Caste-ing a net

While the battle for the dalit vote is heating up in Tamil Nadu, the community is silently asserting itself

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

THE LAUNCH OF a book on Dr B.R. Ambedkar in Chennai turned into an attempt to redraw political equations in the state. At the December 6 event, actor Vijay, the latest star entrant into the political scene, spoke about atrocities against dalits in the state and the need for dalit emancipation. He also took potshots at the ruling DMK and said that its “alliance arithmetic” will not sustain till the 2026 assembly elections. Interestingly, Aadhav Arjuna, the deputy general secretary of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)—a partner of the DMK—shared the stage with Vijay and also spoke against the DMK and brought up dalit issues. Days later, the VCK suspended him for six months.

The move towards dalit emancipation first began in Tamil Nadu in the late 1980s. “Particularly in 1991, the Ambedkar centenary year— along with other landmark [events] such as liberalisation, the Mandal commission [report] and the Babri masjid demolition [a year later]— gave momentum to the voice of the marginalised,” says C. Lakshmanan, former professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS) and national convenor of the Dalit Intellectual Collective. “The dalits daringly asserted themselves and had a lot of aspirations. However, this process had both positive and negative effects. It encouraged individual [growth] (through education) rather than the collective interest (unified political movement).”