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Acting in public versus forming a public: Conflictprocessing and political mobilization in nineteenthcentury South IndiaPamela G. Price aa Universitetet i OsloPublished online: 08 May 2007.

To cite this article: Pamela G. Price (1991) Acting in public versus forming a public: Conflict processing and politicalmobilization in nineteenth century South India, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 14:1, 91-121, DOI:10.1080/00856409108723149

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South Asia ,Vol. XIV, no. 1 (1991), pp. 91-121

ACTING IN PUBLIC VERSUS FORMINGA PUBLIC: CONFLICT PROCESSINGAND POLITICAL MOBILIZATION INNINETEENTH CENTURY SOUTH INDIA:

Pamela G. PriceUniversitetet i Oslo

This paper examines the nature of the public in early 19th century southIndia. A major concern in so doing is to explore the changing dynamics ofethnic conflict. The main focus here is a long-term dispute among castesin the town of Masulipatnam on the Andhra Coast. Under British rule inthe 19th century conflicts in public over status ranking and ritual honourswere no longer aspects of indigenous processes of state formation. Asparticipants in contests struggled with the political limitations as well asthe opportunities in the new imperial context, they representedthemselves in public in new ways, taking new associational forms andcreating a new type of political society. Still, acting within a segmentalpolitical structure which had been truncated by the development of theimperial state, they took part in a public life which showed features ofcontinuity with pre-colonial politics.

Introduction

Scholars of nineteenth century Indian political development havetraditionally focussed on the emergence of 'public men' and 'publicopinion', as the participants termed themselves and their activities.1

These studies have focused on the formation of voluntary associationsand the articulation of criticism and concern in speeches and in printregarding imperial policies and principles of rule. The English-languageeducated public thus formed politically mobilized groups which heldcharacteristics similar to the critical public which played an importantrole in eighteenth and nineteenth century European politics.2

1 The ubiquitous appearance of the adjective 'public' is found in quotations cited in R.Suntharalingam, Politics and Nationalist Awakening in South India, 1852-1891(Tucson, 1974), pp.151-230. See also, 'Vakil as Public Man', Madras Law Journal, Partxvi (1914); pp.132-3.

2 See references in Sandria Freitag's article in this volume.

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This tradition in Indian historiography has produced studies of thedevelopment of political nationalism in India, i.e. the movements toform, first, an Indian nation state and, then, a Muslim nation state. Ithas, for the most part, tended not to produce descriptions of andexplanations for the development of various other kinds of political andcultural nationalisms.3 With the hindsight which comes at the end of thetwentieth century we find political and cultural nationalism, i.e. ethnicconflict, to be a major characteristic of subcontinental politics and theone perhaps most in need of description and analysis.

One alternative line of analysis is to reconsider the structure andthe meaning of participation in 'the public' and 'in public' in nineteenthcentury India. It appears that scholars have previously followed theEuropean model of public participation which their subjects articulatedand which the latter based upon their own familiarity with Europeanhistory and their contemporaneous contact with European sources. Theargument here is that there were other aspects of 'public life' and othertypes of participants which have usually been ignored, but whichexamined can expose processes of social and political conflict anddevelopment.

With reference to the south Indian context — and possibly for otherparts of the subcontinent as well — it is particularly useful to focus onvarious connotations of the word 'public'. This is because, as the sectionbelow examines, ritual performances in open spaces, i.e. in public, playedan important role in articulating political relations in pre-colonial statesand, similarly, in constituting and representing the authority and statusof groups and persons. Thus, with a focus on the meaning of appearingin public and on the development of publics in Indian terms we candistinguish both what was new in the nineteenth century and whatevolved from pre-colonial precedents.

First it will be necessary to clarify the distinction between being inpublic and forming a public. It is an argument of this paper that, while itis problematic to speak of the existence of the public (or publics) in pre-colonial south India, we can more easily use the term in analysingnineteenth century south Indian political behaviour.

To be 'in public' is to act in an open forum or arena in arepresentational manner. To act in public in a political context, then, isto assume a representational stance in relationship to power, status andauthority in a context that demands or assumes representation. 'A

3 Exceptions are, for example, Rosalind O'Hanlon, Caste, Conflict and Ideology:Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Low Caste Protest in Nineteenth-century Western India(Cambridge, 1985); John R. McLane, Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress(Princeton, 1977); Sandria B. Freitag, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenasin the Emergence of Communalism in North India (Berkeley, 1989).

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public', however, is formed of persons who become mobilized beyondlocalities to engage in activities related to common issues of governmentpolicy and/or of power, status and authority. Up to this point moststudies of the development of the public in the nineteenth century havesuggested implicitly that the process necessitated common preoccupationfirst and foremost with specific issues of imperial policy. I will arguehere that it is necessary to examine the development of the public andpublic life in India both in terms of indigenous conceptions of power,status and authority and in terms of Indian concerns with politicalrelations among Indians.

It is important to emphasize that people who are mobilized to act inopen spaces about issues of status and authority, in particular, do notform a public if their concerns are local and particularistic. That is tosay, if the mobilization about an issue of the status of a community wascommon mainly to members of those communities immediately affectedin a specific locality, this mobilization was not the political expression ofa public. It was when the mobilization of the concerned expanded beyondlocalities and focused on shared identity and shared values that conflictsover community status constituted the actions of a public.

With a discussion of state formation and political mobilization inlate medieval, late pre-colonial south India this distinction will becomeclearer. Because of the strongly particularistic nature of governance andof political and social identities in late medieval south India, it isproblematic to say that publics were mobilized for political engagementduring that period, even though the nature of political interaction wasorientated toward ritual performances which took place in open spaces,i.e. in public.

Acting in Public in Late Medieval, Pre-colonial South India:Right and Left Hand Caste Organization

Since the 1970s, scholars of south India have increasingly accepted amajor role for ritual performances in open spaces as an element in stateformation.4 Ritual exchanges and distributions of marks of honour intemples and royal courts have caught the main attention of pre-colonialperiod scholars.5 We know from inscriptional evidence that rights toshared honours and the display of insignia in ritual performances were

4 Burton Stein, 'The Segmentary State in South Indian History', in R. G. Fox (ed.), Realmand Region in Traditional India (Durham, 1977), pp.3-51.

5 See, for example, Arjun Appadurai, 'King, Sects and Temples in South India, 1350-1700',Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 14, no. 1 (1977), pp.47-73; NicholasDirks, 'The Structure and Meaning of Political Relations in a South Indian LittleKingdom', Contributions to Indian Sociology, (N.S.), Vol. 13, no. 2 (1979), pp.169-204.

