Journal of the Department of English

Vidyasagar University
Vol. 11, 2013-2014

P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body

Kiran Keshavamurthy

Contrary to scholarly opinions that until recently have thought of Tamil Dalit
literature as a post-Marathi phenomenon, modern Dalit consciousness in Tamil can be
traced back to the late 19th century to the writings of Pandit Iyothee Thass (1845-
1914). His imaginative and rather subversive etymological inversions of Shaivite and
Vaishnavite literature reveal the Buddhist leanings of early Tamil literature and an
interpretation of Dravidians as casteless Tamils. His readings merely point to a
prevalence of inequality among persons of the same religion and the protest against
such discrimination. This is significantly different from the totalizing operations of the
hierarchical varna system that institute and perpetuate a structural form of graded
inequality and injustice. The Dalit scholar Ravikumar based on his interpretation of
inscriptional evidence on caste, traces the practice of untouchability and the spatial
segregation of caste settlements to the 12th century where enhanced court patronage
to Vedic Brahminism led to its spread and the violent expulsion of Jainism and Buddhism.
According to the historian Burton Stein, the Brahmin-Non-Brahmin alliance has
remained intact till 1800 and played a crucial role in the institutionalization of
untouchability and the caste system in Tamil Nadu.

The formation of the South India Welfare Association in 1906 and the launch of
the Non Brahmin manifesto were crucial events in the formation of the Non-Brahmin,
a virtual category that did not end up representing all Non-Brahmins. The Justice
The author is Assistant Professor, Cultural Studies, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Kolkata. E-mail : [email protected]
122 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

Party launched in 1917 formed the first Non Brahmin led ministry in the 1920 provincial
legislative council election following the British administration’s introduction of diarchy.
The ministry issued a communal government order reserving jobs for various Non-
Brahmin communities in 1921 but this did not include Dalits and religious minorities.
The Self-Respect Movement led by the iconoclastic anti-caste leader E.V. Ramasami
Naicker ‘Periyar’ was a radical phase of the Non-Brahmin movement that attacked
the social elitism that characterized Justice Party politics. Other prominent Dalit leaders
like MC Rajah petitioned the government demanding a 30 percent reservation for the
depressed classes in government jobs. Another response to this was the mobilization
of those caste groups that had numerical strength and yet did not get a share in the
political pie like the Vanniyars and later the Thevars emerged as a strong political
force in the 1950s and 60s and later again in the 1980s.1 2 The Thevars became an
unintended beneficiary of the creation of a category by the government called most
backward classes among the backward classes. The implementation of the Mandal
Commission however limited the growing political power of the backward classes.
But Dalits despite their numbers and other religious minorities remained excluded
from this powerful Non-Brahmin Non-Dalit bloc by a combination of religious and
economic factors that maintained their subservient position in society.

The emergence of modern Dalit literature in the late 1980s coincided with the
rise of small scale Dalit movements in the state as a response to state patronage for
the Ambedkar centenary celebrations. This led to the consolidation of Dalit forces and
opened up a space for their cultural expression. The early writers who thematized the
discriminatory practices of the caste system in the nineteen seventies had a Marxist
background and largely subsumed caste to class struggle. Many of their stories were
published in the leftist little magazines of the time.3

P. Sivakami’s novels emerged in the wake of the Bodinayakanoor riots that rocked
Madurai district in September 1989. Before turning to a discussion of the novels a
historical engagement with the Bodi riot, as Bodinayakanoor is popularly known, is
only in order. The Bodi riot is not an isolated event whose occurrence is either gratuitous
or unexpected; there are a host of economic and social factors that have orchestrated
instances of caste violence like this one across the Tamil speaking region over centuries.
There are however I wish to suggest, a set of social, political and economic factors
that make the Bodi riots a reiteration of a pattern of inter-caste and intra-caste violence
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 123

characteristic of southern Tamil Nadu.

In his analysis of the Bodi riots, S. Ganeshram makes three important

observations—firstly, there has been an economically driven history of deep seated
resentment and hatred in Madurai district between the upper caste thevars (primarily
kallars) and the Dalits that mostly comprise pallars. The inter-caste violence that
erupted in 1989 is therefore not unexpected. Secondly, during the riot the upper castes
united and conspired to attack Dalits despite their inter-caste differences while the
Dalits were unable to overcome their inner divisions and hierarchies and stand united
against this onslaught of upper caste violence. And thirdly, the thevars enjoy the support
of political parties and state institutions like the police where they have a large presence.
This perpetuates a culture of castist violence where the state and the upper castes are
complicit in reducing Dalits to a state of powerlessness. Thus it becomes necessary to
be sensitive both to the ways in which Dalits are discriminated and oppressed and to
intra-Dalit fissures that preempt any monolithic understanding of Dalit identity.

