From stigma to self-assertion

Abstract

This article examines the process by which the Paraiyars, one of the Dalit communities of Tamil Nadu, South India, attempt to reconstruct their identity by revalorising the symbols of pollution that defined them as low and defiled into positive symbols of their culture. It argues that conflict, confrontation and radical rupture from the dominant community were essential for the formation of a new collective consciousness. Conflictual social relations between the Paraiyars and the Vanniyars, the dominant high-caste group in the village, became a resource and impetus that made the Paraiyars conscious of their stigmatised identity and persuaded them to form a new and positive self-identity that expressed aspirations for the future even as it memorialised past suffering. This article focuses on the resignification of the parai drum and the related symbols and myths that were used by the higher castes to define the Paraiyars as polluted and segregated.