Out of the Cheris

Abstract

Dalits (ex-Untouchables) in Tamil Nadu, as in many other places of India, have historically resided in 'cheris' or settlements set apart from the village or 'oor'. Cheris often lack amenities like schools, ration shops, health centres or panchayat buildings and are set off the main road down poorly lit and surfaced roads. This emphasises the significance of space and the spatiality of social relations to the caste system. As Dalits in Tamil Nadu have mobilised politically, therefore, they have challenged the hierarchical nature of social space. In their encroachments into such spaces, they have sought to create meaningful public spaces that are open to, and representative of, all castes. Their challenges to existing socio-political relations, however, has fuelled a backlash by castes with higher social status who often resort to violence to retain their social standing. This paper concerns the Dalit contestations over space and the wider ramifications of such struggles in the socio-political sphere. The paper argues that the process of democratisation requires alterations to social and well as political spaces and institutions.

The enclaved body: Crises of personhood and the embodied geographies of urban gating

“…The “intrusion” of a plebian caste/class habitus associated with the democratization of the public sphere meant that “the fortresses of the middle class started falling, and being divested of their generally aesthetic functions, the parks opened to the poor” leading to uses that “completely destroyed the architectural presupposition of the reciprocity between public and private space, between the houses and the green lawns” (Kaviraj, 1997: 106). The wider “democratization of caste space” (Gorringe, 2016) triggered a middle-class retreat into the domestic interior, as the breakdown of the caste/class spatial order threatened caste purity, bourgeois civility, and gendered propriety.…”