There are certain socio-economic factors that have fueled the enmity between
thevars and Dalits in Madurai district. Dalits, many of whom work on cardamom
farms mostly owned by thevars, have been exploited. Untouchability, reserving menial
forms of labor like grave digging and scavenging for Dalits and other discriminatory
practices like the separate tumbler system at tea stalls are factors that have exacerbated
Dalit resentment. The failure to implement anti-caste laws like the Civil Disabilities
Act, the Untouchability Offenses Act has only emboldened thevars to act with impunity.
The violence against Dalits that unfolded in the Bodi riots was part of a nationwide
phenomenon of inter-caste violence that in 1989 led to the enactment of the Prevention
of Atrocities Act that addresses both particular and systemic forms of violence and
exploitation against Dalits. Anti-caste state legislation thus produced the legal category
of the caste atrocity that was driven by both symbolic and economic forms of
dispossession.

The sparks of the riots were lit in Meenakshipuram1 , a village close to Bodi
where the death of a pallar woman and the disparaging and provocative remarks by
John Pandian, a pallar mass leader, created tension between the upper castes and the
Dalits. The upper castes were unwilling to accept a Dalit as panchayat leader and the
Dalits were unable to settle their internal differences and settle on a common
representative. Soon after this a Dalit woman was found murdered with her tongue
slit in September 1989. The police suspected her husband was responsible for her
124 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

death and when a group of Dalits tried to file a complaint the police refused to intervene
and asked them to approach a police station in the neighboring district as they claimed
the site of the murder did not fall within their jurisdiction. When an upper caste man
confessed to committing the murder the police pronounced him mentally unsound and
released him. Anticipating trouble from the Dalits, the police approached John Pandian,
the leader of the Devendira Kula Vellalar Mahasabha, a pallar organization and a
politically influential man with a long criminal record. He agreed to defuse the situation
and no picketing took place.

I now turn to the writings of a contemporary Dalit woman writer, P. Sivakami

from the late 1980s to the 1990s. Sivakami’s first two novels are sequential ones
although they were written and published eight years apart. The first one Palaiyana
Kalithalum (The Grip of Change) (1989) draws attention to the Dalit woman as a
fictional figure for the fraught relations between caste, gender and sexuality. The
novel centers on the exploited and supposedly violable body of the Dalit woman, which
is inscribed with inter-caste struggles for power even as it is constituted as a site of
power and resistance. The female protagonist Thangam’s battered body frames the
opening scene; her past is constituted by her widowhood that makes her a ‘surplus’
woman; the harassment by her brothers-in-law when she refuses to submit to them;
the sexploitation by her caste Hindu landlord and the assault on her by caste Hindu
men owing to her apparent sexual misdemeanor only reinforce her abject status. Even
the struggle for land is linked to her body and fertility—she does not have children and
so her brothers-in-law refuse to give her a share in the family land. When she is
sheltered by Kathamuthu, a Dalit paraiyar patriarch and ex-village headman, her
vulnerability is exploited; she is forced to physically yield to his desires. However, the
same body, through which she is oppressed and subjugated, also grants her the power
to gain ascendancy in Kattamuthu’s house granting her dominance over his wives.
But, as we shall presently see, any access Thangam has to power is compromised by
her sexual and economic exploitation, first by an upper caste landlord and then by a
paraiyar panchayat leader.

Something dark loomed in the corner of the verandah. Slowly, as

Kathamuthu’s eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, he could make
out a person crouching there, groaning in pain.

‘Who is it? What…?’ Kathamuthu asked fearfully.

P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 125

‘Ayyo…Ayyo…They have butchered me…Ayyo…’ The figure cried

like a wounded animal and finally fell down…

‘You woman…you…why are you here wailing so early in the morning?

What is the matter? Get up and explain your problem without such a
fuss.’ Flanked by both his wives, Kathamuthu recovered from the shock
he had experienced and questioned the shrouded figure.

‘What can I say? May they be hanged. May they go to hell. The ground
will open up and swallow you. You’ll eat mud. Bastards! You abused a
helpless woman. You curs! Come now! Come and lick…’

What should have been an explanation turned into a torrent of abuse

against those who assaulted her…

Weeping she removed the sari wrapped around her head. The whole of
her torso, visible because she was not wearing a blouse, bore terrible
bruises. Dried blood marked the flesh of her back.

[Thangam] ‘Sami [Lord]. Not only this, Sami. Look at my arms.’ She
showed her swollen arms.

‘Look at this Sami.’ The woman lifted her sari above her knees.

The skin of her thighs and knees was scored and shredded as though she
had been dragged over a rough surface.