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the occasion for much disputing in the late medieval period.6 It is notanalytically precise, however, to say that participation in ritualperformances associated with temples and royal courts and disputingabout participation in ritual constituted participation in a pre-colonialpublic life.7 This is because there was not a clear distinction in latemedieval south India between the organization of the state and othermajor areas of social and political life.

Ritual performances in late medieval and late pre-colonial religiousand political institutions were essential to the integration of therelatively decentralized systems of state organization in south India.These ritual performances articulated the fluid organization of the stateand supported the somewhat tenuous political integration. Examinationof the political culture of late medieval and late pre-colonial localitiesshows the profound penetration of monarchical ideologies including theincorporation of symbols from warrior, ruling culture.8 On the villagelevel, ritual incorporation and the sharing of honours were importantstatements of the structure and meaning of authoritative rule inlocalities. Even if local communities for the most part successfullyresisted overlord attempts to wrest from them substantial revenues, theheadmen of various local domains were tied into the systems of ritualintegration which characterized late medieval and late pre-colonialsouth Indian political society. Thus participating in public ritual anddisputing about honours and insignia in localities did not constituteactivities of a public opinion. It did not constitute the activities of peoplewho were separate from the formal structures of governance.

However, our problem is not solved so easily. Much politicalengagement in localities in the late medieval and late pre-colonialperiods consisted of conflicts between two vertically organized, multi-caste factions called the right hand and the left hand castes. Right andleft hand caste factions commonly disputed issues of status and rank inlocalities. The conflicts tended to focus on which group had the right touse certain insignia or other paraphernalia associated with royal, rulingauthority, for example, the right to use a palanquin, to display a whiteumbrella, to ride on horseback during marriage festivities, to be escorted

6 Vijaya Ramaswamy, 'Artisans in Vijayanagar Society', Indian Economic and SocialHistory Review, Vol. 22, no. 4 (1985), pp.417-44.

7 I am influenced in my use of the term 'public life' by some of the distinctions made byJurgen Habermas. See Peter Hoendahl, 'Jürgen Habermas: "The Public Sphere"(1964)',New German Critique , Vol. 3 (Fall 1974) pp.45-8, and Jürgen Habermas, 'The PublicSphere: An Encyclopedia Article (1964)', ibid., pp.49-55. Since my endeavour is tocontextualize the development of a public to Indian history, I find the term 'public life'less fraught with connotations from the European experience.

8 See for example Susan Bayly, Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians inSouth Indian Society, 1700-1900 (Cambridge, 1989) and Pamela G. Price, 'Resources andRule in Zamindari South India, 1802-1903: Sivagangai and Ramand as Kingdoms underthe Raj', unpublished Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison, pp.265-335.

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by armed retainers, or to be accompanied by musicians at specific times.9

Even though it is possible that left and right hand caste organization wasnot integral to state formation in the late medieval period, we stillcannot suggest that this conflict be categorized as the activity of anindigenously defined public. I argue this because of the localized natureof right and left hand disputes.

As one would expect in a relatively segmented polity, even if rightand left hand caste factions fought over the use of royal privileges andinsignia, the status and ranks of concern were those of highly localizedsystems of authoritative rule. Therefore, the right and left hand modelwas subject to local application. Castes which were in the left handfaction in one locality were not necessarily in the left hand faction inanother locality.10 However, castes in right hand factions weregenerally associated with processes of land control and agriculturalproduction. Castes in the left hand faction were generally associatedwith artisan production and trade.11 Brahmans and, occasionally, someruling agricultural castes (e.g., Vellalars in Tamil Country and Reddis inAndhra) were neutral or unaligned to the factions in localities.Untouchable groups, however, were also divided according to the modeland were client, supporting forces to right and left hand caste Hindus,taking active roles in violent encounters between the factions.

Another general distinction between left and right hand groups wasthat groups in left hand factions generally had a much greater stake thanright hand groups in securing for themselves the status of twice-bornvarnas (the three top ranks in the famous four part Hindu hierarchy).12

However, for reasons probably relating to the relationship betweenprocesses of state formation and major models of kinship organizationin south India, south Indians generally recognized the existence of onlyone varna, the Brahman varna, in society. The other two twice-born,high status varnas — Kshatriya (warrior) and Vaishya (merchant andagriculturalist) — and the lowly, serving Sudra varna were notuniversally recognized as existing. Beginning, however, with thefourteenth to sixteenth centuries — a period of expandedcommercialisation and urbanization in the Vijayanagar kingdom —artisans and traders, in particular, began to agitate for twice-bornstatus. As I mentioned, they tended toward left hand membership.However, because of the local way in which the right and left hand

9 T. V. Mahalingam, Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar, Pt. II, Sociallife (Madras, 2nd ed., 1975), p.27.

1 0 Arjun Appadurai, 'Right and Left Hand Castes in South India', Indian Economic andSocial History Review, Vol. 11, nos. 2 & 3 (1974), pp.216-59.

1 1 Burton Stein, Vijayanagara. The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. I.2(Cambridge, 1989), pp.107-8.

1 2 Brenda Beck, Peasant Society in Kongu: A Study of Right and Left Subcastes in SouthIndia (Vancouver, 1972).

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model was applied, groups preoccupied with securing twice-born statuscould also be found in the right hand faction.

It was the local application of the left and right hand model whichled Arjun Appadurai to focus on it as a root paradigm, following VictorTurner's use of the term.13 While we have seen the specific featureswhich the model could have, it is important for later argumentation topoint to Appadurai's further observation, which brings out acharacteristic element in the monarchical cosmology of south India:

But the metaphor of the vertically divided social bodyis no ordinary metaphor .... The division of the bodyexpresses the particular contrast or opposition [atissue], but since what is divided is a single andcomplete body, the metaphor simultaneouslyexpresses the unity of the conflicting units.14

The model expressed conflict and underlying unity simultaneously.South Indian political ideology in general in the precolonial periodappears to be characterised by the perception of opposites as beingessentially in complementary relationships, without fixed, absolutelyseparate identities. In the cosmologies of south Indian polities, oppositescould take on aspects of each other and identities were, thus, incontinuous transformation.15

General consistencies in membership over large areas, amidst theanomalies, and some organizational features suggest the existence oftrans-local right and left hand factional identities.16 Still, the model wasone which existed primarily as a device which organized local conflict;and the factional conflicts appear to have been the result of locallyoriented rivalries. Furthermore, management of the disputes appearsfrom inscriptional evidence to have been local, not centralized. Thisfollows the general pattern of dispute management in pre-colonial southIndia which was, like state structures themselves, relativelydecentralized. The particularistic nature of right and left hand politicssuggests, again, that these were not activities in a late medieval and latepre-colonial 'public sphere'.

