CONTEMPORARY South Asia Contemporary South Asia ROUTLEDGE Routled Taylor & Francis ISSN: 0958-4935 (Print) 1469-364X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccsa20 Questions of honour: Dalit women activists and the rumour mill in Tamil Nadu Hugo Gorringe To cite this article: Hugo Gorringe (2016): Questions of honour: Dalit women activists and the rumour mill in Tamil Nadu, Contemporary South Asia, DOI: 10.1080/09584935.2016.1238874 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2016.1238874 Published online: 10 Oct 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 150 Q View related articles C View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ccsa20 Download by: [The University of Edinburgh] Date: 15 May 2017, At: 05:05
Contemporary South Asia, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2016.1238874 ROUTLEDGE Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Questions of honour: Dalit women activists and the rumour mill in Tamil Nadu Hugo Gorringe* ?D Department of Sociology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Recent caste conflicts have revolved around discourses of honour, caste pride and shame. Although Dalit movements have been at the receiving end of the violence and have condemned the casteism underpinning it, they operate within a society in which questions of honour are highly significant. Dalit women activists are trapped in an unenviable position within the twin structures of caste and patriarchy, both of which speak to debates about group boundaries and honour. Taking the recent violence as its starting point, this paper draws on interviews with and observations of Dalit women in the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Liberation Panther Party) in Tamil Nadu to chart how discourses of honour both facilitate and constrain their capacity to act. For all the party's emphasis on women's rights, women activists face an uphill struggle to secure recognition, respect and responsiveness both within the party as well as wider society. Keywords: caste; honour; Dalit; gender; Tamil Nadu Introduction In 2012, caste violence flared up in the northern districts of Tamil Nadu, South India, when a politically dominant caste group laid waste to three Dalit settlements. 1 The alleged trigger for this violence was a cross-caste marriage between a Dalit man and an intermediate caste Vanniyar woman. Most commentators suggest that there were wider issues at play, but much of the rhetoric by (male) politicians and in the media concerned the status of women and the relationship between caste groups. The following excerpt from The Hindu captures the competing narratives surrounding the arson and destruction in Dharmapuri: Referring to the marriage between a Vanniyar girl and a Dalit boy that sparked off the mayhem, Dr. Ramadoss argued that inter-caste marriages had become a weapon in the hands of Dalit youth to settle score with the intermediate communities. He wanted the legal age of marriage for girls to be raised to 21 years as only then 'they would be mentally and physically prepared for marriage.' Asked about the allegation that VCK was encouraging love affairs between Dalit boys and girls from other castes with devious motives, Mr Thirumavalavan wondered whether any external agency could egg on two people to