[Kathamuthu] ‘Where are you from? What is your caste? And your
name?’…

Kathamuthu took her to be in her thirties, tall and well built. Though her
face was swollen from crying, it was still attractive…

[Thangam] ‘Sami, I come from the same village as your wife Kanagavalli.
Kanagu, don’t you recognize me? You know Kaipillai from the south
street who died? I am his wife.’…

‘Oh, where shall I begin? You know Paranjoti from the upper caste street?’
she appealed to Kanagu.

[Kanagavalli] ‘I don’t know anyone from the upper caste locality…’

126 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

[Thangam] ‘True. People like you living in towns don’t know much about
the villages…Paranjoti from the upper caste street is very rich. His lands
go right up to the next village, Arumadal. After my husband died I began
working in Paranjoti’s farm. My husband’s brothers refused to hand over
his share of the family land as I didn’t have any children. How could I
fight them? I couldn’t go to court. Who can spend that much money?
Even if I had won, I wouldn’t be able to take care of my share of land in
peace, not without everyone hating me. I am a single woman now…But
at least I have a thatched roof over my head.

‘My husband’s relatives spread the story that I had become Paranjoti’s
concubine. That’s why Paranjoti’s wife’s brothers and her brother-in-
law, four men, entered my house last night. They pulled me by my hair
and dragged me out to the street. They hit me, and flogged me with a
stick stout as a hand. They nearly killed me. No one in the village, none
of my relatives, came to help me…They abused me and threatened to
kill me if I stayed in that village any longer. They called me a whore.’…

[Kathamuthu] ‘Okay, okay.’ Kathamuthu studied her, ‘Now tell me the

truth. What did you do? Nobody would have assaulted you like that unless
you had done something first.’

[Thangam] ‘I didn’t do anything wrong…’

[Kathamuthu] ‘That’s enough. Take your story to someone else who

might be fool enough to believe it.’…

[Thangam] ‘…How can I hide the truth from you? Paranjoti Udaiyar
has had me…true,’ she said, with a mixture of fear and shame.

[Kanagavalli] ‘Why do you have to spoil someone’s marriage? Is that

good? You’ve hurt his family,’ Kanagavalli stressed the last part for the
benefit of Nagamani [Kathamuthu’s second wife] who had come to the
verandah with hot water. Nagamani directed a scornful look at
Kathamuthu.

[Thangam] ‘Sami, is there anywhere on earth where this doesn’t happen?

I didn’t want it. But Udaiyar took no notice of me. He raped me when I
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 127

was working in his sugarcane field. I remained silent; after all, he is my

paymaster. He measures my rice. If you think I’m like that, that I’m
easy, please ask around in the village. After my husband’s death, can
anybody say that they had seen me in the company of anyone, or even
smiling at anyone? My husband’s brothers tried to force me, but I never
gave in. They wouldn’t give me my husband’s land, but wanted me to be
a whore for them. I wouldn’t give in…I’m a childless widow. There is no
protection for me.’

Kathamuthu interrupted her, ‘All right, it happened. Now tell me, why
didn’t you go after someone of our caste? It’s because you chose that
upper caste fellow, that four men could come and righteously beat you
up. Don’t you like our chaps?’

Hesitating at the crudity of his remarks, she answered, ‘Sami, how can
you ask me such a question? I didn’t go after anyone. I am not a desperate
woman. I feel so ashamed. It was wrong, horrible…I gave in to
Udaiyar…You should abandon me in some jungle. I never want to go
back to that village. But before that I want those men who beat me up to
fall at my feet and plead.’ She angrily grabbed some mud from the front
yard and spat on it. (Sivakami, 3-8)

The novel opens dramatically with Thangam’s battered body—a spectacle to be

witnessed by Kathamuthu and his two wives. She is initially shrouded but then removes
her sari to expose her mutilated body. She claims she has been raped by her upper
caste Udayar landlord Paranjoti and assaulted by his brother and brothers-in-law for
her rumored affair with him. Although she swears she never desired or encouraged
Paranjoti, Kathamuthu is incredulous and suspects Thangam’s sexual reputation while
his wife Kanagavalli accuses her of ruining a married man’s family. Note that
Kathamuthu reads her assault and rape as punishments she deserves for violating the
sexual integrity of caste that forbids sexual relations between upper caste men and
lower caste women. The above passage also suggests Kathamuthu’s own desire for
Thangam.

