நாடார் சமுதாயத்தின் தோற்றமும் குலதெய்வ வழிபாடும்
‘Ritual protected’ families
In ‘Ritual protected’ families, on the other hand, there’s often a
spouse or a strong older child who is able to include the alcoholic
parent in the ritual in a way that protects the others. “The wife or
child is flexible enough to accommodate modified behaviour from the
father,” explains Lakshmi. “For example, he abstains at the time of the
ritual or at least drinks less so that the celebration is maintained one
way or the other.”
The result is that a sense of
identity and cohesion is preserved in the family through the act of
doing something together — whether it’s celebrating birthdays and
anniversaries or taking an annual trip to one’s kuladeivam. And that can
protect the children from ‘transmission’ of alcoholism.
The MARAVANADU “country” (nadu) appearing on no map is a discontinuous
territory that runs north from Tirukkurungudi (hamlet nestled at the
foot of the ghats in southwest Tirunelveli District, near Kanya Kumari)
across a dry landscape dotted with irrigation tanks spanning about
twenty miles across the edge of mountains (western ghats in the west)
and the plains below; and from Madurai (in the North) it curves east
down to Rameswaram (inthe East). It is the territory in which Maravars
or Tevars have exercised
dominance for roughly 400 years.
It is marked by the old fort towns founded by Marava palayakkarar under
the royal Nayaks of Madurai. This Marava territory was historically
defined by its separation from areas of Telugu Nayak power in the east
and Vellala/Brahman power in the south along the Tambraparni River.
In the 1890s, riots broke out regularly in this territory as the dominant community tried to restrict
-the rising status of Nadars merchants who were fighting in the courts and
on the streets for rights of temple entry.
- Keeping people out of temples, defending sacred temple precincts from
pollution, expressed a wider power over space.
- Land ownership, access to forests, privileged house sites, places of
honor in processions, a place at the table of the Raja or in the court
of the British Collector – all of these constituted power by control
over symbolic space. Sivakasi Sack riots and other riots in places like
Kalugumalai, Kamuthi resulted in loss of several innocent lifes of
weaker community
CONSTRUCTION OF NADAR COMMUNITY’S SOCIAL IDENTIY:
The construction of identities is an interactive social process in
which multiple actors, states, governments, civil society and
individuals all play a part.
States invent social categories
to map society and to depict the objects of social policy so that they
can collect taxes, provide services, maintain law and order, enforce
legislation.
States often work under the positivist illusion that
social categories are objective, “out there,” needing only to be
actualised in administrative records. They do not recognize that the
very act of naming creates or transforms reality.
When the
ruled experience the consequences of being categorized, they often
respond by denying or challenging the naming that has taken place.
The construction of difference is not the exclusive domain of the state or of elites.
Groups and individuals that constitute civil society confront states in
a contest over the content and consequences of discursive formations
and social constructions.
The debate in the U.S. about the ways
to represent racial categories in the 2001 census, whether to provide
predetermined categories or let respondents give their own version,
illustrates the role of the state data apparatus in the construction of
difference.
The state must have categories in order to make social
policy. Somewhat surprisingly, the American state did not assert that
its categories were objective. It recognized they were political: the
categories represent a social-political construct designed for
collecting data on the race and ethnicity of broad population groups in
this country, and are not anthropologically or scientifically based.
And the state was not the only actor.
There was strong opposition to self-designation by parts of the black community, fearing
the effects on black-targeted legislation if numbers were reduced by
defection n to mixed race categories. That seven million persons chose
to report themselves in the 2001 US Census as multiracial suggests the
fluidity of social categories.
More than a century back, the
Census of India under the British raj too provides an example of how
states can take a lead role in naming and ranking social groups.
From their reading of classic Sanskrit texts, raj officials inferred
that Indian society consisted of discrete social groups with firmly
ascribed rules of conduct and specifically ranked positions in a social
hierarchy.