During the consolidation of imperial rule in south India in thenineteenth century, ritual performances and exchanges of honours inroyal courts continued on the zamindari (revenue) estates created by the

1 3 Appadurai, 'Right and Left Hand Castes', p.221.1 4 Ibid.1 5 This point is elaborated in David Shulman's, The King and the Clown in South Indian

Myth and Poetry (Princeton, 1985).1 6 Mahalingam, p.27.

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Permanent Settlement.17 These appear, however, in the course of thecentury to have diminished in significance compared to interest in thesharing of honours in temple ritual in villages and towns.18 We willconsider the extent to which disputes concerning temple ritual in thenineteenth century can said to be activities of the public. The mainconcern of this essay, however, is to discover a solution to a long-termmystery in south Indian history, the relatively rapid demise of the rightand left hand designation as a models for conflicts among elites in thenineteenth century. My conviction is that thinking about the nature ofthe public — or, more accurately, publics — as they developed in thenineteenth century will support the emergence of a solution.

Right and left hand caste disputes in localities had mainly involvedthe vertical mobilization of competing castes. Riots and other encountersover participation in temple (and church) ritual in the nineteenth century,however, were sometimes associated with wide-spread movements forthe enhancement of group status, involving the development of newgroup identities.19 As the Rudolphs noted in their work on casteassociations, these expansive activities represented a long-term shift tohorizontal mobilization (in a society which was still stronglycharacterized by vertical ties).20 Issues of caste status thus became moreuniversalistic, relatively speaking. By the end of the nineteenth century,conflicts among specific castes and religious groups over the sharing ofhonours in temple, church and village festivals and over precedence inprocessions replaced right and left hand factional conflicts ascharacteristic features of popular political expression.21 The casteassociation became a popular organizational form in the activities of anincreasingly significant public life.

To say that right and left hand factional conflicts had almostdisappeared among caste Hindus by the end of the nineteenth centuryhardly conveys the apparent swiftness with which the right and left handmodel ceased to be appealing as an organizational structure forcompetition. No comprehensive study has yet been published, butimpressionistic evidence suggests a marked drop in the incidence of theseconflicts as models for political organization among elites in the first halfof the nineteenth century. They had, for example, been a characteristicfeature of public encounters in the port towns frequented by European

1 7 Price, 'Resources and Rule.'1 8 Carol A. Breckenridge, 'The Sri Minaksi-Sundareswarer Temple: A Study of Worship

and Endowments in South India, 1800-1925', unpublished Ph.D., University ofWisconsin, Madison (1976) and Arjun Appadurai, Worship and Conflict under ColonialRule: A South Indian Case (Cambridge, 1981).

1 9 Susan Bayly, pp.420-52.2 0 Lloyd I. and Susanne H. Rudolph, The Modernity of Tradition, (Chicago, 1967),

pp.17-64.2 1 This is implicit, for example, from Susan Bayly, pp.420-63.

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merchant and military interests in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.22 In discussing the demise of this phenomenon, my methodhere is to examine a series of conflicts in the port town of Masulipatambetween 1784 and 1845, focussing on the period 1784-1825, and then todiscuss the implications of the management of these conflicts underimperial rule for the appearance of new types of political mobilization,the emergence of south Indian publics.

It appears that these conflicts were well-known at the time. TheSadr Adalat, the highest court of appeal in the new Presidency ofMadras, decided in 1820 to accept the appeal from the lower, ProvincialCourt where the case had been adjudicated with the explanation that thecase — an outcome of violent and persistent conflicts in Masulipatnam— was one '"of great general interest" and importance to the wholeHindu community'.23 The Justices were also influenced in their decisionbecause the Sadr AdaJut had not previously decided upon a case of thisnature.24 This particular conflict was the first appearance of a 'castedispute' — as it was known in officialdom — in the highest court ofappeal in the presidency. The case thus marked the emergence oflitigation in the development of wider public arenas for caste politics inthe new state. As we shall see, it also marked the rejection by animportant group of right hand castemen of use of the right and left handmodel in representing their point of view. The case seems to be an earlymanifestation of a process of mobilization which would becomeincreasingly important in the course of the 19th century: the constructionof ideologies and links within single 'castes' over a wider territory withthe aim of shaping caste identity and affecting caste status and rank. Wefind here as well, as an integral part of the cultural change which wastaking place, the mating of a particular Brahmanical legal style andattitude toward power and status with British interests in reasoningabout universally applicable rules in a centralized legal system.

Masulipatnam at the Dawn of Imperial Rule: Right Hand Castes andthe Mandri Maha-nad

At the end of the sixteenth century, Masulipatnam, a port town on theAndhra Coast, had a population of 100,00025 and played an active role in

22 Appadurai, 'Right and Left Hand Castes', pp.245-55.23 Privy Council, London, Great Britain. Namboory Setapaty and Others v. Kanoo-

colanoo and Others. 1845 [Hereafter cited as PC 1845], 'In Appeal from Madras, Case onBehalf of the Appellants', p.6. I use the word 'caste' in this article instead of the moretechnical 'subcaste' and I use the word 'varna' for the wider categories of Brahman,Kshatryia, Vaisya, and Sudra.

2 4 Ibid.2 5 Stein, Vijayanagara, p.127.

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the wide-ranging Coromandel trade.26 With the fall of the kingdom ofGolconda in 1687, however, Masulipatnam entered into a slow declinewhich worsened in the eighteenth century with the conditions of politicalinstability and increasing European involvement in export trade.27

Between 1770 and 1790 British success in political and economiccompetition on the coast resulted in the eclipse of Indian export tradersand the dominance of British Company servants and private Britishentrepreneurs.28

Indian merchants included Christians, Muslims and Hindus. Thelatter generally predominated, representing many castes, including,importantly, Telugu-speaking Balija Chettis and Komatis.29 The twocastes were rivals, but Komatis were the most substantial of thecommercial caste groups.30 It seems safe to suggest that major losers inthe decline of Masulipatnam came from its large community of Komaticastemen. There were, however, new opportunities in inland commercefor Indian merchants in the 18th century.31 Thus, even thoughMasulipatnam was no longer a great port, at the end of the eighteenthcentury sections of the merchant community were probably thriving, ifon a lesser scale, for the town was still an important port for trade intextiles and was a significant military station. However, as the productsof the British textile industry pushed out the quality cloth of coastalweavers, the town underwent further decline. In 1881 it had a populationof36,000.32

Komati and Balija Chetty merchants had emerged notably active insouth Indian trade during the period of the Vijayanagar Kingdom (ca.1325-ca.l565). Both merchant subcastes were noted during thesecenturies for their desire to be honoured as members of the Vaisya varna,the third in status of the three twice-born varnas of orthodox Hinduism.Komatis and Balijas competed actively for Vaisya status, with their

2 6 Sanjay Subramanyam, 'The Portuguese Response to the Rise of Masulipatnam 1570-1600', The Great Circle, Vol.8 (1986), pp.127-31, and his 'Persians, Pilgrims andPortuguese: The Travails of Masulipatnam Shipping in the Western Indian Ocean,1590-1665', Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 22, no. 3 (1988), pp.503-30.