Thangam’s alleged sexual indulgence effectively fictionalizes her rape by making

her complicit in the loss of her own reputation. She is deemed an unreliable witness to
128 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

her own rape, which is invalidated by her past acquiescence and presumed consent to
what in reality is an exploitative relationship. While Kathamuthu interprets her sexual
relationship with an upper caste man as a threat to the integrity of caste patriarchy—
a threat that has to be regulated and controlled—the double standard that governs the
caste regulation of sexuality is made evident by Kathamuthu’s marriage to his younger
wife, Nagamani, a poor upper caste widow he took under his care. A sexual hierarchy
thus coincides with a caste hierarchy when Thangam’s alleged affair with an upper
caste man preempts any claim to her own desire and body. Her widowed status is
further interpreted by men as a sign of her sexual availability, which ostensibly justifies
potential threats of rape.

What is of particular interest and this becomes the focal point of the novel, is the
elision of sexual violence by caste violence. Although both these forms of violence are
implicated in Thangam’s raped and battered body, it is the visible signs of physical
assault that are privileged over her rape. Her battered body is perceived purely as an
instance of castist violence and not as a rape, which in any case, is an unverifiable
event ostensibly legitimized invalidated by her past acquiescence. Kathamuthu dictates
a petition to his daughter Gowri on Thangam’s behalf that is addressed to the police.
In the petition he overlooks Thangam’s rape and distorts her account of her brutal
mutilation by upper caste men in the Dalit locality by accusing her assailants of assaulting
her for walking through their street. The misrepresentation is thus not merely the
elision of what was also the sexual violation of an individual Dalit woman, but the
politicization of Thangam’s battery as an incriminatory instance of upper caste
aggression. By relocating Thangam’s body from the secret confines of sexual assault
to a caste encoded space like the upper caste street, Kathamuthu’s distorted petition
strategically diffuses Thangam’s victimhood to implicate the entire Dalit community.
Thangam’s sexed body is thus displaced by her caste body that materializes the brutal
effects of an unsolicited expression of upper caste violence. In what follows, Thangam’s
caste body becomes the site where the inter-caste struggle for political power plays
out.

At the police station Kattamuthu urges Thangam to tearfully remonstrate at the

inspector’s feet. Kattamuthu has faith neither in his own caste community that lacks
the solidarity to confront upper caste violence nor in the impartiality of the upper caste
police. He tries to win the inspector’s trust and sympathy by strategically drawing
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 129

attention to his own status as a perpetual victim of castism. Kattamuthu bitterly recounts
his past as a bonded laborer who against all odds got educated to become a village
elder. He claims he would have become a member of the legislative assembly had it
not been for the jealousy of his own community. The inspector is quick to assert his
and by extension, the law’s indifference to social distinctions of caste in the delivery of
justice. Kattamuthu immediately switches strategies to remind the police inspector of
the contradictory role of the modern democratic state that on one hand has to arbitrate
social conflict while remaining above all forms of partisanship and on the other, has to
intervene by introducing affirmative measures to ensure equal access to all resources.
Kathamuthu warns the inspector of the possibility of ruining his career if he is accused
of colluding with upper caste culprits and fails to arrest them. Caste, Kattamuthu says,
is both pervasive and invisible, “it is something that exists even if they do not recognize
its existence.” (Sivakami 22) The ideological presence of castism is so pervasive that
it cannot always be recognized even by the law and its representatives, particularly
when they are potentially implicated. The inspector, as Kattamuthu anticipates, is
provoked into opening an enquiry and prepares an arrest warrant lest the investigations
prove the veracity of Thangam’s complaint.

During the police investigation, the attack on Thangam gives rise to further
fabrications, which become the pretext for new inter-caste feuds. The police inspectors
appointed to carry out the inquiry interrogate Thangam’s in-laws who first spread
rumors of her illicit relationship with Paranjoti. One of Thangam’s in-laws corroborates
Kattamuthu’s distorted version of Thangam’s assault to ensure the Dalit quarters are
not accused of being complicit in the attack. He claims he saw Thangam waking up to
a stomachache and walking to the village tank behind Paranjoti’s house where the
Padaiyachi street begins. She is spotted by Paranjoti’s wife Kamalam who abuses her
by her caste name for entering the upper caste street. She is later assaulted by
Kamalam’s brothers. The Chakkiliyars, another untouchable laboring caste, confirm
the rumors to the police believing them to be true and accuse the Padaiyachi men of
assaulting Thangam for her affair with Paranjoti. While one of the investigating
constables assumes Thangam’s rumored affair is true the other dismisses the possibility
that Thangam may have coerced Paranjoti into a sexual relationship when his wife
Kamalam is clearly “not being smart enough to keep her husband” (Sivakami 29).
Both the constables blame the women for Paranjoti’s infidelity.
130 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

Paranjoti is shocked to discover Thangam’s police complaint. He is embarrassed

by the possibility of his affair becoming public knowledge. He realizes he is unable to
use his financial power to turn the case to his advantage now that he has been accused
of a criminal assault. He silently curses Thangam for being ungrateful to him,

Ungrateful whore! Even if she was hurt, she was hurt by the hand adorned
with gold! A Parachi could have never dreamt of being touched by a man
like me. My touch was a boon granted for penance performed in her
earlier births! And then the dirty bitch betrays me! How can I face the
world with my name thus polluted? (Sivakami 31)

Paranjoti’s patronizing reaction reflects his anxiety with caste pollution and the
consequent loss of reputation rather than his rape.

