, are now seeking to develop as industrial zones. [_]

Tamil Nadu’s state government has had a major influence on the state’s development trajectory. It has taken an open stance towards investment while simultaneously pursuing policies to ensure that broad swathes of the population could benefit; maintained policy consistency and commitment to industrialisation across changes in political leadership; and built up a bureaucracy that could implement its economic and social policies effectively. As many African countries are also seeking to achieve inclusive economic transformation, they can draw lessons about political leadership and governance from the Tamil Nadu experience.

Forward-thinking leadership married to social development

The political climate in Tamil Nadu has long been influenced by ideas of social justice. Dravidian social movements, representative of the indigenous ethnolinguistic group in Tamil Nadu, have historically been a key player in this regard. These movements, dating to the early 1900s, demanded social reforms and public benefits, particularly for disadvantaged (i.e. lower-caste) groups in society. The role that they have played not only in putting legitimate demands on the state government, but also in birthing the DMK and its offshoot the AIADMK, is frequently cited as a major pillar of the Tamil Nadu model. [_]

In response, Tamil Nadu’s political leadership was forward-thinking in pursuing an inclusive development agenda, particularly in the decades following India’s independence. Both the DMK and AIADMK not only responded to popular mobilisation and public pressure but, in many cases, they were at the forefront of it. Karunanidhi’s predecessor as Chief Minister and at the helm of the DMK, C.M. Annadurai (known as Anna, or “big brother” in Tamil), used theatre and cinema to advocate for anti-nationalist, anti-casteist and other progressive ideas, as he understood that focusing on uplifting disadvantaged groups was a key to progress. [_] Karunanidhi, a lauded screenwriter in Tamil cinema as well as a novelist, political commentator and orator, entered politics not only on the back of his popularity in these domains but also through his direct involvement in local political protests. His time as Chief Minister in the 1960s and 1970s saw a continued focus on the disadvantaged; he made education free, subsidised power and took various other measures aimed at reducing discrimination and supporting the welfare of marginalised groups. [_]

His supporter turned political rival MGR was a Tamil film star, and around this time starred in a number of films that promised that the state government would take care of the poor. [_] Indeed, MGR himself insisted on the MMS in the face of opposition, as he saw it as crucial to prevent hunger and improve learning. His leadership skills were critical in maintaining political support for the scheme and raising funding through tax increases. [_] Similarly, the state’s preventive approach to healthcare relied on a long-term perspective on the part of state leadership, particularly in the face of political pressures to “fight visible fires” that were more immediate. [_] Broadly speaking, social welfare policies in Tamil Nadu were designed to invest in the common man—with the recognition that these investments would drive further growth.

The inclusive ideals of these political leaders have also been reflected in Tamil Nadu’s industrial schemes, particularly regarding land acquisition. The state’s approach includes offering generous compensation packages to the dispossessed, employment and training opportunities, and land redistribution. In other words, “land acquisition in Tamil Nadu is accomplished more through consent than coercion”. [_] Tamil Nadu’s experience contrasts sharply with that of other states, as the establishment of SEZs in the state has encountered no systematic resistance or major confrontation. [_]

Commitment to industrialisation and policy consistency

Since the 1960s, Tamil Nadu’s main political parties have been politically committed to industrialisation. State agencies such as TIDCO and SIPCOT were set up to advance industrial development (see below). From Karunanidhi on through Jayalalithaa, successive chief ministers provided strong political support, in terms of funding and in backing contentious actions such as land acquisition. [_] This political support, in turn, enabled consistent goal-setting at the highest levels of government. With a clear direction from the top, the state bureaucracy was then given space to figure out how to deliver on the industrial development agenda. [_]

Political commitment to industrialisation in Tamil Nadu manifested in at least two important ways. First, political leaders such as Jayalalithaa and their top bureaucrats made hands-on, tailored efforts to attract specific companies and sectors. The automotive industry during the mid-1990s is a notable example. Despite Maharashtra’s existing strengths in the sector, Ford decided to set up its first factory in India in Chennai in 1995. In addition to the facilitation role that the bureaucracy played, Jayalalithaa herself was instrumental in bringing the investment to the state. She made a sizeable chunk of land available to Ford to set up its plant, and offered incentives related to infrastructure, sales and output tax exemptions, and capital and power subsidies. [_] It was also rumoured that Jayalalithaa spoke to senior officials in the US government to encourage them to persuade Ford to invest in Tamil Nadu. [_] Ford’s entry played a catalytic role in developing the sector: Hyundai soon followed Ford’s lead in investing in Tamil Nadu, and the Hyundai plant near Chennai is now the company’s global export base for small cars. [_] The snowball effect has carried on even in recent years, as Jayalalithaa’s most recent administration signed MoUs in 2012 with five global automobile manufacturers, including Daimler, Nissan and Yamaha. [_] Today, Tamil Nadu is one of the top automobile hubs in the world, with a world-class ecosystem centred around Chennai, the “Detroit of India”. [_]

