Chennai: When the Tamil Nadu government set up a dedicated department in 1988 for the welfare of Scheduled Castes, it deliberately chose to call it the ‘Adi Dravidar’ Welfare Department. People in the know told ThePrint that the choice of words was born out of a century-long political, social, and cultural struggle against labels imposed on people from Scheduled Castes in the state.
The debate over the usage of the words ‘Adi Dravidar’ instead of ‘Scheduled Castes’ has erupted once again after Chennai resident S. Marimuthu filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the Madras High Court seeking to rename the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Welfare Department.
The petitioner argued ‘Adi Dravidar’ is only one among many Scheduled Castes in Tamil Nadu and not a synonym for all SCs.
The high court, which heard the petition on 18 September, has asked the state government to explain how Scheduled Caste is equated with ‘Adi Dravidar’.
The court asked the state government to produce documentary evidence including dictionary references to justify the naming of the Adi Dravidar & Tribal Welfare Department as such, and posted the matter for further hearing later during the day.
Punitha Pandian, former vice chairperson of the Tamil Nadu State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, has filed an impleading petition in the case before the HC, and it was admitted.
Pandian said the name Adi Dravidar has been in the usage in the government records since 1922.
“Scheduled Caste communities never chose the caste names like Panchama, Paraiyar, Pallar or Sakkiliyar, which were imposed on them by dominant castes and those names carried derogatory weight,” he told ThePrint.
“To address this humiliation, then legislator M.C. Rajah brought in a resolution in the Madras Legislative Council on 20 January 1922, and passed the resolution recommending that such terms be struck off government records and replaced with Adi Dravida (in Tamil areas) and Adi Andhra (in Telugu districts),” he added.
Subsequently, the Madras Presidency issued a Government Order on 25 March 1922, formalising the usage of the word in government records, he explained.
History of Adi Dravidar Department
The AIADMK-led Tamil Nadu government issued orders in 1980-81 to use ‘Adi Dravidar’ in the place of ‘Harijan’ in official usage through department service rule. Post-independence, it was the first instance of orders being passed to replace word Harijan with Adi Dravidar.
The department of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare was formally created in 1988, carved out of the Social Welfare department. In 2000, the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare department was divided as Adi Dravidar Welfare department and Directorate of Tribal Welfare.
The word ‘Adi Dravidar’ was used in the names of government institutions even before the 1980-81 orders. A retired IAS officer said the state government had established Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation in 1974.
“So, the vocabulary shift preceded the department’s formal creation in 1988,” the IAS officer said.
Since the 1970s, there were objections from Dalit activists across the country on using the term ‘Harijan’ for SCs. In 1982, the Union government asked states to stop using the term in official communications.
“But, Tamil Nadu had stopped using the term even before the Union government had asked to do so,” the retired IAS officer told ThePrint on condition of anonymity.
The term ‘Adi Dravidar’ was not a result of such bureaucratic exercise alone. According toPandian, social reformers and early Dalit leaders were already using it.
“In 1890, activists in Madras presidency had started the Adi Dravidar Mahajana Sabha, and in 1922, writer A Perumal Pillai published a book titled ‘History of Adi Dravidas’. By the time the state officially adopted it, the term had already gained currency in self-respect movements and Justice Party leaders,” Pandian told ThePrint.
“Unlike Scheduled Caste, the word Adi Dravidar was an indigenous term rooted in Tamil society. Leaders like Periyar also supported such renaming as a way to break away from Brahminical nomenclature,” Punitha Pandian added.
Why not ‘SC Welfare’ department
S Marimuthu has argued that the word ‘Adi Dravidar’ is misleading because it appears in the central SC list as if it were a sub-caste. But affidavits filed by Punitha Pandian counter this.
Stating that the Centre itself had asked states to drop terms like ‘Harijan’ or ‘Girijan’ and adopt more respectful translations of Scheduled Caste, Punitha Pandian in his petition said that the choice of ‘Adi Dravidar’ fits this instruction.
“Unlike Social Justice or Social Welfare, which are broader policy domains, the title Adi Dravidar Welfare Department is more respectful without caste slurs,” Punitha Pandian said in his petition.
Claiming that the word Dravidar has never denoted any single caste, Punitha Pandian said adding a prefix Adi (ancient) does not make it one.
“Dictionaries, from Merriam-Webster to the Oxford English Dictionary, use Dravidian to describe a family of languages or the people of South India, not a caste. There is no community in Tamil Nadu historically known as ‘Adi Dravida’ and it is a collective, dignified identity created to replace offensive terms used against Dalits,” Punitha Pandian told ThePrint.
Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) general secretary and MP D. Ravikumar, who is also in support of the term Adi Dravidar, said the usage of the word Adi Dravidar as an attempt to free the community from humiliation.
“Although the debates continue on whether it adequately represents the diversity within the Scheduled Castes, it has liberated the community from casteist slur and other humiliation,” he said.
Nevertheless, for now the Adi Dravidar Welfare Department continues to function with a dedicated minister and secretary overseeing hundreds of hostels, training centres and welfare schemes. However, the name of the department on the doors may soon be subjected to judicial scrutiny.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)