Vanniyar Claims to Mobility in Pluralist Tamil Nadu,1900–35

Abstract

In the post-1857 context of an earlier plural Dravidian social and political landscape, this article highlights the efforts of Vanniyars during the period 1900–35 in Tamil Nadu to articulate their claims for social and political mobility. Such efforts entailed the process of creating and forming a Vanniyar self-identification within the context of complex forces operating at the larger and emerging national and regional levels at that time. Presenting these Vanniyar enunciations, the article argues against a tendency in scholarship to see pluralisation as a recent phenomenon associated with the post-1980s Tamil politics. It also places the developments in South India within the larger picture of Indians learning to become responsible citizens.