During the inquiry there is a meeting of laborers and farmers at Kattamuthu’s

house. Kattamuthu announces his decision to constitute a panchayat or village council
of elders to punish Paranjothi, his wife and his in-laws if they are proven guilty. His
intention is to charge Paranjoti with castism that would lead to the loss of his Dalit
voters and undermine his political power. Kattamuthu is convinced Paranjothi will
neither confess his relationship with a Dalit woman nor permit his wife to be taken to
court and consequently beg him for mercy. When the police inspectors give Paranjoti
a copy of the complaint, he realizes the complaint has been framed as a caste related
assault that has nothing to do with his rape. Paranjoti appeals to the inspectors and
offers to pay them if they promise to rescue him. One of the policemen suggests he
lodge a counter-complaint against Thangam by secretly planting a transistor and a
large sum of money in her house and accuse her of theft. He encourages Paranjoti to
file a complaint before Kattamuthu files a report.

But Kattamuthu spots one of the inspectors at a toddy shop getting drunk on
arrack. He discovers the inspector has been bribed by Paranjoti. The inebriated inspector
reveals Paranjoti’s plan to press charges against Thangam. Kattamuthu immediately
sends his men to guard Thangam’s house through the night as she convalesces at
hospital. Paranjoti’s men fail to place the transistor and money in Thangam’s hut
although they manage to escape from Kattamuthu’s guards. Paranjoti, anxious that
the counter-charge of theft against Thangam may backfire for lack of evidence, decides
to accuse all the Dalit men of attacking his brothers-in-law when they entered their
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 131

street to recruit laborers. Soon, there are rumors of the Paraiyars’ (Dalits) attack on
the Udaiyars (Padaiyars). The Paraiyar women laborers who work for the Udayars
discover to their anger and desperation that they have been replaced by Chakkiliyar
women. Paranjoti is determined to let the Paraiyars starve to force them to relent and
withdraw Thangam’s complaint. He threatens to burn the Dalit locality if she refuses
to take back her charges.

The attempt by wealthy upper caste farmers to entice workers from neighboring
villages with higher wages fails because of the political support that Kattamuthu enjoys
in these villages. Other smaller farmers desperately in need of workers to plant their
crops before the end of the planting season direct their rage towards the Paraiyars. A
large part of the Paraiyar slum and some huts on the Chakkiliyar street are set on fire
by some Udaiyar men. The moment the Dalit locality is set on fire the wealthy Reddiars
join forces with the Udaiyars, the two castes being equal in status. They are also
united by their shared allegiance to the ruling political party to ensure that no land
reforms are implemented or land holdings registered under false names. The Paraiyars,
the Chakkiliyars and the Padaiyachis are divided not just by caste but by their struggle
for survival, which preempts any solidarity in the face of caste aggression. Kattamuthu
tries to prevent the Paraiyars from potentially destroying themselves by controlling
their desire for revenge. A gathering of the tahsildar (the revenue officer), the inspector,
Paranjoti Udaiyar and some of his men, and Kattamuthu is organized to settle the
dispute.

What was initially a case of rape and exploitation is politicized into an issue of
caste and class oppression. At the gathering, Kattamuthu argues that the Dalits have
been relatively underpaid for the time they spend planting paddy when laborers in the
surrounding villages are paid much more. He accuses Paranjoti of burning the cheri
or Dalit quarters as the Dalits refused to work for lower wages. The Udaiyars and the
Reddiars are embarrassed by his accusation and as per Kattamuthu’s demand are
made to compensate the Dalit victims with money and clothes. Kattamuthu is clear
that the Dalits and the upper castes need each other for their own survival and negotiates
an agreement with them “I have been telling you from the beginning that the relationship
between us should not break down. You have to take care of the Harijans (Dalits) as
if they are your own children.” (Sivakami 69) Generously quoting from the Hindu
epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata and Gandhi’s autobiography My
132 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

Experiments with Truth, Kattamuthu urges the upper caste men to cooperate with
the Dalits and foster a mutually beneficial relationship. He assumes the Christian/
Gandhian position of expiating caste prejudice by internalizing its pain and suffering to
spiritually transcend the bane of caste. He tries to convince them that their conflicts
can only be resolved and their solidarity renewed if they “bear their suffering in
patience…[for they] will ultimately rule the world” (Sivakami 73). Kathamuthu’s
Gandhian position clearly does not suggest the dismantling of the caste system; on the
contrary, it upholds the caste system and the interests of all its (male) stakeholders.

