Tamil Nadu's Long-Standing Lie Is Getting Called Out: Dalits Feel Let Down By Dravidian Parties

As the Dalit History Month veered to a close, Dalit activists in Tamil Nadu seem set on a new course of action for themselves.

Suggesting that the Dravidian politics, which is ruling the roost in the state for over five decades, has done nothing substantial to improve their lot, Dalit activists stressed the importance of creating and sustaining a separate political identity for themselves.

A clarion call of sorts to this effect was put out by filmmaker Pa Ranjith, who has emerged as an important and powerful voice of the Dalits in Tamil Nadu.

Speaking at Verchol, a two-day literary meet that focuses on Dalit writers and literature which was hosted by Neelam as part of the Dalit History Month celebrations, Ranjith did not take Dravidam by name.

But the import of his speech was only too apparent as he stressed the need for Dalit organisations to carve their own political identity (without needing to piggyback on Dravidam or any other political ideology). In a lengthy speech, he also criticised all those who did not want the Dalits to chart their own political journey.

The sum and substance of his speech is that the Dravidian ideology, despite its vaunting claims, has not done anything substantial to improve the lives of the Dalits. 

His loaded speech immediately triggered negative and uproarious reaction from the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazagham) and its acolytes on the social media platforms.

In patented style, the DMK IT warriors described Ranjith as 'blue sanghi', with blue being the colour of Dalits, and Sanghi being their generic reference to anything opposed to them.

Ranjith in fact had lambasted this knee-jerk tendency of the DMK men to describe his kind of politics as blue sanghi. But they committed the exact folly that the Kabali director had specifically mentioned.

A Major Shift In Tamil Nadu Politics 

Ranjith and others' speech may have far-reaching implications as this marks a major shift in Dalit politics in Tamil Nadu. For long, the Dravidian politicians have managed to be on top of the Dalit narrative by claiming that the Dravidian ideology is for them (Dalits).

But the reality was something else, and even today Dalits are not provided tickets (by the DMK or the AIADMK) to contest in general constituencies. Even Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi or VCK (which is a Dalit party and allied to the DMK) has to field candidates on the symbol of the DMK.

This coupled with the unabating incidents against the Dalits in various parts of the state, may have triggered Ranjith's dramatic outbursts, the tremors of which are expected to be felt for long in Tamil Nadu's politics.  

As per Dalit activists, there have been around 200 killings on the basis of caste in Tamil Nadu over the last five years alone — a figure that easily catapults the state into the top bracket of such reported cases in the country.

The thing is these numbers are a conservative estimate only since many caste murders go unreported or hushed up as 'suicides' due to the nexus between the casteist hegemonists and the police force, which itself is allegedly 'infiltrated' by many upper caste groups. Very few cases of violence against and killings of Dalits reach the conviction case. 

Tamil Nadu is a paradox. It leads the country in enforcing social justice in schools, colleges and recruitments. But it also tops in terms of violence against the Dalits. But this dichotomy gets explained if you bother to listen beyond the rhetorics of the megaphones of Dravidian politics.

The Dravidian movement has been, from day one, for the intermediary caste groups. In Tamil Nadu context, it is an omnibus group excluding the Brahmins and the Dalits. 

"The intermediary castes have fattened themselves beyond imagination. The sheer numbers of them put together make them a force that entails no brooking," according to Hemalatha Santosh, a professor who is into subaltern studies in Bengaluru.

Dravidians Control The Narrative 

 According to the Census figure of 2011, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes accounted for 20.01 per cent and 1.10 per cent of Tamil Nadu's 72 million population.

The Brahmins are roughly around 3-4 per cent while the omnibus Other Backward Classes (OBCs) make up 68 per cent of the state's population. The Vanniyars, at around 38 per cent, are the single largest community in Tamil Nadu.

"The Dravidian movement painted the Brahminical forces as a bogey. But it was a political ploy for intermediary caste groups to occupy the seats of power and pelf. Mudaliars, for instance, began to dominate the academia in the state. The Chettiars the financial institutions. But nothing was done to improve the lot of the Dalits. The intermediary castes, however, continue to project the Brahmins as the arch-villains," she adds. 

The Dravidian elites managed to get away so far because they operated the strings that controlled the media. For instance, it is only recently that the media is reporting the specific caste names of those who indulge in violence  against the Dalits.

Otherwise it was all bunched under the anti-septic description ‘upper caste aggressors’. And in a state where the Brahmins alone technically fall in the upper caste category, this created a skewed image in popular imagination. But that is how the narrative was controlled.

Also, the powerful Dravidian ecosystem is always quick enough to co-opt Dalit leaders who emerge as powerful forces. The political arc of two of the powerful leaders VCK, Thol Thirumavalavan and Ravikumar (both Lok Sabha MPs) is very revealing.

At the start of this century, when they were emerging as the voice of Dalits, their political ideology was decidedly different. Both are on record describing the Dravidian politics of E V Ramaswamy as having done nothing of note for the Dalits. Ravikumar was particularly a strong critic of EVR's politics. 

But in just 15-20 years, they have been fully taken over by the DMK, and their words and views tailored to keep the Dravidian flag flying. 

Also, a few years back, in the light of killings of Dalits, the Dalit ideologue put out a tweet in which he said that "honour killings" need not be confused with the casteism of over 2,000 years.

"This is a violence that has been sharpened for electoral politics. Casteism has sharpened, and is being sharpened." Again, his views were drowned out by the orchestrated criticism of the DMK folks.

This is precisely why Ranjith and his new band of followers are sceptical about Dravidian politics. But the D-forces are already at work to minimise the impact of Ranjith's explosive speech.

The mainstream media has already blacked out his remarks and there has been no discussion around the ideas expressed by the director-activist. DMK leaders have also closed ranks with Thirumavalan and put out tweets that he alone is the uncompromising leader of the Dalits. The idea is to belittle the rise of Ranjith and others.

But the unmistakable desperation in the DMK camp also implies that the biggest hoax of Tamil Nadu politics has been finally called out by the emerging Dalit leaders. And this suggests that there may be a political churn in the offing in the state.