The Defence of Aachaaram, Femininity, and Neo-Savarna Power in Kerala

Abstract

This paper examines the discourse of the Ready to Wait (RTW) campaign, led by highly-educated professional neo-savarna women in Kerala, against litigation to open the doors of Kerala’s Sabarimala shrine to women of menstruating ages, hitherto barred from the pilgrimage. The term savarna refers to the privileged caste-communities that, from pre-colonial times, controlled land and other material resources and ritual practices, and continued to do so to a large extent even later. Avarna refers to those oppressed groups that laboured for the savarna and were subjected to degradation through such practices as untouchability and unseeability, and whose exclusion from social power continues in different ways despite these groups having achieved economic presence and education. Following a Supreme Court verdict in September 2018, which struck down the Sabarimala taboo, Kerala was shaken by violent protests led by neo-savarna and SanghParivar organisations. Through a close reading of the Facebook engagement of a Right to Wait campaigner, I seek to make sense of the particular sorts of ‘dissonance’ these organisations seem to be creating within the male-defined space of Hindutva, the specific caste politics they represent, as well as their articulation and disarticulation with a discourse on women’s empowerment and feminism. I argue that it is time that we seriously theorise the power relations between the savarna and avarna women under brahminical patriarchy, instead of focusing singularly on the subordination of upper-caste women by the male brahminical elite.

Carceral domesticities and the geopolitics of Love Jihad

“…The Izhava community, from which Hadiya comes, have been central to this narrative both of 19th century international trade, and of contemporary migration (C. Osella and Osella, 2006). This is, however, complicated by the growing Islamophobia in Kerala that has taken root as anxieties about Muslim upward social mobility have grown increasingly pervasive, shaping practices of gendered respectability (J Devika, 2020). Home, in this context, is made through practices of domesticity that ally Izhava communities with high-caste groups like Nairs (J Devika, 2020), in the process othering Muslims and non-elite castes more sharply.…”

“…This is, however, complicated by the growing Islamophobia in Kerala that has taken root as anxieties about Muslim upward social mobility have grown increasingly pervasive, shaping practices of gendered respectability (J Devika, 2020). Home, in this context, is made through practices of domesticity that ally Izhava communities with high-caste groups like Nairs (J Devika, 2020), in the process othering Muslims and non-elite castes more sharply. Homemaking here constitutes an attachment to the modern temporality of the nation-state, which in turn is imbricated with global neoliberal time (G. Patel, 2000).…”

Educating ‘Temple Cultures’ Heterogeneous Worship and Hindutva Politics in Kerala

“…As against his notion, we know that the transmission of religious values and knowledge is still prevalent. Kerala witnessed conservative women assertion at the time of Sabarimala controversy (Devika, 2020). When Sankaran uses family as a general term, he presupposes that all families, including 'lower castes', had a strong relationship with the temple.…”