The Many Accidents, Anxieties, Joys, and Slaughters on the Road to Nowhere

 Placeholder to get this post before the year end. Will update in a few dates.

Interview with Thoɻar Thiyagu

When I shot the documentary in 2011, I had three other ideas. I was going to make one every subsequent year. Of course, I took three years just to get the first one out. When I did get it out, I felt a huge sense of relief and, mostly involuntarily, gave up on making another for the several years. Around early 2020, the ever present guilt over inaction made ripples that were becoming hard to ignore.

One of those three ideas was to document a handful of individuals with a history of engaging in activism: how they saw society pan out over decades and how they feel about the present day and the future. It was Comrade Thiyagu who had inspired this idea to begin with. It was only right, then, that I started with him. I had a couple of others that I wanted to interview the same week but couldn't. The next three years went by like a blur and eventually I figured I'll just publish the interview as is and not wait until I re-start the doc (let alone finish it).

The interview was done over two days in Semmoɻi Poonga in February 2020. First, there were technical issues with day one's audio recording. To make matters worse, there were issues with the files themselves, and I got confused over where I stored my backups. I had all but given up on recovering these files until I located them accidentally on a backup drive a few weeks ago.

In the nearly five intervening years, so many others have interviewed him, and I see he's been just as generous with them in going over his life's story at length. There's a strong sense of redundancy but I think the interview I did still has some content that's somewhat unique, which justified the decision to upload it despite its shortcomings.

Day one's audio is fairly AI-processed and layered with a secondary audio source (which is also AI-processed; sigh). It's also misaligned towards the end. I uploaded it anyway—not rendering it all over again.

Day two is yet to be reviewed. I don't see many edits.

Zoned Out: Belonging

Bookshelves - the ones that actually have books - are a luxury for an itinerant. It doesn't matter that one stays in the same place for decades, all the while feeling uprooted. Not to trivialize the travails of the incarcerated but one wonders if they ever develop a sense of homely attachment to their prison cells.

On Canada's MAID service

Note: Left this as a comment for a video on Canada's euthanasia laws (added here)

I hope that at some point this becomes a philosophical issue primarily and then sociological (socio-political to lesser extent still). That is: should one have the ‘right’ to end their life whenever they choose to and treat everything as irrelevant, incidental externalities (excepting direct, tangible harm to another/others in the process)? If the answer is yes, then the next obvious question is if the State should offer that as a service? (For the ardent free market capitalist, the question is: should there be licensed private players who provide this service?)

Why is the State or the private players required to assess the underlying circumstances/causes that led to this ‘service request’? Beyond the basic assessment to ensure one is of ‘legally sound’ mind all other questions should be moot. It's not like they can cite and impose purpose to existence (under pain/distress or not).

Most societies – I say most and not all just as an academic qualifier – follow an action-consequence model with some caveats to assess the magnitude of both cause and effect. Poverty is often the cause of crime but crimes have legal consequences regardless of underlying circumstances. Mental distress is often why someone snaps at their boss but they are fired still. Drunkenness is often why someone engages in a brawl but their face gets pounded anyway. I can cite numerous examples where we aren’t concerned about the ‘underlying circumstances’ and just deliver the consequences. And these consequences -- be it jail time, suspension, probation, a scar in the forehead etc. -- are all irreversible in their own way just as death is.

Sure, lets work on poverty alleviation, ensuring there’s near-equal access to all primary services (education, security, healthcare, legal-aid etc.) but let’s not conflate that with what is fundamentally a philosophical question.

Talking Back

Scenes like the one above have been featured in many films and TV shows. A version of something that most of us must have experienced multiple times during our school days ourselves. But this one, from Normal People, was uncanny in how close it was to an experience of mine.

Every time I’ve been caught in the act -- of being zoned out/falling asleep etc. -- I’d be slapped, caned or at the very least have a piece of chalk thrown at me by the teacher. The kindest of them yelled, insulted, and made me stand outside the class.

I’d fantasize about talking back to them, cornering them into a muted stupor, or worse an incoherent repartee that did not land.