2 7 S. Arasaratnam, 'Indian Merchants and the Decline of Indian Mercantile Activity: TheCoromandel Case', The Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol. 7, no. 2 (1983), pp.27-42.

2 8 Arasaratnam, 'Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750-1790', Modern AsianStudies, Vol. 13, no. 1 (1979), pp.19-40.

2 9 Ibid, p.20.3 0 Arasaratnam, 'Aspects of the Role and Activities of South Indian Merchants c. 1650-

1750', Proceedings of the First International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies.Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, April 1966. (Kuala Lampur, 1968), pp.582-96.

3 1 C.A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. The NewCambridge History of India, Vol. II.1 (Cambridge, 1988) and Stein, 'Mercantilism andthe Political Economy of Eighteenth Century India', paper presented at the 11thEuropean Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Amsterdam, 1990.

3 2 Census of India, 1911, Vol. XII, table iv.

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conflict organised according to the right and left hand designation. Itwas one of the anomalies of right and left hand ranking that Komatiswere usually classed in the right hand faction in localities.33 InMasulipatnam, certainly, Komatis belonged to the right hand faction.34

The right hand faction in the town included as well washermen, barbers,potters, tank-diggers, 'Brinjary', 'Yanadhy' and parias.35

The Masulipatnam Komatis were similar to their castemen in otherparts of south India in their desire for Vaisya status. In Masulipatnam,however, their main opposition was not rivalrous Balijas, but NiyogiBrahmans, supported by a multi-caste group known as the Maha-nad, a'secret assembly for the avengement of encroachments on the rules andrights of castes'.36 It appears that the Niyogis and the leaders of theMaha-nad did not begrudge Komatis' simply calling themselves Vaisyas.What drew hostile attention were occasional Komati attempts to adoptorthodox Vaisya rituals, 'in the language of the Vedas'. 37

The right hand faction in Masulipatnam, as in other places inAndhra, was led by Telagas, warrior/peasant castemen.38 Right handAndhra factions tended to have a locality leader called the'Chettypeddah' (in court orthography) who had the authority todiscipline the usage of right hand castes.39 In the first decades of thenineteenth century the Company still allowed the Chettypeddah toinvestigate charges of incorrect usage, to levy fines and to order physicalpunishment.40 By the end of the eighteenth century, the right handfaction in Masulipatnam, as well as in other parts of Andhra,corresponded at least partly in membership with the Maha-nad. Theheadmen (peddalu) of the Maha-nad were 'Yeerum Chetty' men,41

though Telagas are also indicated as leaders of the association.42

The heads of the organization were assisted in their decision-making by 'councilers1, mandris, who were Niyogi Brahmans. Niyogiswere a sub-caste of Telugu Brahmans traditionally oriented toward

3 3 Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1650-1740 (Delhi, 1986), 253-55.

3 4 PC 1845, p.196.35 Ibid, p.125.3 6 Ibid, passim.3 7 Ibid., passim.3 8 Edgar Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Vol. VII (New York, 1965,

reprinted from the 1909 edition), pp.13-15.3 9 PC 1845, pp.125-6.4 0 Ibid., p.126.4 1 Ibid.4 2 Ibid., pp.126, 128.

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'secular' pursuits, including importantly government service.43 Niyogishad been powerful hereditary head record-keepers and accountants(deshpandis) under former governments on the Andhra coast and werein service with the Company in Masulipatnam.44 The Niyogi mandris inMasulipatnam included mirasidars (major landholders in villages), aswell as deshpandis.*5 The Maha-nad was sometimes known as theMandri Maha-nad, indicating the important role of the Niyogicouncillors in its leadership.

The Maha-nad's strategy to control Komati aspirations was to notethe announcement by a Komati family of its intention of performing, inparticular, an orthodox upanayana (sacred thread ceremony) on abachelor son. Leaders of the Maha-nad and/or their mandris wouldinvade the house of the family in question and pollute the sacrificial fire,stopping the ceremony. Crowds of untouchables, client-members of theMaha-nad, would also attack the house, usually at night, throwingsubstances such as cattle bones, blood, human excrement, and cow dungmixed with water onto the property.

Evidence remains of violent encounters along these lines takingplace around 1784,1803,1809,1817 and 1820 in Masulipatnam, resulting inthe loss of several lives on at least one occasion and, on another, theseizure of valuable property.

Komati Caste Observances and Vaisya status

There were approximately one thousand Komati households inMasulipatnam in 1825.46 There was no central authority amongMasulipatnam Komatis — no 'headman' or 'chief — to monitor casteobservances.47 In each section (petta) of the town where Komatis lived,there was a head Komati.48 However, he did not necessarily haveresponsibility for settling, for example, honours disputes among Komatisin his petta; these could go to a non-Komati headman ('proprietor') ofthe petta.*9 Each Komati family hired the services of a purohit (priest) —

4 3 Tamil Lexicon (Madras, 1982), p.2259. The English term 'secular' is commonly used todistinguish Brahmans who took part in government service; however, the closeconnection between precolonial religious and governmental institutions and ideologiesrenders the term misleading.

4 4 John F. Richards, Mughal Administration in Golkonda (Oxford, 1975), pp.21-34; PC1845, passim.

4 5 PC 1845, passim.4<* Ibid., evidence of witnesses, passim.4 7 Ibid., pp.8, 29.4 8 Ibid., p.127.4 9 Ibid., p.135.

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a Vaidika or priestly Brahman — who was learned in ritual practice andwas traditionally associated with the family. This priest officiated atthose ceremonies which required his presence, living primarily, it seems,from the income incurred thereby.