Unable to settle on a suitable compensation for the affected Dalits, Paranjoti

begs Kattamuthu to settle the dispute in a panchayat meeting. When Kattamuthu
informs everyone of his decision to join the Ambedkar Association’s protest against
police inaction in the Thangam case, Paranjoti grows anxious that his relationship with
Thangam may be settled in court. Finally Paranjoti and Kattamuthu agree on an out of
court settlement and Thangam receives monetary compensation. Thangam gives
Kattamathu her compensation out of gratitude and offers to cultivate and harvest his
land in return for his protection. Kattamuthu’s desire for Thangam empowers her
over his wives. Her disputes with his jealous wives often end in violence. Thangam is
transformed from being a poor and emaciated widow to an adorned and healthy woman
who enjoys Kattamuthu’s patronage (Sivakami 87). She assumes the responsibility of
paying the laborers who work on Kattamuthu’s land and receives people who come in
search of him (Sivakami 93). She gradually becomes a part of the family and the
household. Kattamuthu’s wives who are initially hostile and jealous later have no choice
but to befriend and accept Thangam. But Kattamuthu’s protection and his sense of
responsibility for Thangam come with a price—the sexploitation of her body. Although
the text does not voice Thangam’s concern for the loss of her bodily integrity, her
silence suggests this loss for her is clearly not primarily a matter of reputation. She
seems to come to terms with her loss that for her is I suggest an unfortunate but
necessary compromise to secure relative power and protection. She acquiesces to
Kattamuthu’s sexual advances and continues to work for him even after she wins the
case in court and regains her land from her in-laws. That she is represented as a
victim of caste rather than sexual violence enables Thangam greater access to public
spaces of legality like the court and the village council of elders that are exclusively
occupied by men who possess legal authority and political power.
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 133

Towards the end of the novel we see the emergence of a new generation of
educated young men and women of different castes who are united in their attempts
to transcend social and sexual hierarchies—Kathamuthu’s daughter Gowri refuses to
get married and becomes the first Dalit woman in her village to complete her college
education. Her cousin Chandran becomes a worker at the rice mill and joins the
workers union that unites Padaiyachi and Parayar workers whose shared labor concerns
enables them to potentially overcome their caste differences. He gets married in a
secular ceremony that does away with the Brahmin priest and rituals. He promises
“his wife would be an equal partner in the marriage” (Sivakami 117). Rasendran, a
Paraiyar youth who is entrusted with the responsibility of guarding Thangam’s hut,
protests Kathamuthu’s conciliatory attitude towards the upper caste Udaiyars and
Reddiars at the gathering of elders. Elangovan, a young Parayar banker has an open
affair with an upper caste woman, Lalitha who defies her mother’s injunctions.

Aasiriyar Kurippu: Gowri (Author’s Notes: Gowri) (1997)

Sivakami’s second novel Author’s Notes: Gowri is the author’s re-visitation of

her earlier novel, The Grip of Change. This novel initially sets out as a revisionary
critique of the earlier novel and explores the tension between the fictional world of the
novel and the social circumstances that enabled the creation of the novel. The novel
dramatizes the author’s anxious urge to constantly question and justify the premises of
her earlier work. But the more she tries to eliminate the disjuncture between social
reality and the representational claims of her earlier work, the more she is confronted
by the irreducibly simulative quality of fiction that is neither false nor representative of
any absolute or inclusive notion of truth. She discovers fictional writing is a deliberate
process of selection and omission that is always already informed by experience,
which is itself not innocent but socially and politically constructed. Her conflicted
identification with her earlier autobiographical character/self, Gowri, for instance, enacts
the author’s attempts to question and legitimize the truth of her fictional representations.
The author returns to visit her home town Puliyur where she meets among her several
relatives, her mother’s cousin whom she calls uncle. In her conversation with him, he
reminds her of something she had done as a child,

[Uncle] ‘Do you remember, during school break you would come and
ask for five or ten paise? Once you got the money, you’d leave bright
and happy, playing with the coin.’ Such petty memories. What else was
134 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

he going to trot out?

[Uncle] ‘Your Kalimuthu periappan once said that you had stolen a four
anna coin from his pocket. His wife went around announcing that to
everyone in the street. I told them, she’s just a child.’ Is that why Gowri,
the girl in the novel, had such a poor opinion of Kalimuthu periappa? The
novelist and the character in the novel, Gowri, must be one and the same
person.