Another example is the IT sector, which was beginning to boom in the 1990s, in Chennai among other Indian cities. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), an Indian software engineering firm, became a key private-sector partner in this process, in part by establishing their own IT campus in a Chennai suburb in 1999. Jayalalithaa aided TCS immensely: a company representative has stated that, “We had to build the roads. We had to buy land from government and private parties. When we had a problem with some clearance, the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa stepped in and sorted it out.” [_]

The second way in which political commitment to industrial development manifested in Tamil Nadu was through the policy consistency that successive, opposing administrations maintained over time. Though the DMK and AIADMK have frequently swapped places in power, the state’s approach to investment has remained relatively stable and predictable. As certainty in contracts and property rights are critical to attract and retain investors, the fact that neither party has reneged on major investments negotiated by the other since 1989 has significantly strengthened Tamil Nadu’s ability to attract investment. [_]

Policy consistency has been an enduring feature of Tamil Nadu’s politics not despite but because of the political competition and rivalry between the DMK and AIADMK. Neither party could wipe out the other on ideological grounds, since as discussed previously, they shared a range of positions. Their similar viewpoints translated into overlapping constituencies, for whom they had to compete intensely and deliver tangible benefits. In addition, ideological closeness increased the chances that power would alternate between the two parties regularly, as they had little policy basis on which to differentiate themselves from one another. As a result, it was not in the interest of any given administration to reverse successful policies or block investments secured by the previous administration; doing so would likely go against their own ideology and the preferences of their own constituents. In fact, as a senior ex-bureaucrat in Tamil Nadu said, “If one party’s policies worked earlier the newly elected party would have no hesitation in adopting and improving upon it.” [_] This policy stability was a boon to productive industrial sectors, and even lured those investing in technology-intensive businesses despite their longer timelines for learning and pay-offs.

Again, the automotive industry provides an interesting example. A change in the investment climate following an Enron scandal and state elections in Maharashtra in 1995 influenced Hyundai’s decision to locate in Chennai. Before Hyundai’s operations had been established there, Jayalalithaa and her party, the AIADMK, were trounced in state elections in 1996 by the DMK, again headed by Karunanidhi. Yet his administration lived up to previously agreed government commitments, enabling Hyundai to roll out the first car from their operations in Tamil Nadu in September 1998. [_]

Summing up both these points, a former executive vice-chairman at TIDCO cited the strong support from the state government and the coherent ideas of political leaders from the different ruling parties as the most important factor in boosting FDI inflows, stating: “Government support is very important to promote investments. The commitment of the government to creating relevant policies and incentives is necessary. In the system of democracy, the government (ruling party) keeps changing. An election keeps coming and after five years the government changes. But an industrial development plan needs 40 or 50 years, it does not respect this change of governments. A successful government should keep the promises of the previous government in pursuing such investment projects continuously. This is business, not politics [for economic growth]. Both the DMK and the AIADMK governments consider investment projects as significant for the industry, so the successive government[s have] honoured such industrial promises of the previous government[s].” [_]

Competent and effective administration

Tamil Nadu has a reputation for innovative design and effective implementation of its economic and social welfare policies, which has proven instrumental for the state’s development. [_] This has enabled the state government to translate its lofty ideals into tangible progress on industrial development, education and health (while also reducing leakages of public funds). Indeed, Tamil Nadu’s overall governance is ranked as the second most effective among Indian states. [_]

A variety of factors have made Tamil Nadu’s bureaucracy strong. During the tenures of Anna and Karunanidhi as Chief Minister in the 1960s and 1970s, the state government actively sought to recruit from lower-caste groups, many of whom were from rural areas and thus could better understand rural conditions and issues. [_] As the civil service became more representative of the population, it became more attuned to the expectations and aspirations of the state’s main political parties, the DMK and AIADMK. As a result, civil servants could play a bridging role between these aspirations at the political level and the realities at the community level, which proved useful in delivering tangible social benefits to the state’s residents. [_]