The main part of the Komati caste community in Masulipatnamwere Gavara Komatis, one of the two main Komati groups on theCoromandel coast. The Gavara Komatis did not eat fish or meat.According to the myth of origin of the Gavara Komatis, they contained102 gotras (clans or sibs), descendants of the heads of 102 gotras whoimmolated themselves in a sacrificial fire, with the intention ofthwarting a king during the early medieval period.50 These gotras didnot correspond in identity with the gotras deemed appropriate forBrahmans or Vaisyas, which in Sastric learning were stated to have beenstarted by rishis, ancient seers.

Komatis, as I mentioned, considered themselves to be people oftwice-born caste status (indicating that they had undergone an initiationenabling them to wear a sacred thread). Those Komatis who couldafford to do so underwent a ceremony which allowed them to wear asacred thread. This number included by far the majority of caste males.In the main period of this study, 1784-1825, however, it appears that onlya small number of families in Masulipatnam organized sacred threadceremonies (upanayana) which were in Sanskrit, according to Sastricprescription, and which were performed on a bachelor son. The generalpractice was for a Komati man to wait until the time of his marriageand, then, shortly before the ceremony, undergo a sacred threadceremony according to the Kanyaki Purana, the late medieval sacred textof the Komatis, which was written in Telugu.

As far as the language and form of family ceremonies and ritualswere concerned, however, it appears that there was little consistencyamong Masulipatnam Komatis. The range of observance varied fromall-puranic, all-Telugu ritual to a few families who organized theorthodox upanayana ritual in Sanskrit. (A Sastric upanayana inSanskrit laid the basis for the performance of other Sastric ritualsappropriate to a family of twice-born status.) By 1825, the time of therecording of witness testimony in the appeal case, between these poleswas a mixture of Sansritic and puranic (Telugu) languages andpractices.51 The Vaidika Brahmans who officiated were tolerant of thewishes of their patrons, following each family's particular preferences.These Komati family priests appear to have had a latitudinarian attitudetoward Sastric interpretation. Certainly their rule-conscious rivals,Niyogi Brahmans, considered them lax. The leadership of the latter

5 0 Thurston, Vol. III, pp.320-1.5 1 PC 1845, pp.80-3.

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community were highly protective of twice-born status in Masulipatnamand included members of the Mandri Maha-nad.

Niyogis, it appears, kept on the alert for announcements of KomatiSastric upanayanas. Prominent men among Niyogis mobilized the righthand faction/Maha-nad untouchables to riot and organized otheroffensives. When the British Magistrate of Masulipatnam decided thatmanaging the conflict was beyond the capabilities of his office and toldthe Komatis to take their complaints to a civil court, the targets ofKomati litigation were four Niyogis, three of whom the Komatisidentified as mandris to the Maha-nad. All three men were deshpandisand mirasidars (local revenue officers and important landowners).Several of the Niyogi litigants appear to have taken employment withthe Company revenue administration.52

There is little biographical information on the three Komatilitigants. In his capacity as Zilla Judge, J. O. Todd characterized them asleading members of the Komati community.53 This he should haveknown, since he had been Magistrate in Masulipatnam. The Niyogilitigants disagreed with Todd in their 'Grounds of Appeal' in 1820, andsaid that, on the contrary, the litigants were not important in the Komaticommunity and their actions were 'repugnant to the conduct usuallyreserved by this caste'. 54 Since, as we shall see, the Niyogi generalstrategy was to picture their opponents as unrepresentative of theircaste, Todd's assessment of their significance appears more reliable. Thelitigants must have had access to substantial resources in cash, becauselitigation at the district and appeal levels was costly. The father ofMamedy Venkia, one of the Komati litigants, had been one of the headsof the Komati community in the part of the town known as 'the fort'. 55

One litigant had experienced his son's Sastric upanayana beings toppedby Maha-nad activities and he and another litigant had assisted otherKomatis who wanted Sastric upanayanas for their sons.56 The litigantMamedy Venkia had taken a leading role in Komati activities concerningSanskritic upanayanas and had studied the Dhartna Sastra.57

It is difficult to say whether the initiative at the end of theeighteenth century of a number of Komati families in Masulipatnam toperform an upanayana with pure Sanskritic, Sastric ritual was a newdirection in the history of Komati aspirations for twice-born status. Asmentioned above, Sanskrit was in use unsystematically among

5 2 PC 1845, p.6.5 3 Ibid., p.186.5 4 Ibid.5 5 Ibid., p.136.56 Ibid., 'Niyogi "Answer" to Komati "Plaint"', p.7.5 7 Ibid., p.114.

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Masulipatnam Komatis by 1825. That consciousness of the non-Sastricnature of their rituals had begun to affect Komati practice in the thirddecade of the nineteenth century is seen in the observation, made by boththe caste guru, Bashcar Acharya, and a Komati head of a petta, thatsome families had begun to cut out elements of the puranic Komatimarriage ceremonial.58

Niyogi resistance to these activities may be viewed as the protectivestrategy of a community which was experiencing new opportunities foradvancement through service with the consolidating imperial state.Niyogi action to prevent encroachments on the domain of the twice-borncould have been motivated in part by a desire to limit the field of possiblehigh-status competitors in this situation of new opportunities foremployment with the Government of Madras.

In the public conflicts which were continuous in turn-of-the-eighteenth-century Masulipatnam, leading Niyogis had two targets forattack. The Komatis were dangerous because they encroached on theprivileges of orthodox twice-born purity. However, Vaidika Brahmanswere contemptible in their unwillingness to defend orthodox twice-bornstatus and the ethic which it represented.

Vaidikas and Niyogis in Masulipatnam: A Conflict of Legal Styles

The relationship between Vaidika and Niyogi Brahmans is a continuoussub-theme in this history of caste conflict in Masulipatnam andconstitutes an important element in the evolution of the conflict underimperial processing. At one level the relationship between the two majorgroups of Brahmans was that of rivalry between two contrastingsources of power, status and prestige in a rapidly changing political andeconomic context. At another level, one thus far neglected in discussionof the nineteenth century as the 'Brahman raj', the conflict was betweentwo styles of Brahmanical reasoning about rules. The Vaidikalatitudinarian mode fitted particularistic modes of government, in that itmore easily allowed local circumstances and historical contingency tomold a group's rank and status in a locality. The Niyogi moderepresented the centralizing administrative traditions in Brahmanicallegal culture and, as I discuss in a later section, adapted better to Britishnotions of legitimate legal discourse. What is striking is that the Vaidikapoint of view appears to have been dominant in the last two decades ofthe eighteenth century. An 'assembly of learned men' which was incontact with other like-minded assemblies in the important towns ofGuntur and Rajahmundry, issued public statements supporting the

5 8 PC 1845, pp.84-5, 110.

