Dalit Parties and the Dilemmas of Democratization in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

In 1999, the largest Dalit movement organization in Tamil Nadu abandoned a decade-long boycott of elections and entered party politics as the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panther Party, VCK). The focus of this article will be on the processes of institutionalization both into political institutions and into socio-cultural ways of doing politics. It will chart both how the party has changed as a result of entering formal politics, and the ways in which it has managed to change the institutions it entered. Looking at institutionalization in this way problematizes the usual focus on a party's electoral success or failure and compels us to analyze their political performance within its specific context. I show how institutionalization in Tamil Nadu has taken particular forms which have some benefits for VCK supporters, while also creating a rift between the party and its core support.

Everyday politics of care and exclusion: Conceptualising agency in rural south India

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“…Such progress for Xavier does not depend on the agency of social movements. Referring to the local Ambedkar movement (Gorringe, 2005), Xavier says 'the eradication of untouchability [in Tamil Nadu] is due to cultural and political civilisation rather than this movement'. Second, Xavier cares for himself by connecting with values of self-discipline (cf.…”

Paperwork, patronage, and citizenship: the materiality of everyday interactions with bureaucracy in Tamil Nadu, India

“…Caste-based modes of subaltern engagement and collective (political) organization through which disenfranchised groups seek representation and claim citizenship have been well documented. Studies of the Dalit Panthers of Tamil and the Yadavs of Uttar Pradesh illustrate how caste is central to the way in which mobilization and representation are pursued across both civil and political society (Gorringe 2016;Michelutti 2004;. Moreover, lower-caste mobilization has recently been weakened by new forms of patronage that emerge around labour circulation, access to state resources, and capital investments in booming sectors such as construction.…”