They reified the meaning of texts that native interpreters were in the habit of using more flexibly.
Starting in 1888, raj officials used the census in ways that were
supposed to lend scientific precision to these social categories. They
defined and enumerated: Brahmans, literate persons who perform ritual
functions, advise authorities on correct Hindu conduct, and occupy the
top of the socio-religious ladder; Gujars, herdsmen, of modest social
standing; Jats, sturdy cultivators; Nadars, laborers who climb the
coconut palm and whose polluting work of making liquor relegates them to
the lower end of the social ladder.
Such listings created
both a certified reality and resistance to it. The certified social
designations became the basis for social policy, which further confirmed
the categories.
The census story does not end with a
document-creating state freezing social phenomena in stereotypical
categories run, the state did not succeed in imposing a neo-Brahmanical
view of Indian social structure.
Civil society groups
countered the census descriptions by organizing self-help caste
associations. The associations mounted legal, administrative and
political challenges to the names, occupations and histories that the
census imposed on them . There were vigorous census campaigns between
1871 census and 1921 census to return their community folk men as
Kshathriyas in census records.
In the case of the
cocopalm-climbing Nadars, their caste associations presented evidence to
the authorities that many of their caste fellows had left the polluting
work of palm liquor production, developed clean habits by personal
renunciation of liquor intake and become merchants, and that by history
they had been part of Kshathirya clan or regional lords.
CENSUS CAMPAIGN BY URAVINMURAIS
1871 The first imperial census by British Raj in Indian subcontinent,
was a landmark and it generated heated disputes over official caste
definitions and social status. British raj officials used the census to
downgrade Nadars in social status. This generated a census campaign by
the Nadar uravinmurais and with petitions to the courts to grant Nadars
the right to enter temples from which they were excluded by virtue of
their low, Shanar status.
1888, To counter association with
polluting work of making liquor as this relegates the cocopalm- climbing
Nadars to the lower end of the social ladder in the census., their
uravinmurai association presented evidence to the authorities that many
of their caste fellows had left the polluting work of palm liquor
production and become merchants, and that by history they had been a
community belonging to regional lords and as well upper end of the
community owing to their ancestral royal sovereignity or Kshathiriya
status. The community welfare associations behaved like a collective
enterprise with social welfare objectives.
1891: When Nadar
merchants began to acquire wealth. they started to claim high Kshatriya
status - 24,000 of them returned themselves as Kshatriyas in the 1891
census - and they began to get Sanskritised, adopting, for instance, the
sacred thread of the twice-born. Nadar uravinmurais vigorously lobbied
the authorities to change what the census said about them and encouraged
thousands of Nadars to offer a different occupational description to
the census takers. The sub caste members were promoted to use the Nadar
title jati to designate its elite and take up merchant Nadars leaders of
the whole caste and also increase Nadar numbers in the census, thus
their official visibility.
1899-1921 In the Nadars social
history creation of identity and social status is due to Nadar Civil
society uravinmurai groups and cotton merchants welfare association
countered the census descriptions by organizing self-help and
microfinance associations. The associations mounted legal,
administrative and political challenges to the names, occupations and
histories that the census imposed on them , Nadar Civil Society
federations were successful in promoting the unity of the caste groups
and They have incited the various sub-castes within the Nadars to adopt
the same name in the Census and to break the barriers of endogamy. Nadar
Mahajana Sangam promoted `caste fusion', as `the unit of endogamy
expanded' and called upon the Nadars to return their castes as Kshatriya
in the census.
1901 Census: A vigorous phamphlet campaign was
oragnised by local Nadar associations in various villages to promote
the adoption of Kshatriya Nadar by community fellow members.
Before 1921 census Nadars, their caste welfare associations presented
evidence to the authorities that many of their caste fellows had left
the polluting work of palm liquor production, developed clean habits by
personal renunciation of liquor intake and become merchants.
In the Nadar story we see the creation and re-creation of identity and
status as a result of interaction and contestation between state and
civil society.