[Gowri] ‘I don’t recall that. Did I take money from Kalimuthu periappa’s
pocket?’ she asked in a shocked voice.

[Uncle] ‘You can’t remember that, you were too young. You know, your
father Kathamuthu liked me a lot. He would insist that I sit next to him
and tell him stories. He had so much love and respect for me.’

In the novel, Gowri’s father was never shown expressing respect to

elders. In describing Kathamuthu’s character, why had she paid so little
attention to rudimentary truth?

…If Kuttaiappan could enthusiastically narrate stories without ever

questioning their premises, why did she have to try so hard to justify her
work? Look at her! Here she was, analyzing her novel trying to fit all the
pieces into logical patterns. To whom did she owe explanations?(Sivakami
133-134)

Sivagami devotes most of the novel exploring her ambivalent relationship to her
oppressive father. She acknowledges her father’s fictional representation is informed
by her bitter memories of his sexual insinuations and authority. Like her autobiographical
character Gowri, she remembers being humiliated by her father for dressing up like a
whore and who attributes her arrogance and rebelliousness to her college education.
She is rendered impotent by her father’s financial support, which is an unfortunate
necessity for her to potentially attain any kind of freedom. Although her initial impulse
is to offer a more dispassionate perspective of her father, she ends up presenting
literature as a way of challenging and trivializing paternal authority and as a form of
self-empowerment. Fiction for the author redeems her memories of her violent and
abusive father; her father’s fictional representation is “a revenge of sorts…[that] at
the end…reduced her father to a counterfeit coin…she and her cousin had been
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 135

transformed into revolutionaries. Family squabbles made for restricted politics.”

(Sivakami 144-145)

She is particularly put off by two of her father’s qualities—his polygamy and his
coarseness.

…She had to provide answers to some questions. Was a polygamous

man a sex addict? What was the novelist’s opinion on fidelity and morality?
Why were her male characters betrayers of women? Disgust seemed to
inform her attitude to sex. What was the truth? (Sivakami 147)

But she also acknowledges certain facts about her father’s life had been
deliberately omitted. She betrays her admiration for her hard working father who
“worked on his farm with enthusiasm” even when he was well off. He even established
the first women’s hostel in their town to encourage female education and employment
(Sivakami 148). He had also helped the poor and fed them. Sivakami realizes “The
author of Grip of Change had constructed an effigy of her father and burned him in
her novel. It was the author’s perspective rather than the whole truth. She wanted to
prove that there was no such thing as the full and complete truth” (Sivakami 148).
Sivakami seems to suggest that the truth can acquire value of any kind only when it is
a particular perspective.

Although Sivakami begins by reevaluating the premises of her earlier work she
ends up reasserting them. She admits a writer can never avoid “subjective conclusions”
that invariably determine any fictional work (Sivakami 148). She affirms her literary
representation of the contradictory dynamics of castism not only disfavors lower castes
but is endemic to the lower castes. She argues castism and corruption are so constitutive
of inter and intra-caste relations that they have to be acknowledged if a democratic
ideal of equal opportunity is at all possible to achieve. By making such a claim, Sivakami
anticipates potential criticism from Dalits who may accuse her of betraying their cause.

What does the Grip of Change reflect for its readers? It wasn’t simply
that the upper castes exploit the lower castes. A lower caste leader might
exploit his own people. It is not only upper caste men who prey on lower
caste women. Men like Kathamuthu are perfectly capable of taking
advantage of vulnerable women. The overall picture presented by the
novel is that rich or poor, upper caste or lower caste, the seeds of corruption
exist at all levels.
136 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

Did the novelist have to write about the caste system to prove this? If
she had really attempted to write about the caste system, she should
have talked about equality of opportunity rather than the universality of
corruption. She had acted like a self-appointed judge delivering a verdict.

Could the two aspects—her father’s polygamy and his coarseness—

alone give her the right to judge and condemn him? In the novel, her
father intervenes on behalf of a widow. Once he has sorted out her
problems he forces her into having sex with him, though she pleads, ‘You
are like a brother to me.’ Did the novelist witness this scene? Or did she
hear someone narrate it to her? (Sivakami 149)

