A new book examines the violent legacy of the Criminal Tribes Act on Tamil Nadu’s Maravar community

Caste inequality has been a longstanding reality in the Tamil countryside. Chola inscriptions and Bhakti poetry from a millennium ago tell of social distinctions that enabled the extraction of labour from men and women of the lower castes. Skipping forward to the early 19th century, when the British established control in the southern Madras Presidency, they witnessed slave-like agrarian servitude among Dalits. Although this was the era of global anti-slavery movements, the importance of cheap Dalit labour for land revenue meant that neither the East India Company nor, from 1858, the British Crown, intervened to abolish the system.

Consequently, well into the early 20th century, agrarian relations in the Tamil countryside continued to be marked by inequality between upper-caste landowners (often belonging to the Brahmin and Vellalar castes) and lower-caste (Pallar and Paraiyar) landless labourers. In addition to Dalits, there were other occupational caste groups that also held low status in local communities. These included Nadar, once called Shanar, who were derided for their hereditary occupation of making palm liquor, which was taboo according to Brahminical teetotalling norms.

The persistence of caste inequality does not mean that lower-caste communities did not fight for equality, dignity, or at least better living conditions. They did,...

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