One of the major achievement was that Nadars
while turning away from their traditional occupation by leaving the
toddy processing to jaggery and distilling Palm juice to make arrack,
were keen to be members of local community associations to take up
cluster based mercantilism network.
One great aspect of their
movement is their adotption to clean habits shying away from the
traditioanl toddy which came for praise from every national leader of
the freedom struggle period; especially from the Father of Nation
“Mahatma Gandhiji”, even from the British Raj officials and then
spiritual heads of higher communities.
After a long legal and
social struggle and with the continued exhibition of good character by
the entire set of community, their old name of ‘Shanar’ was abandoned
and the honorific title ‘Nadar’ was adopted. Due to success of Self
Respect Movement, the Justice Party government adopted the change in
this community term in all public records from 1921
TRANSFORMATION FROM CASTE SYSTEM TO CULTURE BASED & VALUE CENTRED ETHNIC SOICAL GROUP
By and large to meet any cause, resources are not a problem. The
problem is the presence of committed people. If there are people
committed to a particular cause, resources come. Instead of thinking of
funding and resources, we should try to create better human resources
for the purpose of promoting human rights.
Cultural
institutions should be looked at intelligently and imaginatively to be
able to become effective support for human rights education. There are
examples of actual use of culture to be able to promote the interest of
disadvantaged people (e.g. the case of Nadars in Tamil Nadu in India who
created a new myth of origin—making them descendants of the sun god—to
help them raise their status in society.)
The issue of caste,
for example, can be seen in light of human rights principles. Instead of
saying it is bad or dangerous, caste can be questioned on whether it is
hostile to other communities, or hierarchical. Caste is undergoing a
change in India. From being a hierarchical, interdependent system, it is
moving into a situation where each caste is functioning like ethnic
cultural communities aiming to bring social reformations and increase
the concept of family values.
Values that are within the
community can be used to deal with the presentproblems. Human rights
education can bring out the fact that people in the community have
values which people such as technicians who develop industries do not
have. And these latter people can learn much from the former such as in
protecting the environment.
(For Details Refer: Human Rights Education and Society: Relevance and Need South Asia Workshop Report)
Thanks to-Kamarajar Arts and Cultural Academy
‘Ritual protected’ families
In ‘Ritual protected’ families, on the other hand, there’s often a spouse or a strong older child who is able to include the alcoholic parent in the ritual in a way that protects the others. “The wife or child is flexible enough to accommodate modified behaviour from the father,” explains Lakshmi. “For example, he abstains at the time of the ritual or at least drinks less so that the celebration is maintained one way or the other.”
The result is that a sense of identity and cohesion is preserved in the family through the act of doing something together — whether it’s celebrating birthdays and anniversaries or taking an annual trip to one’s kuladeivam. And that can protect the children from ‘transmission’ of alcoholism.
The MARAVANADU “country” (nadu) appearing on no map is a discontinuous territory that runs north from Tirukkurungudi (hamlet nestled at the foot of the ghats in southwest Tirunelveli District, near Kanya Kumari) across a dry landscape dotted with irrigation tanks spanning about twenty miles across the edge of mountains (western ghats in the west) and the plains below; and from Madurai (in the North) it curves east down to Rameswaram (inthe East). It is the territory in which Maravars or Tevars have exercised
dominance for roughly 400 years.
It is marked by the old fort towns founded by Marava palayakkarar under the royal Nayaks of Madurai. This Marava territory was historically defined by its separation from areas of Telugu Nayak power in the east and Vellala/Brahman power in the south along the Tambraparni River.
In the 1890s, riots broke out regularly in this territory as the dominant community tried to restrict
-the rising status of Nadars merchants who were fighting in the courts and
on the streets for rights of temple entry.
- Keeping people out of temples, defending sacred temple precincts from
pollution, expressed a wider power over space.
