Rupa Viswanath: The political work of “labour”: Dalit difference and Dalit labourers in 1920s Madras
A series of labour struggles in Madras in the late 1910s and early 1920s radically and decisively transformed what “Depressed Classes” (or DC, as Dalits were then known) identity was thought to comprise, with effects on the relationship between mainstream Dravidianism and Dalits politics that are still with us today. Beginning with a series of strikes at the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, events culminated when a disaffected group of DC labourers who could scarcely afford the loss of a daily wage that came with striking, were enlisted as strikebreakers. DCs faced violent reprisals, for in a single move, they had declared their fealty to no-one other than themselves —neither to the Non-Brahminism which sought their alliance by insisting on the essential identity of all victims of Brahmin domination, and nor to the reformist strands of a Brahminical nationalism that would “better” them. When the violence was finally quelled by the colonial police, a different means of containment was tried: the colonial state had long used “labourer” as a synonym for DC, and this caste Tamil politicos would no longer permit. The category “labourer” —and the state schemes from which labourers benefited — ought to extend, they argued, to all who laboured, and not simply to DCs. Labour, one salient respect in which the difference between Dalits and others could be articulated, was no longer understood as essential to DC identity, and could no longer, therefore, form the basis for any politics that sought wide acceptance. This paper traces arguments over the category “labour” in 1920s Madras in detail, asking about the historical context and political entailments of severing its links to definitions of Dalitness.
Biographical Statement:
Rupa Viswanath is Assistant Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.Her research concerns the modern history, politics and religions of modern India, especially the Tamil south. She is currently working on a book about “the Pariah” in 19th and early 20th century Madras that brings together many of her more specific interests: the historical transformations of agrestic servitude in South India, the emergence of modern Indian secularism, the relations among caste, class and religion, and the forms of political representation in India. Her most recent essay is “Spiritual slavery, material malaise: “untouchables” and the elaboration of neutrality in colonial south India,” forthcoming in Historical Research.