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Vaidika point of view;59 however, by the second decade of the nineteenthcentury, the Vaidikas were in retreat. The Niyogis had emerged with an'assembly' supporting their line of reasoning and had been given controlof the position of Court Pundit in the Provincial Court for the NorthernDivision and at the three other Provincial Courts of Law in thePresidency.60 In the 1820s, the Niyogi litigants moved markedly andstrongly on the offensive, rounding up distinguished witnesses andscholarly opinion to argue their points.

The Niyogis, however, lost their suit in the lower court decisionswhich came down in 1818 and 1828. The justice in the Zilla court in 1818sided with the pundit who had been appointed by the court to deliverHindu legal opinion in the case.61 The pundit had earlier supported theVaidika position in a related matter and in this instance as well took alatitudinarian interpretation of Sastric injunctions on Vaisya status.62 In1828 the Provincial Court of the Northern Division went outside theirarea of jurisdiction and asked as well the Hindu pundits of the otherthree Provincial Courts for their opinion. All four pundits took, this time,the stand supported by the Niyogi litigants in Masulipatnam. However,the majority opinion in the Provincial Court refused to take sides onwhat they saw as a simple issue of interpretation: 'authorities fromHindu law books may be collected to support both sides of anyquestion ....'63 Thus any Brahman who attended Komati ritualsunderstood the law the way the Zilla Pundit understood it. The majorityof the judges supported the latitudinarian view of the town Vaidikas.

In the Privy Council, however, the consistency and rigour withwhich Niyogi spokesmen argued from Sastric sources convinced thejustices that the 'facts' of the case (quoting here the advocates for theNiyogis) supported the Niyogi point of view. I will discuss the positionof the East India Company below. Here it is useful to outline briefly thetwo opposing points of view, the latitudinarian Vaidika and therestrictive Niyogi.

The Vaidika view was that there was nothing in the Vedas whichexpressly forbad the current (puranic) practices of the majority ofKomatis. The Komatis were widely known as Vaisyas and they (themales) wore a sacred thread. According to the Sastras there was noreason why the Komatis — since they had not ceased to wear the sacredthread — could not begin to carry out the initiation of the sacred threadaccording to Sastric practice in Sanskrit.64

5 9 PC 1845, p.21.6 0 Ibid., p.28.6 1 Ibid., 'In Appeal from Madras, Case on Behalf of the Appellants', pp.2-3.6 2 Ibid., p.3.6 3 Ibid., 'In Appeal from Madras, Case on Behalf of the Appellants', p.4.6 4 Ibid., p.22.

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Niyogi participants in the debate discussed in detail the implicationsthey saw following from those Sastric provisions upon which they choseto focus. I will give a few examples of their argumentation.

True, Komatis called themselves Vaisyas and used the 'goopta'invocation in the performance of certain ceremonies. To use the 'dasa'invocation would make them Sudras. But, Komatis were not thedescendants of the Vaisyas of the first three ages (the Krita, Treta andDvapara). Those Vaisyas had, according to the Sastras become extinctin the fourth age, the Kali or iron age. We were still in the iron age.According to the Sastras a Vaisya male had his upanayana ceremony atthe age of 24, with Sanskrit verse and according to specific practices,when he was still in the bachelor stage of his life. The Komatis waiteduntil just before the marriage ceremony. The Komatis could not be theoriginal Vaisyas, because these were extinct; but, even if they weredescendants of the original Vaisyas, they did not perform the upanayanaproperly and at the right age. Because they had not performed theupanayana properly for two thousand years, they had forfeited the rightto do so and no expiation would make up for the fault of omission.Without performing properly the ceremonies connected with acquiringthe sacred thread, in the correct language (Sanskrit), a man could not goon to perform all of the other ceremonies deemed by the Sastras to beappropriate for twice-born status. Thus the Komatis could never be aspure and moral as true twice-born castemen.65

The struggle for control over the discourse concerning the meaningof twice-born status took place on several levels. One focus was on theDharma Sastra and, in a sense, on the way it could or should be analysedand used in disputes. Another theme was alleged mercenary motives onthe part of both Vaidika family priests and Niyogi mirasidars TheNiyogis and their lawyers attempted to destroy the integrity of theVaidika position by arguing that the Vaidika family priests were'indigent' and 'unread in the Dharma Sastra'66 and that they supportedthe Komatis because of their dependence on Komati fees for theirlivelihood. The Komatis and their lawyers argued, on the other hand,that the Niyogis acted out of revenge for the loss of marriage fees whichsome Niyogis had previously received from Komati families.

There were charges and counter-charges of dubious dealing in thelong course of this litigation. These the courts ignored, for the most part.In 1833 the Sadr Adalat decided in favour of the Niyogis on the basis ofthe argumentation of the four Hindu pundits in the Provincial Courts. In1845 the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council refused to make aformal decision on the appeal because no case for damages had been

65 PC 1845, evidence for the Niyogis, passim.66 Ibid., p.157.

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alleged or established.67 However, the Lord Justices revealed that theythought that the Komatis had 'not produced sufficient evidence toestablish such right [to perform certain religious ceremonies] andrecommended that the plaint be dismissed without costs.68

Public Order and Government Responsibility in Masulipatnam

Evidence we have from Company officials in the second decade of the19th century indicates considerable frustration in the government'sattempt to manage the long-term Komati-Mandri Maha-nad dispute inMasulipatnam. The government did not, however, consider the conflictto be unique. In a Circular to Magistrates after a 'serious riot' inMasulipatnam in 1820, the Secretary to the Judicial Departmentcharacterized the conflict as a right and left hand caste dispute.69 Even ifoutlines of the conflict seemed familiar to company officers, this did notmean that solutions to the problem of containing the conflict were easilyderived.

The Magistrate of Masulipatnam had responsibility for 'public'order (as one termed it) and criminal punishment. As such the officercontinually received charges from Komatis and Niyogis protesting eachother's actions. Magistrates found that they could not manage theKomati-Niyogi dispute by following the usual procedures fordetermining guilt and punishment. As Magistrate J.O. Todd, put theissue, it was difficult to decide who was 'first in the wrong'. This mayhave been partly because of the nature of the dispute and partly becauseof 'the inconceivable dread' which witness had of the Mantri Maha-nadand their resulting unwillingness to testify against its members.70

Magistrate Todd was foiled in managing the violent manifestationsof the dispute because he did not dare call out the military: he might findhimself supporting the 'unjust claims of one caste, whilst he violated thereligious prejudices of another ....'71 No effective solution to the disputecould be found through exercising the powers of a Magistrate, itseemed.