- Land ownership, access to forests, privileged house sites, places of honor in processions, a place at the table of the Raja or in the court of the British Collector – all of these constituted power by control over symbolic space. Sivakasi Sack riots and other riots in places like Kalugumalai, Kamuthi resulted in loss of several innocent lifes of weaker community
CONSTRUCTION OF NADAR COMMUNITY’S SOCIAL IDENTIY:
The construction of identities is an interactive social process in which multiple actors, states, governments, civil society and individuals all play a part.
States invent social categories to map society and to depict the objects of social policy so that they can collect taxes, provide services, maintain law and order, enforce legislation.
States often work under the positivist illusion that social categories are objective, “out there,” needing only to be actualised in administrative records. They do not recognize that the very act of naming creates or transforms reality.
When the ruled experience the consequences of being categorized, they often respond by denying or challenging the naming that has taken place.
The construction of difference is not the exclusive domain of the state or of elites.
Groups and individuals that constitute civil society confront states in a contest over the content and consequences of discursive formations and social constructions.
The debate in the U.S. about the ways to represent racial categories in the 2001 census, whether to provide predetermined categories or let respondents give their own version, illustrates the role of the state data apparatus in the construction of difference.
The state must have categories in order to make social policy. Somewhat surprisingly, the American state did not assert that its categories were objective. It recognized they were political: the categories represent a social-political construct designed for collecting data on the race and ethnicity of broad population groups in this country, and are not anthropologically or scientifically based.
And the state was not the only actor.
There was strong opposition to self-designation by parts of the black community, fearing
the effects on black-targeted legislation if numbers were reduced by defection n to mixed race categories. That seven million persons chose to report themselves in the 2001 US Census as multiracial suggests the fluidity of social categories.
More than a century back, the Census of India under the British raj too provides an example of how states can take a lead role in naming and ranking social groups.
From their reading of classic Sanskrit texts, raj officials inferred that Indian society consisted of discrete social groups with firmly ascribed rules of conduct and specifically ranked positions in a social hierarchy.
They reified the meaning of texts that native interpreters were in the habit of using more flexibly.
Starting in 1888, raj officials used the census in ways that were supposed to lend scientific precision to these social categories. They defined and enumerated: Brahmans, literate persons who perform ritual functions, advise authorities on correct Hindu conduct, and occupy the top of the socio-religious ladder; Gujars, herdsmen, of modest social standing; Jats, sturdy cultivators; Nadars, laborers who climb the coconut palm and whose polluting work of making liquor relegates them to the lower end of the social ladder.
Such listings created both a certified reality and resistance to it. The certified social designations became the basis for social policy, which further confirmed the categories.
The census story does not end with a document-creating state freezing social phenomena in stereotypical categories run, the state did not succeed in imposing a neo-Brahmanical view of Indian social structure.
Civil society groups countered the census descriptions by organizing self-help caste associations. The associations mounted legal, administrative and political challenges to the names, occupations and histories that the census imposed on them . There were vigorous census campaigns between 1871 census and 1921 census to return their community folk men as Kshathriyas in census records.
In the case of the cocopalm-climbing Nadars, their caste associations presented evidence to the authorities that many of their caste fellows had left the polluting work of palm liquor production, developed clean habits by personal renunciation of liquor intake and become merchants, and that by history they had been part of Kshathirya clan or regional lords.
CENSUS CAMPAIGN BY URAVINMURAIS
1871 The first imperial census by British Raj in Indian subcontinent, was a landmark and it generated heated disputes over official caste definitions and social status. British raj officials used the census to downgrade Nadars in social status. This generated a census campaign by the Nadar uravinmurais and with petitions to the courts to grant Nadars the right to enter temples from which they were excluded by virtue of their low, Shanar status.