The day actually came about when I was 20 years old. I was in my final year of college and my levels of insolence with the faculty that semester had gained some notoriety. The class was of one Ms. S, dreaded by students for being a bitter, humorless hag with a habit of escalating everything to the department head. I was distracted as usual and the lecturer suddenly called me out, “Suresh! You think you’ll be able to understand this by looking out the window?”

I turned to her, as if with the reflex of a thousand rehearsals, and said, “I don’t think I’ll follow what you’re teaching even if I paid attention.”

There was a stunned silence in the entire class for about 3 seconds. My classmates who are generally rowdy during these types of exchanges went completely quiet. For I didn’t squirm in embarrassment or deflect with a sheepish grin, and the fact that I spoke ‘proper’ English did its part too, I imagine. The few words that I could hear were ones of disapproval -- hushed ‘dei!’s -- directed at me.

The lecturer regained her composure and said, “come and see me after the class.”
Once again, without a pause, I replied, “I’ll think about it.” She said nothing, just wore a puzzled stare.

I had done it. It had taken about 17 years from the first conscious memory of a similar situation but I finally shut the authority figure in the room. A few murmurs started to emerge and the disapproval was unmistakably audible but she averted her gaze and continued on with the lecture.

I started preparing for a bigger showdown but that was the end of it. I didn’t see her after the class and no one brought it up again. I was nowhere near the smartest in the classroom, unlike Marianne in the show, but maybe Ms. S was convinced that it's futile to pursue any disciplinary action.

It was a telling moment in my life. That everyone hated her was no secret but even so they felt that I went too far. I realized that youthful petulance and churlish behaviour in front of authority figures should not be taken for anti-establishment sentiment. It’s merely an inchoate germ that has the potential to become something more ideological when cultivated carefully but has little value unto itself.

 An exchange later in the show underscores this point: the idea that some forms of authoritarianism is par for the course, especially when it carries the semblance of being universal. A de facto surrender is what is then expected even (or especially) by your peers. And at the hands of a 'decent guy' it's almost desirable.

The psychological relief and the momentary sense of control one enjoys by standing up, by saying 'fuck you!', even if faced with dire consequences, is enviable, after all. It is a privilege and unfortunately it is accessible only to a few.

Blurb of Intent

The last time I mentioned my intent to make a documentary it took over 5 years to actually have it done. And that was when I had a clear idea as to what I wanted to do and there was no uncertainty about whether I really wanted to do it. Neither of which is the case this time around. The scope of the topic and scale of the production is also likely to be more daunting. It will be significantly more contentious, controversial, polemical and even problematic. I will have to spend the next year or two researching for it and scripting it down to its near-final form. What's left then will be to interview 30-50 people and condense it into a 2-3 part docu-series that could serve as a primer for understanding contemporary Tamil polity.

This post is purely for my nostalgic reflection in the future.

Sober existence

At one point in Norm's 'Me Doing Standup' he says, "I don't know if you've ever had a one night stand, dead clean sober, but I have, and it's not a lot of fun". I thought about this while watching Euphoria. There are so many shows that deal with substance abuse in great detail (by various age/class groups); I can barely relate to any of them but I also get it. As in, "of course, why wouldn't you?" And simultaneously this counter/adjoining thought occurs: I don't know if you've experienced all of existence dead clean sober, but I have, and it's not a lot of fun.

Ra(d̷i̷c̷a̷)cialized people

Understandings and reflections one would encounter on race, caste, aesthetics etc., in the subcontinent is likely to be more diverse than reality itself. But some instances are poetic in their pithiness, presenting a truth that is complex and layered even if unintended. One such is the video below, especially the part where he mentions "Kashmiri brahman".

Grief (induced by the abstract)

    I saw the movie Man on the Moon in 2002; I had not even turned 20 then. It introduced me to the idea of self-effacement (self-erasure, self-caricature etc., apply too) in service of a craft that might not be considered respectable by many. Or in artistic terms, high art. One could, perhaps, think of people like Charlie Chaplin and 'clown acts' as a whole that might fit this category, but Andy Kaufman is of a unique breed. For Kaufman blended the performative with the 'real' and dared to explore its boundaries, apparently heedless of the consequences [1]. The ultimate act being his death itself, shrouded in manufactured (false) mystery.

I first got to watch Norm MacDonald in 'The Norm Show' around the same time. It was sharp and witty like some of the other sitcoms I liked but it was considerably more mischievous, in a dark, and perhaps deviant sense. Oh, he was also very likeable because he could barely keep a straight face. Over the next several years I sought after and consumed every bit of Norm I could find [2]. It wasn't long before I started quoting and paraphrasing him in real life conversations, mostly to 'nonplussed' faces.

Many of Norm's semi-serious pronouncements did not sit well with me but I could not help but admire his fearlessness and commitment to a certain idea of his craft and the integrity it required. This idea, I thought, was constantly trying to resolve a paradox: humour exists in a context within a mind but it also seeks validation from an audience, even if only one, that might not be on board. True, there is humour in the unacknowledgement of it too, but to proceed with no regard for this paradox is where one declares their allegiance. Norm did it more often and more successfully than others.

Condescension and even misanthropy are second nature to most standups (the good ones). It is a professional hazard. But Norm was generally better at masking it. Norm might have been inspired by Kaufman at some level, if not by his methods, by his chutzpah (which, ironically, is often projected as ignorance or gaucherie in their acts). His performance was driven by a semiotic sensibility that drew liberally from irony and farce. Norm saying "wait till you hear me do it" is one of the rare occasions he acknowledged his prowess. His profession did not get in the way of being genuine and earnest, nevertheless.

My everyday time-waste routine involved watching at least one or two of Norm's videos. They were always in my recommended list on YouTube and I never got annoyed by its ubiquity. It's been over a month since he passed away and my routine has been hit with melancholic disruption. I am now recommended videos of various comedians expressing their shock and sorrow at his passing; especially that he kept his nine year 'battle' with cancer a secret. Kaufman seems to have inspired him in at least one other aspect.

Norm had not put out any specials in a long time; even so the occasional word here and there in the plethora of podcasts had been reassuring, that there's flow still. Not anymore. But unlike most of his contemporaries we are not left just with a static composition but an iconic syntax. It's as if he used hours and hours of material that spans over decades to distill a predictable yet unique language structure that held his audience in wilful thrall. So much so that his fans seem compelled to speak citationally wherever possible [3]. This is a rare form of adoration that few artists, let alone comics, have achieved.

A palpable grief has crept in the last few days and has caused some dissonance. I have often wondered whether a favourite writer/artist who stopped producing anything for a long time being dead or alive makes a difference. Especially if there was no realistic chance of meeting them in person, for what it's worth. In a strictly rational sense they are only an abstract entity whose real existence should not matter. We all get a periodic reminder that our rational self is always playing catch up, and Norm's death is one for me.

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[1] - The film The Prestige comes to mind. 

[2] - Some self praise: it turned out that I was among the few in the 'audience' to get his act on The Roast of Bob Saget and was howling the entire set.

[3] - This essay is no exception.

Parts and the whole

An analogical thought experiment.

Person A lives in the main level of a house with all the modern first world comforts. Personal B lives on the roof of the same house with none of the aforementioned comforts and exposed to the elements year around. In fact, person A is able to enjoy those comforts because person B has been deprived of the same. The house may or may not have been designed to be so but that is how it is now. Person A and B are aware of each other's existence and their corresponding quality of life. Both occasionally wonder if their living arrangements are deliberate.

Given the above:

Person A says, "I live in one of the best houses out there. Sure the inequality needs to be addressed but it's still great".

Person B says, "I live in one of the best houses out there. Sure the inequality needs to be addressed but it's still great".

If one were to assign the attribute 'problematic' to only one of the two statements whose should it be?

Songs about stuff

Thank goodness for American music (and those from other English speaking countries), for songs about cats, dogs, trains, buses, paper, pens and all kinds of inanimate objects, and abstract and absurd thoughts.

End of Daft Punk

    Daft Punk announced their cessation today. 20 years ago their song 'Aerodynamic' sucked me into the world of electronic music and I have not cared much about other genres since then. The poetics of electronic music is not trapped in any abstruse movement but a primordial rhythm. This very accessibility has often been derided as being devoid of any substance but artists like Daft Punk have laid bare the emptiness of that argument and even their 'epilogue' does it.

