Nationalism and Anti-Caste Radicalism

The Self-respect movement was not merely a social reform movement. Rather, it considered itself espousing and representing an alternative politics and one in which social concerns were as central to its vision of an ideal polity as political ones. This politics was defined in two ways: as a critique of and in contrast to Congress nationalism; and as political Non-brahminism. Self-respecters prised apart Congress Nationalism and subjected its truth claims and patriotic rhetoric to relentless critical interrogation.

Gandhi proved a frustrating object of critique for them: intrigued as well as irritated by his moral creed, they yet dared to disagree with him. They would do this forcefully in the 1930s, but in 1928-30, the passive revolution that Gandhi had begun, held their attention if not imagination. Later on they would mount a devastating critique of Gandhi and Gandhism, much in the spirit of Dr Ambedkar’s latter day, What Congress and Gandhi did to the Untouchables. However during these years, they were unsparing of other Congressmen, especially the Swarajists in Madras, whom they accused of unregenerate caste pride; nor did they allow Congress Conservatives such as Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya and Sardar Patel their high moral ground, and were derisive in their criticisms of either.

Self-respecters understood political Non-brahminism as a creed that rejected what one of them termed, in the manner of Dr Ambedkar, the graduated privileges of the caste order, opposed brahminical pride and social power, endorsed the rights of untouchables to an equal, self-respecting and free existence, and which upheld women’s sexual and conjugal choices, as well as their right to education and independence. In practice, this expansive, radical understanding translated into supporting proportional representation for Nonbrahmins and Adi Dravidas in education, the services and governance, and social reform that addressed the horrors of untouchability and female sexual subordination. Political Non-brahminism was also the mainstay of the Justice party, the premier Non-brahmin party in the Madras Presidency, but in this case, it was as much a strategically held idea as a serious political notion.

The essays and addresses in this section reflect the uneasy and contentious co-existence of Nationalism and Anti-caste radicalism in colonial Madras. The first section comprises essays on the Congress: including brilliant analyses of that party’s political pragmatism that was guided, as these writers demonstrate, neither by idealism nor by spontaneous and heartfelt action, but by stratagems that both expressed and constituted a will to power. The arguments that make up these analyses address the Calcutta Congress session of 1928, and its many meanings – as we argue in the introduction to this book, this Congress session was significant in that it achieved an important stage in Gandhi’s passive revolution. There are also to be found here vivid and indignantly described vignettes of the Brahmin Congressman in Madras and his unabashed assertion of caste vanity. There are articles that challenge the political and social conservatism of Pandit Malaviya and Patel.

The various essays on Malaviya are interesting in that they give expression to a consistent anger and bewilderment at how the former could hold the views that he did with respect to untouchability and the status of women. The anger is all the more acute, since he dared voice them in the south, in Madras and Kerala where anti-brahmin and anti-caste militancy was articulate and bold. There were perhaps other reasons too that compelled this show of ideological resistance to and refutation of Malaviya. Arguing that untouchability was a caste Hindu problem for which the latter had to suffer and repent, Gandhi often pointed to the example of men like Malaviya who condemned untouchability, even while remaining orthodox and firm in their adherence to varnadharma. Gandhi’s reasoning was: it is not religious scruple that is responsible for the persistence of untouchability, but ignorance and blind faith in what was believed to be time-worn custom. Gandhi also noted that in this sense untouchability was an excrescence and not integral to varnadharma, which is why Malaviya, who upheld the latter, would yet oppose the former.

To prove the worth of his arguments, Gandhi was wont to pay obeisance to Malaviya’s conservative and even regressive views and note with wonder that if his satyagraha could move this man, then its practice was indeed efficacious (Vol 45: 144). Gandhi was also openly admiring of Malaviya’s piety and exhibited an exaggerated reverence towards him, which no doubt annoyed those who were impatient with Malaviya’s unbending orthodoxy (Malaviya’s untouchability removal efforts comprised ‘cleansing’ them and initiating them into Hinduism, in short, the practice of shuddhi and sanghatan, made popular by the Arya Samaj). The Self-respecters, who at this point in time, were uneasy with Gandhi and yet did not openly condemn him in all instances, did not mind training their critical anger at this man, who Gandhi assumed to be his moral measure.

The section on Nationalism ends with a critique of khadi, which is both empirical and ideological. The second section comprises articles on the Self-respect movement, and its anti-caste radicalism. Here are to be found rich descriptions of its ideology by both Self-respecters as well as respectable Non-Brahmin leaders such as R. K. Shanmugam and A. Ramasamy Mudaliar. The latter though spiritually inclined yet found much to praise in the movement’s wonderfully argued atheism. The fact that men such as these who were political liberals yet felt impelled to respond to the philosophy of Self-respect indicate how the movement had achieved a radicalization of Non-brahmin politics in the state. In this section are also articles on socialist politics – a declaration of support for striking railway workers, a tribute to the Congress radical, Jatin Das, a critique of capitalism, reproduced from an American rationalist paper, which argues that obscurantist belief wins the day for Capital and a note on the erstwhile Soviet Union.

The Self-respecters would acknowledge their socialist sympathies even more boldly a few years hence in the 1930s, but even here we find a political empathy with the idea of socialism and the ostensible achievements of the first Socialist State. Section three is about the politics of Non-brahminism. The success of the first Self-respect conference (1929) was registered most fitfully by the ideologues and publicists of the Justice party who defended it from nationalist and Brahmin criticisms. However, and this is evident in the manner Non-brahmins (of the Justice party) and Self-respecters defined their own sense of what they were, there were differences between Justicites and Self-respecters. This is best captured in the presidential address of N. Sivaraj – a leading Adi Dravida intellectual and a prominent Justicite – at a Non Brahmin youth conference in which he marks the limits of what has been achieved and what is yet to be done.

We also see how strategic Non–brahminism goes into crisis, from articles that address the Justice party’s Nellore conference. Periyar Ramasami in fact was keenly aware of the dangers of the former, as is evident from his criticism of the Justicite Ramasamy Mudaliar’s wavering on the issue of proportional representation. More generally too Self respecters were watchful of strategic political reasoning – as is clear from Revolt’s reporting of Non-brahmin politics in the Bombay province. The third section is devoted to articles that demonstrate the making of anti-caste radicalism, which conservative Justicites and radical Congressmen feared alike – it comprises responses to Revolt and its brand of journalism.