When ‘the broken’ breaks through: politics of struggle and solidarity in Manchadikkari

ABSTRACT

Manchadikkari is a region in central Kerala occupied primarily by Dalit Christian communities. The majority of the people in the area are agricultural daily wage workers who have been economically and culturally marginalized. Caste discrimination and exploitation mark their past and present. The people in Manchadikkari articulate powerful anti-caste politics through their creative cultural productions like songs, stories, and plays that take shape in their community groups. The remembrance and reiteration of caste experiences in these community groups keep alive the history of caste exploitation and transmit these memories to the next generation. This paper analyses the play Azhakante Kutil (‘Azhakan’s Hut’), authored by Thankamma Titus from Manchadikkari in 2021 and performed by a group of women who are members of the community group ‘Sanjeevani.’ This study considers the processes of conceptualization, production, and performance of the play to show how these processes embody anti-caste politics. The play dwells on the community’s caste history to show that caste is not an anachronism of the feudal era but actively determines the present cultural and material conditions. When contextualized in the community, the play exists as a moving narrative of the community’s cultural activism.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-caste
• Dalit resistance
• knowledge
• land
• labor
• sexuality

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to the people of Manchadikkari, especially the women in the community, who generously shared their knowledge and experiences with me during the course of my field interactions. I thank Dr. Suchitra Mathur, Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Kanpur, India, for her analytical inputs and editorial corrections for this paper. The discussions with my colleagues in the Dalit study group at IIT Kanpur have also helped me refine this paper in various stages of its review. I also appreciate the reviewers’ engagement with this paper. A section of this paper was presented at the International Conference ‘Patterns of Struggle and Solidarity’ organized by the Postcolonial Studies Centre, Nottingham Trent University, UK, from 17^th to 19th June 2021.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ezhava is a non-Dalit caste in Kerala who are categorised as OBC.

2 The historical information is gathered primarily through the author’s direct interactions with the people in Manchadikari. The field visits were done during the period January to May 2020. The play Azhakante Kutil is performed by the women in the island, which the author watched as part of the author’s fieldwork.

3 This research is approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. The reference number of the approval is IITK/IEC/2019-20-II/20. All the respondents of the study have given their informed consent to share and publish the data.

4 The paper relies considerably on local magazines and personal interviews between the author and the people in Manchadikkari, because there is a dearth of scholarly studies and written texts on the island’s caste history.

5 Church Missionary Society was a Protestant Christian mission active in Travancore during the colonial period.

6 Cherama Sambava Development Society (CSDS) is a secular Dalit organization in Kerala that engages with their social, material, and political issues.

7 The play Azhakante Kutil is originally written in Malayalam. All the quotations from the play included in the paper are translated by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sephora Jose

Sephora Jose is a doctoral fellow in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Her research interest lies in Dalit studies, specifically caste-slavery, anti-caste movements, and Dalit religious movements in Kerala. She completed her Master’s in English Language and Literature from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala.