-
7. A Return Visit to Alapuram: Religion and Caste in the 2000s
- University of California Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
233 My journey to Alapuram in October 2004 anticipated the new public profile of “ethicized” identity and caste honor. It was the anniversary of the execution in 1801 by the British of the ruler-rebel and Tevar (Backward Caste) hero Marudu Pandiyan (royal patron of Sarukani church), and Tevar youth in yellow T-shirts, accompanied by trails of flags and loud film songs celebrating Tevar caste pride, amassed at key centers of Sivagangai District amid roadblocks and police traffic controls—a precaution that recollected the recent history of violent Tevar-dalit confrontations in the district. As I reached Alapuram, a worrying sense persisted that differences of religion and caste had become a source of new tension and conflict. By the bus stop and tea stalls a crowd of party flags and billboards of caste societies and dalit movements advertised an outbreak of competitive associationalism. I soon heard of the growing reach of caste-based political parties, dalit movements, forums, and fronts. And news, too, of local religious revivalism leading to Hindu–Christian tension, attacks on priests, conflicts over new temple building, over the raising of flags and the pasting of posters in public places, of youth martial-arts training by local Hindu nationalist (RSS) activists and by radical Jesuits, and the appearance of new fundamentalist Pentecostal churches. Had Alapuram become a colorful microcosm of Tamil Nadu’s violent identity politics? Did religious division and caste competition now feed each other? Was there a truly new dynamic to village life? And if not, what was going on? How had the dynamics of caste and Christianity changed in a quarter century? A closer encounter with contemporary Alapuram, in fact, questioned the telos of division and conflict (Tejani 2008) while highlighting a disjuncture between 7 A Return Visit to Alapuram Religion and Caste in the 2000s 234 Chapter 7 the “dominant” discourse of ethicized caste and communalized religion—pervasive in ideologies of movements, theologies of activists, or media representations —and a “demotic” village-level discourse on religion and caste (to borrow Baumann’s term).1 The broad aim of this chapter is to explore these “demotic” discourses and their mode of articulation with dominant ones. First, I look into cases of Hindu-Christian conflict that suggested a significant redrawing of religious boundaries in the village as the Church is further disembedded locally to become a democratized domain of global Christian practice. Second, I turn to the central paradox of caste—namely, that while declining in significance in everyday social relations, caste is more than ever asserted through caste fronts, forums, and political parties. This will involve explaining a shift from caste as a public discourse of distinction or rank (enacted in Catholic ritual) to caste as a discourse of equal rights. Successively, I will then explore change in the public space of caste, the “interiorization” of caste prejudice, and the altered relationship between service, work, and caste in agrarian relations. How and in what idioms do villagers themselves represent such social change? Finally, I will turn to local forms of dalit activism in Alapuram that interlink (or intertranslate between) local conflicts and the wider movements to show both how today caste is the basis of rights claims and how the dangerous implications of caste or religious politicking are diffused locally in a multicaste and religiously plural community. HINDU AND CHR ISTIAN AS R ELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES? It was not difficult in 2004 to imagine that religious tension driven by statebacked aggressive Hindu nationalism and Christian assertiveness had found roots in Alapuram. The signs of Hindu revivalism were everywhere. The main village temples had been renovated through local contributions, city remittances, and state grants including stipends for priests conducting regular pujas. The formerly inconspicuous stones, trees, or tridents of caste or lineage temples had become “pucca” structures with statues and elaborately molded towers (gopura), all indicative of an intensification of religious patronage in Tamil politics and a public reassertion of Brahmanical Hinduism begun in the 1990s (Harriss 2003; Fuller 2003). The renovation of churches, the installation of bright statues for veneration, modern public-address systems, and new Pentecostal congregations in the village seemed to mark a rivalrous Christian revivalism. Hindu and Catholic systems of public worship began to disengage from each other back in the 1930s with the transformation of the caste-embedded Santiyakappar village festival (chapter 4). In 2004, even though privately Hindus continued devotions to the saints, and Catholics made offerings to Hindu deities, [3.81.79.135] Project MUSE (2024-03-28...