‘Anti-Casteist Casteism?’

In this essay I discuss Tamil social reformer ‘Periyar’ E. V. Ramasamy's discourse on caste and offer a Fanonist critique of the same. Ramasamy's interventions in caste politics in Tamil Nadu involved discursive strategies directed towards three groups: the intermediate castes, whose social status as ‘Shudras’ he used as a weapon to incriminate the Brahmins; the Brahmins, who were the Other who, according to Ramasamy, by their very presence condemned the rest of the population to the status of Shudrahood and untouchability; and the untouchable Dalit castes whose particularism he respected and whom he considered allies in the struggle against casteism. Comparing with Fanon's identity politics, I explore what are the pitfalls in Ramasamy's discursive strategies. Drawing from Fanon, I conclude that a transformative praxis in search of a post-casteist society must be based on a universalism that, while being cognizant of particulars, nevertheless unsettles both the identities of the oppressor and the oppressed.