I'll mark this moment (too) with a few words for now: of the many regrets in my life, missing out their concert in Toronto in 2007 will always rank high. So much so that I had mentioned to my friends several times that I'd spend a significant portion of my savings to watch them live when they tour again, no matter which part of the world it happens to be. A sentiment like that is atypical if not antithetical for me but once in a while our ideology, convictions and ethics give way to our cravings and indulgences, where we embrace the eternally flawed being within us. Only that this one would have easily survived the self-effacement and conscientious scrutiny that follow such 'lapses'.

For someone who's obsessed about 'punctuating memories' (putting in quotes here because it might appear again in another format, in the future) it's the absence of one that will stay with me.

Edit, Feb 25:

This is the epic tour  

More people in the same boat.

 

Learning To Die: Episode 3 - Socratic Method and Plato's Dialogues

This episode is a primer to Plato's Dialogues.

Edit, Feb 22:  Had a bad fall and re-injured my back again a couple of weeks ago. Not sure when I'll be able to continue this.

Learning To Die: Episode 2 - Socrates in The Clouds

In this episode we get a glimpse of Socrates in his early years; discuss Aristophanes's The Clouds and way he portrays Socrates in the play.

Learning To Die: Episode 1 - The Pre-Socratics

 

In this episode I discuss the origins of Western Philosophy; a few basic philosophical ideas in general and go over some key Pre-Socratic thinkers and their major thoughts.

Learning To Die: Preface

This episode is the preface to my new podcast series on Western philosophy: Learning To Die; இறத்தல் அறிதல் in Tamil. 

I think it'd be redundant to type out what I've discussed in the podcast but it is, perhaps, prudent to disabuse the uneasiness the title is likely to cause.

The title is inspired by what Plato says in the Phaedo: "…those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying". Montaigne rewrote that as "to learn to philosophize is to learn to die" in one of his essays. The are some well known metaphorical readings of Plato's words but my reasons aren't just that.

I hope all listeners start with this episode so they know what they could expect from the series and orient their engagement accordingly. 

Note: This blog will only be temporary 'host' for the podcast series until I get to setting up a dedicated site.

Like a tree

When this blog is scoured for 'evidence' in the future, let it be known that the following chapter -- from  Kim Stanley Robinson's book, The Ministry for the Future -- encapsulates a scene that has played out in my mind for decades.

We were on the lakefront in Brissago, on the Swiss side of Lake
Maggiore, partying on the lawn of Cinzia’s place, just above the narrow
park between her property and the lake. She had a celebrity chef there
who cooked with a welder’s torch he used to fire at the bottom of big
frypans he held in the air, and a band with a brass section, and a light
show and all that. Altogether a righteous party, and lots of happy people
there, skewing young because that’s the way Cinzia likes it.
    But the narrow stretch of grass between her lawn and the lake was a
public park, and as we partied we saw a guy down there on the shore,
just standing there staring up at us. Some kind of beachcomber dude,
holding a piece of driftwood. Nothing Cinzia’s security could do about
him, they told us. Actually they could have if they wanted to, but they
didn’t. The local police might make trouble if someone were objected to
for just standing on a public beach. This is what one of them told us
when we told him to make the guy go away. The guy was skinny and
bedraggled and he just kept staring, it was offensive. Like some kind of
Bible guy laying his morality on us.
    So finally a few of us went down there to do what the security team
ought to have done, and send this guy packing. Edmund led the way as
usual, he was the one most annoyed, and we followed along because
when he was annoyed Edmund could be really funny.
    The guy watched us come up to him and didn’t move an inch, didn’t
say a word. It was a little weird, I didn’t like it.
    Edmund got in the guy’s face and told him to leave.
    The guy said to Edmund something like, You fuckers are burning up
the world with your stupid games.
    Edmund laughed and said, “Dost thou think because thou art virtuous,
there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
    We laughed at that, but then this guy hit Edmund with the chunk of
driftwood he was holding, so fast we had no time to react. Edmund went
down like a tree, didn’t get his hands up or anything, just boom. He had
been cold-cocked.
    The guy held his piece of wood out at us and we froze. Then he
tossed it at us and took off right into the lake, swimming straight out into
the night. We didn’t know what to do— no one wanted to swim off after
a nut like that, not in the dark, and besides we were concerned about
Edmund. It just looked bad, the way he went down. Like a tree. Cinzia’s
security finally joined us, but they only wanted to hold the perimeter,
they didn’t chase the guy either. They took over checking out Edmund,
and when they did that they quickly got on their phones. An ambulance
showed up in about five minutes and took him away. After that it was a
couple of hours before we got word. We couldn’t believe it. Edmund was
dead.

