Tamil Nadu: caste, religion and politics
Religion
Returns to TN politics
The Times of India, Mar 24, 2016
Kalyanaraman Mauryas
Tamil Nadu election: How religion is scripting a TN return
Despite more than seven decades of the Dravidian movement, religious belief seems strong as ever in the state.
In the `About' page of her personal website, Thamizhachi Thangapandian introduces herself as someone who upholds Periyar's ideas but has also imbibed Osho's thoughts. Thamizhachi, a writer and the secretary of the DMK's art, literature and rationalism wing, is among those who are seeking to give a contemporary feel to the party's rationalist and atheistic moorings.Overturning decades of Dravidian movement's hostility to a thousand years of bhakti literature, Thamizhachi acknowledges the Tamil version of Ramayana as part of the state's traditions. Thamizhachi is cut from a softer cloth. For most Periyar followers in the past, however, virulently denying God and ridiculing believers were par for the course. Periyar, the founder of the Dravidian movement who in his youth had several run-ins with brahmins and their notions of caste purity, saw religion and scriptures as the source of caste inequality . He railed against all beliefs and called them superstitions."Periyar comes in a long line of contrarian voices in Tamil and Indian society . He was like the siddhars and charvakas who would forcefully attack belief, ritual and brahmins," says M D Muthukumaraswamy , a folklorist and scholar of Saiva scholar of Saiva philosophy . Yet, despite more than seven decades of the Dravidian movement and 49 years of rule of Dravidian parties, religious belief seems strong as ever in the state. Lakhs of people throng not just the big temples but also smaller folk shrines closely linked to local culture. "Periyar the modernist saw everything around him as regressive. A cultural nihilist, he didn't understand the importance of the rela tionship between beliefs and the cultural life of Tamils," says Muthukumaraswamy . Critics are not so charitable to Periyar. "His atheism and show of putting a gar land of chappals over idols of deities were clownish, not well thought out.Scriptures merely codified caste whose material basis was already there in society. The Dravidian move ment attacked scriptures but never really challenged the deeper basis of caste," says N Kalyan Raman, a literary critic, who adds that while the movement empowered OBCs against brahmins it kept alive the antagonism between OBCs and dalits. Kalyan Ra man cites the recent case of a dalit boy being hacked to death in Tirupur last week for marrying a thevar (OBC) girl, in an apparent case of honour killing. But Periyar's followers find in such incidents the dying gasps of a moribund caste system. "Inter-caste marriages among upper castes and backward classes have become common because of the progressive nature of the Dravidian movement. It's only a matter of time before dalits are also integrated into Tamil society ," says G Olivannan, vice president of Tamil Nadu Rationalists' Society that is part of Dravidar Kazhagam. Many say that right from the beginning those among Periyar's followers who sought a political future were keen on reformist policies but stopped short of preaching atheism. Annadurai, an atheist who founded the DMK in 1949, jettisoned atheism in favour of the concept of "One Mankind, One God".
"Such accommodations are inevitable in politics when we want to appeal to a broad section," says Thamizhachi.She finds nothing wrong in Stalin's recent temple visits."We have to acknowledge all voices in society in a spirit of post-modernism even when we critique them," she says. Thamizhachi considers atheism or irreligiousness as a feature of a social movement that fights caste inequality and subjugation of women, and cites legislation by the DMK, such as giving women rights to inherit property and appointing non-brahmins as priests in temples.
Others, however, see in the movement's twists and turns a lack of principles. "Karunanidhi's wife and Stalin's wife are devoutly religious. Jaya is openly religious. Her followers offer prayers at temples for their leader, some even go as far as to ritually partake food from the floor of a temple so the deity showers blessings on Jayalalithaa," says T N Gopalan, a political analyst.
