| Abstrakt: |
This essay analyzes the role of memory in the historical trajectory of the grant of Panchami lands to Tamil Dalits during the colonial period and its ramifications in contemporary times. Tamil Dalits, who identified themselves as Panchamars during the colonial period, were allotted and granted agricultural lands in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The grant was to empower the Panchamars economically and to enable them to delineate a distinct autonomous space within the caste society, which had relegated them to the lowest status. However, the lands granted to the Panchamars by the British were usurped and appropriated by the dominant castes. Almost a century later, in the 1990s a movement called "Panchamar nila Meetpu Iyakkam" (Reclamation of Panchami Lands movement) was organized by Tamil Dalits to reclaim the Panchami lands. This essay points out that a century-long communicative memory of Tamil Dalits played a pivotal role in the mobilization of the Panchami movement. While the memory regarding the loss of Panchamar lands was part of everyday communication of the community, it became functional in the 1990s when the Dalit liberation movement was gaining ground in Tamil Nadu. Apart from mobilizing Tamil Dalits with a collective identity, their communicative memory also provided them access to their cultural memory – the colonial documents in the archives. To exemplify the significance of communicative memory in the reclamation of Panchami lands, this essay will analyze a Tamizh novel, "Thagappan Kodi" by Azhagiya Periyavan, which is pivoted on the grant, loss and reclamation of Panchami lands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