Chipper is dead

Chipper passed away a couple of days ago (September 12, 2.30 AM) due to heart failure caused by pericardial effusion. There were no prior signs. He was playing in the park nearby when he suddenly stopped and collapsed. The vets in the emergency clinic could not save him.

I used to dread this day from the time I kissed him on his tiny forehead the first time, nine years ago. I knew that his death will affect me like nothing else could. It is hard to explain the relationship I had with him even to those who have had 'dog children'. I'm not in a mental state to write anything else at this point but I wanted to mark this moment.

 

The power of making tools

I'll come back and update this post, briefly discussing the history and the philosophical import of  'tools' , tool making; reflect on how it came to define a species, drive history in a certain direction etc.

For now, I just want to capture Adam Savage's unbridled joy and poise when he says

"It was so satisfying to make all these parts and slowly assemble a working, beautiful tool using my own hands. I know that I'm a machine operator, I know I know how to use this machine (the lathe) within some parameters. But the full marrying of my mechanical skills with the aesthetic skills has made the journey of making this vice something that is almost like a new lens with which I want to look at the world. Yeah, it's just increased my understanding of what's possible for me to do. And that's kind of an intoxicating feeling."

Incomplete reading of incomplete texts

The controversy that seems to have affected the ‘Tamil intelligentsia’ the last few days caught my attention and I wanted to talk about some things that bothered me. I’m still too lazy and disinterested to write anything coherently, though. I’ll just make some broad observations around various reactions that it’s garnered and some that are specific to the article itself.

Ethnography/ethnographic research was among the most seriously contested fields in the mid-later part of the 20th century. This article gives a very good breakdown of the challenges that it faces to this day. Unlike quantitative studies that sociologists engage in, ethnography tries to present narratives that aren’t necessarily meant to be extrapolated (the qualitative vs quantitative camps within sociology have a history of their own). It presents an account of a people in a place at a time (or within a time frame). It’s a form of record keeping that is supposed to be done by people who are trained scholars capable of providing contexts and ideological clarity along with the observations they’re recording. Such endeavours are invariably susceptible to all kinds of bias -- wilful, unintentional, editorial etc., layered by racial, ethno-linguistic, ideological etc. The onus has long been shifted to the reader to extract knowledge from these studies. It’s for them to apply qualifiers and retain misgivings on top of those applied by the researchers/authors themselves. It is definitely not meant for popular consumption by untrained readers.

The reader may not like the ‘findings’ presented by the authors. It may not be politically correct. It may be highly problematic when situated within a larger socio-political/temporal context. But none of this should automatically lead to the assumption that the authors did not approach the study in good faith or that they employed unscrupulous/unethical methods to obtain their data. It’s highly possible that it indeed is the case but the reader must resist the urge to embrace that conclusion immediately.

About the EPW article

It’s poorly written (this includes, verbiage, translation, phrasing etc) and it could be accused of taking a patronizing or even a casteist tone -- it doesn’t help that all 3 authors were either OBC or upper caste. Even so, in a purely academic sense, it’s completely irrelevant.

It makes quite a few leaps in terms of what participants seem to say and the immediate conclusions that the authors draw from it. It is unknown how many participated and whose stories/accounts were taken as median to string the narrative. I’m also aware that this is EPW -- which is not the most prestigious journal around -- and it’s an ethnographic study. So I know that the ‘takeaways’ are to be situated specifically to that village and read as a kind of oral history that cannot be extrapolated.

For now I’m going to play the contrarian and choose not to impute any bad faith and assume that in spite of the shortfalls -- in terms of declaring the reason for conducting the study, the basic methodology behind it, the number of participants, the exact reason this village was chosen (other than it being close to Chennai) etc. -- it should be read from a value neutral standpoint.

Reading the broad thematic progression of the article (at least, the way I would summarize it[1]), one might find similar patterns of behaviour in many communities that are in flux; trying to negotiate racial inequality, transition/thrust into modernity, postcoloniality etc.

Some key points that seem to have bothered many

Dalit youths from Thirunur can’t seem to hold a steady job; they engage in acts of provocation and violence; they spend beyond their means to dress and appear attractive/fashionable; they woo upper caste women to assert their masculinity.

I would like to lay out a hypothetical scenario and see how it plays out for the reader.

A dalit ethnographer who has an ‘unblemished’ track record among dalits and progressives wants to record the “changing meanings of masculinity” in a village in Tamil Nadu. She employs an algorithm that picks a village at random filtering for population > 2000 and dalits to be > 50% (because she wants to study dalit majority villages). She arrives in the village and starts interviewing willing participants after explaining in great detail what the interview is meant for and where their words might end up (the methodology including the consent form is approved by an ethics committee composed of dalits, and non-dalit academics).

At end of the study she makes the following observations among others:

Dalit youths from randomly selected village can’t seem to hold a steady job; they engage in acts of provocation and violence; they spend beyond their means to dress and appear attractive/fashionable; they woo upper caste women to assert their masculinity.

Should she publish them given the potential for it to be misappropriated by those with vested interests?

Should she have abandoned the project in the middle once she realized it’s not going in a ‘desirable’ direction?

Should she ignore the median responses and pick the ones that make for more politically correct conclusions that are also less prone to problematic reading when stripped off context in social media?

Let’s say the researcher goes ahead and publishes the article after much deliberation.

Is the reader going to claim that it is impossible for such readings/observations to occur in such circumstances? If so, is it because the reader knows or did a study he/herself (in the exact same village at the exact same time) that contests the other study’s findings?

Exactly on what basis is the reader saying that it’s completely falsified or biased? Wouldn’t it be puzzling if the reader dismissed ethnographic studies because they don’t follow the scientific method and yet their own dismissal has no scientific basis?

Given this researcher is a self identifying dalit woman from rural Tamil Nadu, what is the disgruntled reader going to accuse her of? Being a turncoat?

But the reader need not worry for it is only a hypothetical situation. In reality the reader is free to furrow into the authors' identities at the expense of the points made in the study itself.

My personal opinion on the ‘problematic findings’

1. Dalit youths from Thirunur can’t seem to hold a steady job; they engage in acts of violence

Historically, people from marginalized groups have often found it difficult to fit into modernist/capitalist sites such as factories and other regulated workplaces (one can include schools in this too). Many first nations people of Canada are caught in a cycle of unemployment, substance abuse, crime and incarceration. Almost all studies implicate the residential school system and the government policy that has consistently failed them for decades. No one accuses the researchers for painting the indigenous people in a poor light. That they cannot hold a steady job or that they engage in violent/delinquent behaviour is a direct result of their historical positioning and its readily acknowledged (at least among those who aren’t halfwits) [2]. It’s frustrating to read dalit intellectuals/'observers' not give their own youth this minimal 'concession' after enduring hegemonic violence and disenfranchisement for centuries. If they’re able rise above it -- as overwhelming majority of them have -- great, but it’s understandable if they cannot. It’s no small moral burden to overcome and they don’t owe it anyone. (Please refer to Fanon on this topic and also bell hooks' critique of Fanon.)

The first instinctively driven priority for most members of disenfranchised groups often is to achieve parity (yes, I'm qualifying this statement on multiple levels); not just in aspects that are socio-political or economical but also in simple acts of peformativity, gendered or otherwise. The moral/ethical/rational considerations are secondary [3].

2. They spend beyond their means to dress and appear attractive/fashionable; they woo upper caste women to assert their masculinity.

This was recorded in the most value neutral sense for the most part, except when they discuss the economics of it where there’s a hint of paternalistic critique for their ‘irresponsible’ behaviour.

The second part of it needs to be addressed with the reader’s views on sex and sexuality.

Mine align with what is legally recognized in most ‘developed’ countries. I do not place sex within a moral framework. A man can lie about his age, job, intent to marry or any number of other details. As long as the sexual act itself is consensual the many falsities that it was predicated on is still immaterial. (I’ll say vice versa just for the record.) For instance, I find it hard to sympathize with those who are sad because they had sex with the 'wrong person' or for the 'wrong reasons'. It's unfortunate that that's what they have internalized from their lived realities and have not been able to transcend it but I just do not subscribe to that value system. (I am saying this fully aware that sex, class and dignity are intertwined  discursively in various degrees all over the world.)