1888, To counter association with polluting work of making liquor as this relegates the cocopalm- climbing Nadars to the lower end of the social ladder in the census., their uravinmurai association presented evidence to the authorities that many of their caste fellows had left the polluting work of palm liquor production and become merchants, and that by history they had been a community belonging to regional lords and as well upper end of the community owing to their ancestral royal sovereignity or Kshathiriya status. The community welfare associations behaved like a collective enterprise with social welfare objectives.
1891: When Nadar merchants began to acquire wealth. they started to claim high Kshatriya status - 24,000 of them returned themselves as Kshatriyas in the 1891 census - and they began to get Sanskritised, adopting, for instance, the sacred thread of the twice-born. Nadar uravinmurais vigorously lobbied the authorities to change what the census said about them and encouraged thousands of Nadars to offer a different occupational description to the census takers. The sub caste members were promoted to use the Nadar title jati to designate its elite and take up merchant Nadars leaders of the whole caste and also increase Nadar numbers in the census, thus their official visibility.
1899-1921 In the Nadars social history creation of identity and social status is due to Nadar Civil society uravinmurai groups and cotton merchants welfare association countered the census descriptions by organizing self-help and microfinance associations. The associations mounted legal, administrative and political challenges to the names, occupations and histories that the census imposed on them , Nadar Civil Society federations were successful in promoting the unity of the caste groups and They have incited the various sub-castes within the Nadars to adopt the same name in the Census and to break the barriers of endogamy. Nadar Mahajana Sangam promoted `caste fusion', as `the unit of endogamy expanded' and called upon the Nadars to return their castes as Kshatriya in the census.
1901 Census: A vigorous phamphlet campaign was oragnised by local Nadar associations in various villages to promote the adoption of Kshatriya Nadar by community fellow members.
Before 1921 census Nadars, their caste welfare associations presented evidence to the authorities that many of their caste fellows had left the polluting work of palm liquor production, developed clean habits by personal renunciation of liquor intake and become merchants.
In the Nadar story we see the creation and re-creation of identity and status as a result of interaction and contestation between state and civil society.
One of the major achievement was that Nadars while turning away from their traditional occupation by leaving the toddy processing to jaggery and distilling Palm juice to make arrack, were keen to be members of local community associations to take up cluster based mercantilism network.
One great aspect of their movement is their adotption to clean habits shying away from the traditioanl toddy which came for praise from every national leader of the freedom struggle period; especially from the Father of Nation “Mahatma Gandhiji”, even from the British Raj officials and then spiritual heads of higher communities.
After a long legal and social struggle and with the continued exhibition of good character by the entire set of community, their old name of ‘Shanar’ was abandoned and the honorific title ‘Nadar’ was adopted. Due to success of Self Respect Movement, the Justice Party government adopted the change in this community term in all public records from 1921
TRANSFORMATION FROM CASTE SYSTEM TO CULTURE BASED & VALUE CENTRED ETHNIC SOICAL GROUP
By and large to meet any cause, resources are not a problem. The problem is the presence of committed people. If there are people committed to a particular cause, resources come. Instead of thinking of funding and resources, we should try to create better human resources for the purpose of promoting human rights.
Cultural institutions should be looked at intelligently and imaginatively to be able to become effective support for human rights education. There are examples of actual use of culture to be able to promote the interest of disadvantaged people (e.g. the case of Nadars in Tamil Nadu in India who created a new myth of origin—making them descendants of the sun god—to help them raise their status in society.)
The issue of caste, for example, can be seen in light of human rights principles. Instead of saying it is bad or dangerous, caste can be questioned on whether it is hostile to other communities, or hierarchical. Caste is undergoing a change in India. From being a hierarchical, interdependent system, it is moving into a situation where each caste is functioning like ethnic cultural communities aiming to bring social reformations and increase the concept of family values.
Values that are within the community can be used to deal with the presentproblems. Human rights education can bring out the fact that people in the community have values which people such as technicians who develop industries do not have. And these latter people can learn much from the former such as in protecting the environment.
(For Details Refer: Human Rights Education and Society: Relevance and Need South Asia Workshop Report)
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