Interestingly, the competition between the two main political parties also served as an impetus to drive implementation. Given the depth of the competition between the DMK and AIADMK, bureaucrats were forced to choose which party to support; remaining neutral was not a viable option. Committing to and openly identifying with a particular party meant that, when that party was in power, civil servants faced pressure from party officials to execute their development agenda as effectively as possible. At the same time, both parties had similar agendas across several dimensions—for instance, both sought to encourage industrial investments and develop links with the private sector. Hence, despite political divisions spanning not only electoral politics but also the bureaucracy, bureaucrats of either political leaning continued to implement policy effectively even if their party of choice was not in power; after all, they were unlikely to have major differences of opinion on policy with the party that they opposed. [_]

The establishment of TIDCO and SIPCOT, nodal agencies for industrial development, also positioned the bureaucracy to follow through on the state government’s economic vision. The focused mandate of these agencies, combined with the prioritisation of industrialisation at the political level, made clear the task of bureaucrats in these agencies—to facilitate between investors and the state government—and, in turn, empowered them to play this role effectively.

For example, with the limited but critical mission of acquiring and managing industrial land, SIPCOT has developed, maintained and managed industrial complexes and SEZs in 12 districts across Tamil Nadu. Commenting on SIPCOT’s performance in 2012, a former Finance Minister of the state, said: “I think our state does not need to worry about land acquisition for the next 15 years as we have already acquired enough land for building various industrial complexes.” [_] SIPCOT’s ability to execute this mandate has served as a foundation for the state to attract domestic and foreign investment alike.

Likewise, TIDCO has played a key role in promoting the state for investment and in getting the state government to meet investor requirements in order to secure their investment. For example, Chennai was initially Ford’s last choice, behind two other potential investment destinations in India. In response, the Tamil Nadu Export Promotion and Guidance Bureau, set up in 1992 under the oversight of TIDCO, “put together a highly professional multi-media presentation on the state which left a very favourable initial impression”. [_] In further discussions, Ford raised hundreds of detailed queries for TIDCO to respond to. As the TIDCO chairman at the time put it, “they were so particular. They wanted us to make sure that there was no other industry within twenty kilometres which will create dust pollution because of their ultra-modern paint shop.” In fact, TIDCO and the state government went beyond this: they guaranteed uninterrupted power and water supply, and immediately started work on an international school for the children of Ford’s staff. [_] Today, TIDCO has institutionalised its investment facilitation efforts, by creating a thorough monitoring system to attract investment projects and regular meetings to push forward the implementation of investment policies. [_]

Like many African countries, Tamil Nadu’s government and political system has been characterised by intense competition between political parties; networks of patronage encompassing politicians, voters and businesses; and political leaders with big personalities and ambitions. What Tamil Nadu’s development experience in the last several decades illustrates is that these characteristics do not have to render a government completely ineffective in promoting inclusive growth. Indeed, the Tamil Nadu state government, like all governments, has had some degrees of freedom to promote development that improves the lives of a wide range of people in the state. Rather than attempting to detail all of the various elements that have contributed to Tamil Nadu’s development story, the focus of this case study has been on the role that political leadership and administrative capability have played. In particular:

Successive chief ministers of Tamil Nadu in the second half of the 20th century, from Anna all the way through to Jayalalithaa, crafted visions for development in the state that aimed to include disadvantaged groups in the economy and society through job-creating investment/industrial development and broad-based social programmes.

These same chief ministers maintained a commitment to industrial investment and development, as well as a consistent policy approach to encourage them—despite alternating power with opposition parties.

Tamil Nadu’s bureaucracy developed capabilities to effectively implement the state’s inclusive development agenda, as the state’s leadership diversified recruitment along socioeconomic lines; set out clear ideological foundations that bureaucrats associated with them could work from; and established nodal agencies to drive industrial development, such as TIDCO and SIPCOT.

The takeaways for many African countries are simple but important. The economic vision should be geared toward the needs and aspirations of society at large, and should be clear to all parts of government, the private sector and citizens. Economic transformation takes time and thus requires policy consistency and sustained commitment spanning changes in political leadership across multiple decades. And implementation of the vision is just as critical as the vision itself, and calls for the bureaucracy to improve its ability to deliver over time—even if the starting point is a handful of specialised agencies that function as “pockets of effectiveness”. Tamil Nadu is still in the middle of its development journey, but its experience thus far underscores how political leadership and state capability can be leveraged in African countries that seek to follow a similar path.

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India has had ancient legacy in political ideas and practice. Politics is understood as practice of goodness. Monarchs did not ignore the guidance of scriptures, elders and wise. It was believed that the sovereignty was given by the God and the monarchs were the legitimate rulers. It is true in Tamil Nadu, a southern State of India, as well.
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PDF | On Jan 1, 2016, Subramaniam Chandran published Political Process and Governance in Tamil Nadu | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate