Table Of ContentTamil Brahmans
Tamil Brahmans
The Making of a Middle-Class Caste
C. J. Fuller
Haripriya NarasiMHaN
The university of Chicago press
Chicago and london
C. J. Fuller is emeritus professor of anthropology at the london school of
economics. He is the author of several books, including The Camphor Flame
and The Renewal of the Priesthood.
Haripriya Narasimhan is assistant professor of social anthropology and
sociology at the indian institute of Technology Hyderabad.
The university of Chicago press, Chicago 60637
The university of Chicago press, ltd., london
© 2014 by The university of Chicago
all rights reserved. published 2014.
printed in the united states of america
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5
isBN-13: 978–0-226–15260–8 (cloth)
isBN-13: 978–0-226–15274–5 (paper)
isBN-13: 978–0-226–15288–2 (e-book)
DOi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226152882.001.0001
library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data
Fuller, C. J. (Christopher John), 1949– author.
Tamil brahmans : the making of a middle-class caste / C. J. Fuller and
Haripriya Narasimhan.
pages ; cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBN 978-0-226-15260-8 (cloth : alk. paper) —
isBN 978-0-226-15274-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) —
isBN 978-0-226-15288-2 (e-book) 1. Brahmans—india—Tamil Nadu—
social conditions. 2. Tamil (indic people)—india—Tamil Nadu—social
conditions. 3. Middle class—india—Tamil Nadu. 4. Caste—india—Tamil
Nadu. 5. Tamil Nadu (india)—social conditions. i. Narasimhan, Haripriya,
author. ii. Title.
Ds432.B73F85 2014
305.894’8110548208622—dc23
2013046104
a This paper meets the requirements of aNsi/NisO Z39.48–1992
(permanence of paper).
CONTeNTs
Acknowledgments / vii
Note on Transliteration / ix
introduction / 1
ONe / The Village: Caste, land, and emigration to the City / 29
TWO / education and employment in the Colonial period / 61
THree / education and employment after independence / 89
FOur / The Changing position of Women / 123
FiVe / urban Ways of life / 153
siX / religion, Music, and Dance / 183
seVeN / Tamil Brahmans as a Middle-Class Caste / 211
appeNDiX / Tamil Brahman Demographics / 231
Glossary / 243
Notes / 245
Bibliography / 259
Index / 273
aCkNOWleDgMeNTs
since 2003, when we began the research on which this book is based, count-
less people have given us information and guidance, discussed our work
with us, and commented on our writings. unfortunately, it is impossible
to thank them all here and we apologize to those whose names are omit-
ted, but there is still a long list of people to whom we must express our
gratitude.
First and foremost, we are grateful to all the people who told us about
themselves, their families, their communities, and their life and work, in
the course of our research on the middle class in Chennai in 2003–5 and
on Tamil Brahmans, particularly members of the eighteen-Village Vattima
community, in Chennai, the village of Tippirajapuram, and elsewhere in
2005–8. in this book, all our informants have been given pseudonyms,
but we can still thank those who have been especially helpful to us. They
include the late rajagopal Natarajan, the late Jayam Vasudevan, the late
komalavalli Vedantachari, T. Vedanthachari and s. parthasarathy, and V. l.
Vijayaraghavan; T. kannan Jagan and indira Jagan, r. ramkumar, p. rama-
lingam, the late V. M. ravikumar, akila satheesh, and srikant srinivasan;
a. V. ramamurthy and Thayyu ramamurthy and their extended families,
a. V. swaminathan and Mangalam swaminathan, N. gopalaswamy, V. pi-
chu, subbu ramamurthy, santha raman, and Jayam Venkatraman. We owe
special thanks for their help and hospitality to J. pari, akila santhanam, and
k. s. sasisekaran.
For their comments, criticisms, advice, and encouragement, we thank
those who read an earlier draft of this book: isabelle Clark-Decès, John Har-
riss (who also worked with us in Chennai in 2003–5), Mekhala krishna-
murthy, Johnny parry (whose criticisms were characteristically acute),
Nandini sundar, and David Washbrook, as well as Mattison Mines and
viii / acknowledgments
sylvia Vatuk, who read the manuscript for the university of Chicago press.
For valuable conversations about Tamil Brahmans, we also thank s. anan-
dhi, pushpa arabindoo, indira arumugam, Janaki Bakhle, Mukulika Ban-
erjee, Véronique Benei, andré Béteille, Maurice Bloch, Nick Dirks, Henrike
Donner, peggy Froerer, ramachandra guha, eugene irschick, M. a. kalam,
David ludden, David Mosse, V. k. Natraj, M. s. s. pandian, indira peterson,
gyan prakash, arvind rajagopal, Bhavani raman, Velcheru Narayana rao,
the late Marie-louise reiniche, Charles stafford, sanjay subrahmanyam,
Carol upadhya, peter van der Veer, rupa Viswanath, and susan Wadley. We
have benefited, too, from comments on our work at seminars and confer-
ences in Britain, Canada, germany, india, the Netherlands, and especially
the united states. We also owe a general debt of gratitude to our colleagues
in the london school of economics for critical encouragement over many
years, and thank the asian College of Journalism, Chennai, where Haripriya
was working at the time, for giving us space and time to discuss this book
in January 2012.
We are grateful for the support of David Brent and priya Nelson, and the
scrupulous copyediting of susan karani, at the university of Chicago press.
We thank sanjeev routray for research assistance in the university of Brit-
ish Columbia archives, and Mina Moshkeri for preparing the maps in this
book. Thanks are due to the economic and social research Council, which
financially supported all our research, and to the lse for supplementary
assistance.
last but not least, we owe a debt of gratitude to our families: penny
logan and alexis Fuller, and amma, appa, Nikhil, raman, and subha.
Haripriya hopes sunetra will read this book some day.
NOTe ON TraNsliTeraTiON
all indian terms are systematically transliterated with diacritics and itali-
cized. The proper names of Hindu deities, offices, and institutions, how-
ever, appear with diacritics only on first appearance and thereafter their
spellings are adjusted in the usual way (e.g., shiva for s´iva). Many Tamil
terms in this book are Tamilized sanskrit and are transliterated accordingly,
instead of from the pure Tamil forms that only specialists would recognize
(e.g., agraha¯ram, not akkiraka¯ram). sanskrit religious terms and names are
also transliterated from their more familiar sanskrit forms, rather than their
Tamil ones (e.g., dars´ana, not taricanam; s´iva, not Civan). a similar conven-
¯ ¯
tion is followed for revenue terms of persian or arabic origin (e.g., mira¯sida¯r,
not mira¯cuta¯r). personal names, caste names, and geographical and histori-
cal names, however, are spelled in their conventional, english forms. in
many cases, there are several conventional forms, so that one has had to
be selected—normally the commonest or most accurate transliteration.
“Brahman” is preferred over “Brahmin”; for the Tamil Brahman honorifics,
“aiyar” and “aiyangar” are preferred over variants such as “ayyar,” “iyer,”
“ayyangar,” “iyengar,” etc. in general, though, personal names are spelled
as individuals (apparently) preferred, so that when an honorific is part of a
man’s personal name, the form he used is retained. For geographical names,
the main difficulty is that many towns, cities, states, districts, etc., have been
renamed since independence. Thus, for example, the Tamil-speaking region
of the Madras presidency became Madras state after independence and was
renamed Tamilnadu (Tamil Nadu) in 1969; the city of Madras was renamed
Chennai in 1996. in general, names of places appropriate to the historical
context are used, but alternative names are indicated where necessary.