6 7 Privy Council. Minute Book, 7 of Feb. 1845. I am thankful to D.H.O. Owen, Registrar atthe Privy Council Office, for kindly sending me a copy of the order from the JudicialCommittee, recorded in the Minute Book.

6 8 The Judicial Committee added that their 'order' -- it was not a formal decision --could not affect any further attempts of the Komatis to establish their right throughlitigation.

6 9 PC 1845, p.30.70 Ibid., 'In Appeal from Madras, Case on Behalf of the Appellant', quoting from the

decree of the Zilla Judge, 1818, p.1.7 1 Ibid., p.1.

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At one point several Komatis petitioned the Zilla Pundit and askedhim to act as caste headman in his official capacity. They wanted him toassume responsibility for getting Komatis to adopt ritual usageconsistent with Sastrically defined twice-born status.72 MagistrateTodd, however, gave the final answer to their request to usegovernmental authority to discipline their caste. In so doing he clearlymarked the difference in attitude between the late pre-colonial regimesand the new government regarding the political significance of ritualand disputes over ritual:

It is not requisite to obtain the Magistrate's consent inregard to the rites prescribed by the Sastras; it is theMagistrate's duty to try and punish robbers anddisturbances of the public peace, but he has notoccasion either to approve or disallow the rites andceremonies prescribed by the Sastras.73

In 1817, Magistrate Russell decided that the policy of attempting tohandle the conflict through the office of the Magistrate was ineffectiveand he announced that Komatis could not continue with Sastricobservances until a civil court passed judgement on the case. Havingchanged his hat for one of Zilla Judge, J. O. Todd now gave a decreefrom the Zilla court in 1820. He explained that he doubted whether thecase 'could involve any question of fact' and had therefore decided not tocollect documents or question witnesses. As mentioned earlier, hedecided simply to follow the decision of the Zilla Pundit (who had givenlatitudinarian answers to the questions set him by the court).74

Todd's strategy was to see if a judgement which was reachedthrough the reasoning and knowledge of a learned Brahman, buttressedwith the authority of the empire, could dampen ethnic fires. His decreefrom the Zilla Court however, was followed by the 'serious riot' of 1820,as the Mandi Maha-nad implicitly showed its lack of respect for Todd'snotion of settlement. Todd's superiors decided as a result of this riot thatguidance was required and sent out a Circular to its Magistrates. TheCircular to Magistrates from the Secretary to Government in theJudicial Department, D. Hill, was a frank statement from the upperranks of the government regarding the management of caste relations:

It would be desirable that the customs of castesconnected with their public ceremonies should be thesame every where, and that differences respecting

7 2 PC 1845, pp.8, 29.7 3 Ibid., p.29.7 4 Ibid., p.1.

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them should be settled by decisions of the Courts,but... that is impossible ....75

The problem for the government was exacerbated by the fact thatusage was continually changing. The government was opposed tochange in caste usage: 'innovation causes riots, not preventing it[innovation]. Secretary Hill came up with a curious piece of reasoning inthis connection: Generally these caste conflicts were the most violent andthe most frequent when 'one party or the other expects the support of theofficers of the Government ...\76 Therefore, a Magistrate should nottake sides in these conflicts, but should make his desire for peace clear.Given, however, the devilish role played by innovation, the Magistrateshould also not support change in caste usage.

How the Magistrate could, as a matter of policy, not supportchange and still avoid taking sides in caste disputes was unclear.However, the bias against innovation in caste usage was not a newpolicy, even if this enunciation was new: at least three times in theprevious two decades Magistrates in Masulipatnam had attempted tomanage the Komati-Niyogi conflict by ordering the Komatis to stopperformances of Sastric rites.

Todd had decided that neither factual investigation nor Westernlegal reasoning would resolve the dispute in Masulipatnam. His versionof an adjudicated solution, however, had been ineffective. The Governorin Council advocated a retreat from settlements based on judicialreasoning, and a policy of ad hoc compromises.

What imperial officials had not counted on, however, was theinterest of conflicting parties in the political possibilities of litigation.The imperial courts of law emerged in the course of the nineteenthcentury as the main supra-local arena for caste conflict.77 This did notmean litigation became a means for conflict settlement. From theimperial point of view, it became a means for conflict management, inthat processes of litigation helped local officials to get a 'hold' on specificconflicts at certain periods of time. More important, for the purpose ofmy investigation, is an exploration of the uses and meaning of litigationas developed by Indians as an element in processes of publicrepresentation in south India.

7 5 PC 1845, p.30.76 Ibid.7 7 Robert L. Hardgrave, The Nadars of Tamilnad: The Political Culture of a Community

in Change (Berkeley, 1969), pp.109-10, 118, 120-8, 142, 155, 244; and Susan Bayly, pp.315,440, 442, 445-6.

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Introduction to a Discussion of Courtroom Litigation as a New Activityof Public Representation

Ordering the agitating Komatis to cease their activities while waitingfor a decision from the civil courts gave local officials short-termopportunities to control the incidence of Mandri Maha-nad 'tumults'. Inthe long run, however, Komatis appear not to have been affected by highcourt expressions of scepticism toward their proclaimed right to performSastric rituals.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, Sastric marriageceremonial had become a widely accepted alternative for Komatis 78 andit was common for Komatis to describe their clan membership in terms ofBrahmanical rishi gotras.79 In the ritual ranking of castes in the 1901Census, Komatis — significant numbers of whom had prospered in thecourse of the nineteenth century — were the only Telugu caste to succeedin getting the government to rank them as Vaisyas.80 However,politically sensitive Komatis felt insulted by comments on theiraspirations which appeared in the report discussing census results.81 In1905, following the excitement generated by caste ranking in the 1901census, a group of Komatis established the Southern India VysiaAssociation. The association had an executive committee made up ofprominent Komati merchants, lawyers and contractors and itscomprehensive goal was to encourage 'the intellectual, moral, religious,social, industrial and commercial advancement of the Vysiacommunity'.82 During the 1921 census tens of thousands of Komatis inGuntur District (once part of Masulipatnam's former Kistna District)returned themselves as Vaisyas.83

The Komati-Niyogi case is significant for marking the emergence oflitigation as an element in those political processes which producedindigenously nuanced publics in nineteenth century south India.Processes of competition in litigation moulded at the same timemeanings of membership in a caste, caste identity and relationshipsamong castes.84 In exploring this aspect of the Komati-Niyogi conflictwe should begin by noting the significance of public representation insouth Indian political culture. As mentioned earlier, public ritual hadbeen a vital element in the articulation of political relations — thestructures of relatively decentralized states — in medieval and late pre-colonial times. Scholars disagree over the precise significance of this

7 8 Thurston, Vol. III, p.314.7 9 Ibid., p.314.8 0 Census of India, 1901, Vol. XV, Madras, Report, Pt. i, p.136.8 1 Ibid., 1911, Vol. xii, Madras, Report, Pt. i, p.160.8 2 Quoted in Thurston, Vol. III, p.344.8 3 Census of India, 1921, Vol. XIII, Madras, Report, Pt. I, p.155.8 4 See, for example, Susan Bayly, pp.315, 445, 446.

