Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

It is an extremely readable account of Dalit Politics in Tamil Nadu
It offers analyses of caste connections, leadership styles and corruption in politics.
It analyses the relationship between caste and politics in the state, explores processes of institutionalization and evaluates the impact of the Liberation Panthers Party both in terms of its core Dalit supporters and democratization in the state.

Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

Description

In the late 1990s, a group representing Dalits in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu called the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchior Liberation Panthers Partyshook the established social and political structures. For over a decade they boycotted elections, questioning the legitimacy of institutions that failed to implement constitutional provisions and allowed casteism to persist. The Panthers conducted mass awareness campaigns for Dalit liberation, instilling a sense of empowerment in a hitherto marginalized population.

Eventually, labelled as extremists and alienated by the State, the Panthers were pushed into electoral politics. How the Panthers mobilized themselves and managed to effect changes in Tamil Nadus politics is the main premise of this ethnographic account. Looking into the processes of transition therein, the author discusses how caste considerations inform and underpin politics in the state and whether the Panthers will erode or adapt to hegemonic caste power. With its micro-empirical focus on identity politics in Tamil Nadu, the book also explores diverse dimensions of mobilization and ways in which contentious politics alters political regimes.

Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

Foreword by Surinder S. Jodhka
Preface
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Introduction: An Elegy for a Lost Movement?
Part I: From Movement to Party
1:Institutionalizing Caste Politics in Tamil Nadu
2:Twenty-First Century Casteism? Discrimination, Hierarchy, and Politics in Contemporary Tamil Nadu
3:From Protest to Politics: The Institutionalization of the Panthers
Part II: The Process of Institutionalization
4:Doing Tamil Politics: Informal Institutionalization
5:Symbolism over Substance? Symbols, Space, and Power
Part III: Co-option and Compromise: Taming the Panthers?
6:The Paradox of Parali Puthur: Leadership in Question
7:The 'Sewer of Politics': Corruption, Co-optation, and Compromise
Part IV: Beyond Institutional Politics
8:Subnational Nationalism: Reinventing Tamilness from Below?
9:The Power of the Panthers: The Outcomes of Dalit Politics
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

Author Information

Hugo Gorringe, Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh

Hugo Gorringe is Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

Reviews and Awards

"The great strength of the monograph lies in the author's mastery of the details of Tamil Nadu politics and of the place of Dalit activists within them. Panthers in Parliament will be essential reading for anyone interested in Dalit issues, but students of social movements more generally will find it a highly rewarding (and perhaps unusual) ethnographic case study of institutionalization." - David N. Gellner, University of Oxford, American Journal of Sociology

Panthers in Parliament

Dalits, Caste, and Political Power in South India

Hugo Gorringe

From Our Blog

The Liberation Panther Movement and political activism

Scholars of protest and social movements argue that voicing a vocabulary of resistance, challenging taken-for-granted assumptions and mapping out how things could be different are as important a part of the revolution as building the barricades and engaging in armed struggle. They invest the audience with a sense of the possibilities for change and encourage them to contest age old inequities.

Posted on February 28, 2017

Read the blog post