Sivakami puts herself through intense self-examination as she explores her own
identity in relation to the text. She considers the possibility of being criticized for
protecting her own identity as a Dalit writer and betraying the Dalits by attacking the
Dalit leadership. She dramatizes such criticism through a series of imaginary
conversations where she alternately occupies the position of author and critic. In a
series of rhetorical moves, Sivakami both submits to and resists her critics’ charge of
hypocrisy and social elitism and ends up complicating identitarian politics. She is accused
of reinforcing the stigma of being a Dalit while pretending to be sensitive to castism.
She resists such accusations by exhorting all castes to join forces in the fight against
castism. More significantly, she draws attention to her critics’ impulse to collapse the
social world of the text with social reality as though the text were an unmediated
reflection of the world. She continues to justify her representation of the ethical
ambiguities that characterize the fraught relations between caste and gender and
sexuality. Sivakami seems to be suggesting that the text’s claim to truth lies precisely
in these ambiguities that resist any notion of absolute truth. For instance, she recounts
an incident she heard from an aunt who was raped by an upper caste landlord, following
which, the author’s grandfather threatens to punish the landlord. The incident, Sivakami,
suggests may only partially explain Kathamuthu’s motivations in the novel where he
interprets Thangam’s rape merely as a caste related atrocity that demanded revenge
and justice. Thus Sivakami’s fictional representation of Thangam’s rape not only does
not correspond to her aunt’s rape, it complicates any understanding of rape by situating
the rape within the power dynamics of caste that underwrite competing and contradictory
interpretations of the rape.
P. Sivakami: The Caste and Gendered Body 137

Sivakami poses certain crucial questions that address the function of literature.
Unlike her readers and critics, she is particular to emphasize that literature is neither a
direct reproduction of social reality nor therefore restricted to a realist or moral function.
She is also sensitive to her own present position as an English educated professional
and the resultant sense of estrangement from her family. She poses questions that are
ultimately unanswerable.

When I believe in monogamy and refinement does my emancipatory

modernity then seek to civilize Kathamuthu? In doing so what are Gowri’s
prejudices? On the other hand hasn’t modernity been always taken up as
an issue by upper caste women? Or when Gowri refuses to get married
is it because she is a victim of her mother’s experience? Or is it a brave
assertion that she is walking away from the victimhood of her mother?
Or is it merely independence? (Sivakami 189)

There are no clear answers to these questions and Sivakami does not bother to
answer them. But she does acknowledge the need to contextualize certain cultural
values that determine notions of gender, sexuality, independence, modernity and so on.
Although Kattamuthu and Gowri are antagonistic characters, Sivakami suggests that
they embody competing ways of addressing the same vexed question of castism,
“They fight on the same side and are prepared to fight the same enemies… Kathamuthu
may dislike communism or Gowri detest his manipulation and weakness but they both
envision a common end to atrocities against Dalits. (Sivakami 177)

In conclusion, Sivakami’s novels are an exploration of the continuities and shifting

affordances of the Dalit woman. Inscribed by multiple intersecting vectors of caste,
gender and sexual oppression, the body of the Dalit woman is both the experience of
social stigma and the only means of resisting oppression. Unlike many of the Dalit
writers who preceded and followed Sivagami, Sivagami’s works remain crucial critiques
of caste patriarchy.

Notes

1. 1989 is the year for the rise of autonomous Dalit movements, 1988, early
generation of Dalit writers started the Scheduled Caste Liberation Movement, many
of whom were ex members of dominant political parties. They protested against the
attacks of vanniyars on Dalits in Villupuram,against the non implementation of the
138 Journal of the Department of English Vol. 11, 2013-2014

Illayaperumal Committee Report, public meeting condemning the Bodi riots. Other
small groups included…

2. Viduthalai Chiruthaigal in the early 1980s, in the 90s then renamed Liberation
Panthers; Devendra Kula Vellalar Federation (Dr Krishnasamy) against pallar-thevar
clashes—Kodiyankulam, Adi Tamizhar Peravai (political ideas of Periyar, Ambedkar,
Marx), Dalit Panthers etc, VC—temple rights, land rights and housing, against atrocities
and untouchabilty, SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act 1989. VC initially opposed to
electoral politics, Thirumavalavan never terms Tamil or Dravidian culture anti Dalit,
Thaiman, Melvalavu, Ravi—open better than reserved constituency.

3 Niraipirikai,(1990-2012), Manavosai, (CPI-ML), Pirachanai- ed. Shanmugam

(CPM), Manitham (CPIML), Palam by Tamil nationalist groups open to Dalit writers,
Dalit Murasu, Puthiya Kodangi, Dalit, Bodhi, Manusanga, Thaiman, Adi Thamizhan

4. Meenakshipuram had seen mass Dalit conversions to Islam in 1981 that however
did not guarantee their freedom from castism.

Works Cited:

Ganeshram S. “Communalism in Tamil Nadu: A Study of Bodi Riots”. Economic and

Political Weekly. Volume XXIV. March, 1989. Print.

Sivakami P. The Grip of Change and Author’s Notes: Gowri. Trans. P Sivakami.
New Delhi : Orient Longman, 1999. Print.