So I don’t have a problem with men ‘targeting’ women from certain groups. Even if it’s with a ‘sinister agenda’: to ‘entrap’ them into a ‘false marriage' just to extort a ransom from the bride. It is unethical at worst and even that because of the social context in which it happens. Outside of it it’s just a laughable notion. (Please don’t muddy this with actual criminal acts involving children, revenge porn or related threats, and coercion.)

Nevertheless, I do need to remind that nowhere in the article is there a suggestion that the dalit youth want to ‘entrap’ upper caste women with such ulterior motives. It is stated as a matter of fact based on the participants' own words. They should have qualified certain acts as commonplace among youth in general -- especially for readers who are not well versed with the larger milieu -- but this kind of 'incompleteness' is not unusual in such studies. They follow their own dialectic with contestations and correctives coming from within academia. The EPW article begins with faulty methodology and arrives at faulty conclusions. This is perhaps where a dalit reader may not be as generous and ascribe malicious intent (while I would stop at egregious error in judgment).

Final thoughts

The reason I wanted to write about it is not because I am interested in the topic or I personally care about the authors of the article. It was more in response to the outrage and their premises. It is to point to the possibility that in spite of a robust methodology, a larger sample size, a rigorous theoretical framework accompanied by exhaustive literature review and a clear conscience from the researchers, 'problematic' findings do occur. I think it's very important then that we stop and question the bases for the outrage itself.

For instance, there's a claim that Thirumavalavan instructed dalit youth to lure/entice upper caste women, popularized by Ramadoss and many believe it. All I have seen is a rush to 'clear' Thirumavalavan from this accusation; I have yet to find someone who says "so what if he did?" in response.

An individual/groups (supposed) disposition for violence, engagement in 'unscrupulous' sexual activity (or just its markers and 'rituals') etc., have been engineered to dismiss the disenfranchised's historicity and situatedness by hegemonic forces. It is critical that we disengage from that polemic and ethos even as we debate the merits of a study that makes those observations.

Of course, I would be sternly reminded of the social reality within which these ideas are put forth and how one cannot be dismissive of those concerns. I would concede that much too, but our ideological positions cannot always be dictated by complicated, regressive social realities.

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Notes:

1. The village ‘belonged’ to the land owning mudaliars and the dalits were daily wagers working in the former’s land. The economic dependency ensured that the caste structure remained unchallenged (with its concomitant effects from emasculation to lack of agency of the dalits). At one point the landowners migrate out of the village due to various reasons and the dalits simultaneously get to own more agricultural land and find other modes of employment. The dalits now outnumber the mudaliars as well. The relative economic independence and new found strength in numbers embolden them to act out their hitherto suppressed masculinities. This nascent masculinity, not as materially substantiated as that of the mudaliars of the yore, is dynamic and manifests in various forms -- drinking and smoking as acts of performative transgression, teasing/harrassing uppercaste girls etc -- that are often a result of being the actors in a certain dialectic. If one were to overlook the poor structure and bad writing, the article progressively illustrates the potency of historical materialism that undergirds the roles taken on by the ‘oppressors’ and the ‘oppressed’. The point about the victimization of women on both sides of the caste hierarchy is cursory at best, though.

2. This includes the hostility and prejudices they encounter in the form of institutionalized racism, sexism, casteism etc.

3. The 'aspirational brahminness' exhibited by non-brahmins in large cities like Madras is an example of this.

Addendum:

In light of other revelations around this study -- the second version of it which was included as part of a larger research -- that I learnt about after writing the post above  it is hard not to attribute bad faith to the authors. C Lakshmanan's response in EPW -- whose existence I was not aware of either -- in fact follows the exact rhetorical tract I had claimed as imperative for one to question studies such as these. It also adds to my other claim that "'[t]hey follow their own dialectic with contestations and correctives coming from within academia."

Many of the reactions that prompted me to write the original post were also made before the information gained traction (about the second version and C Lakshmanan's response in EPW).