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ritual articulation for the integration of states at different periods.However, recent research in the disciplines of history of religions,anthropology and history show clearly that royal court and temple ritualwere spectacles of power, symbolizing core values of auspiciousness andabundance and demonstrating the authority, rank and status ofparticipants.85

Scholars increasingly recognize the importance of distinguishingamong concepts of power in discussing politics in different times andplaces.86 Studies of ritual integration and conflicts over status and rankin late medieval and early modern south India point as well to the needto distinguish among concepts of status, categorizing them according toculture and time. In south India the status of groups and their headmenconnected intimately with the ritual expression in public of theirdominance or subordination in smaller and larger polities. In themonarchical cosmology of these periods to have higher status was tohave greater shares in the divine and ruling substance of gods and kingsand other high ranking figures. Ranking in ritual constituted anddemonstrated a person's share in the qualities of sri and sakti —auspiciousness, abundance, vitality and eternal splendour — whichcharacterized gods and kings.87

As part of the pre-colonial inheritance there existed throughout thenineteenth century in south India a political orientation which gavemajor significance to the management of public appearances, in personor in print (as the latter became an important medium). Theseappearances expressed the qualitative content of both statuses andrelationships of rank between groups. In nineteenth century India as inmedieval and late pre-colonial India, one's political status wasevaluated mainly in relation to others. The lack of indigenousprecedents of all-penetrating bureaucracies put weight on the relative —not absolute — nature of status in political calculations.88

8 5 See, for example, Saskia Kersenboom-Story, Nityasumangali: Devadasi Tradition inSouth India (Delhi, 1987); Frederique Marglin, 'Kings and Wives: the Separation ofStatus and Royal Power', in T.N. Madan (ed.), Way of Life: King, Household,Renouncer -- Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont (Delhi, 1985), pp.155-82; BryanPfaffenberger, Caste in Tamil Culture: The Religious Foundations of Sudra Dominationin Tamil Sri Lanka (Syracuse, 1982).

8 6 For a recent statement see Shelly Errington, Meaning and Power in a Southeast AsianRealm (Princeton, 1989), pp.3-10.

8 7 Pfaffenberger, especially pp.70, 146, 158, 160, 228; see also Dirks, 'The Structure andMeaning'; and Appadurai and Breckenridge, 'The South Indian Temple: Authority,Honour and Redistribution', Contributions to Indian Sociology, (N.S.), Vol. 10, no. 2(1976), pp.187-209.

8 8 Price, 'Competition and Conflict in Hindu Polity, c. 1550-1750: the Integration andFragmentation of Tamil and Andhra Kingdoms', paper presented to the 8th EuropeanConference on Modern South Asian Studies, Tällberg, Sweden, 1983, and Price, 'TheState and Representations of Femaleness in Late Medieval South India', Historisktidsskrift (Oslo), forthcoming.

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With the establishment and consolidation of the Government ofMadras, local statuses and ranks were no longer formally and integrallylinked to ritually extended articulations of overlord rule. Local,truncated domains of religion, kinship and rule became differentiated innew ways as they became integrated into the imperial state. In theprocesses of continuing competition over status and rank, the European-inspired institutions of the new state affected the reformulations of themeaning and significance of statuses and ranking orders. The new rulesfor competition in these structures affected the nature of their outcomes.This political competition affected the emergence of groups with newkinds of trans-local identities and with new stakes in governmentpolicies and procedures. As I discuss below, there developed a 'civilsociety' which was separate from the formal organization of the state.

Courtroom Litigation as an Activity of Representation in Public Life

So, public representations of the status of a person or group and of rankorder remained an overwhelming preoccupation in nineteenth centuryMadras Presidency. The Anglo-Indian legal system became significant inproviding new arenas for representations of status and rank. Because ofthe centralized structure of dispute processing in this system, activities oflitigation provided the focus for new types of political and socialmobilization beyond localities. The rules for litigation affected thenature and outcome of this mobilization.

There are several reasons why litigation should have assumedspecial importance in political development in the nineteenth century.Expanded Company rule had entailed the truncation of indigenousstates, not the elimination of lords — the various headmen — ofremaining domain segments, small and large. Following thedislocations of imperial pacification, however, native political life wasmarked by the relative absence of formal state structures for therecognition and legitimization of these local and supra-local nativeauthorities.

As a related issue, under imperial consolidation, there was similarlyan absence of formal arenas for negotiation with the government byrepresentatives of subject domains. Issues of vital concern would haveincluded importantly, again, authoritative relations within domains —village and supra-village communities including clans, castes, sub-castes, religious institutions and orders, markets, etc.

In this context, the Anglo-Indian legal system assumed markedimportance in providing officially recognized arenas for confrontationand competition. Using the imperial courts apparently appealed to men

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and women of considerable wealth and local authority, in any case,because of powerful traditions in south India of looking torepresentatives of the overlord for the management of major disputes inlocalities. Thus, the imperial civil law courts acquired attention andsignificance in political development out of proportion to the actualnumbers of suits which were adjudicated.89 Formal and informal rulesof competition in litigation, including the textual bases of adjudicationand preferred styles of reasoning, were significant in defining the termsof competition both for participants in litigation and for those whofollowed the proceedings of litigation.

There appears to have been a considerable audience through thenineteenth century for the events of major litigations.90 Transmission ofinformation was not only through the word-of-mouth relating ofsuccesses and defeats, humiliations and triumphs, but also throughpublished sources — government reports of legal judgments, lawjournals and law reviews, newspaper accounts, and the proceedingsthemselves. We do not as yet know how many copies of the proceedingswere published or how widely they circulated. The numbers of copieswould most likely have been limited, but the very fact of officialpreservation of the various statements of participants, includingwitnesses, at stages in the proceedings created new elements in politicalcompetition.

Argumentation and testimony under precolonial disputemanagement was most likely offered in rhetorical exchanges whichaimed toward political compromises sensitive to local contingencies.91

Rhetorical manipulation was still a major aim (if not the aim) of litigantstatements and the selection and presentation of witnesses in theimperial system.92 However, in this Western-style, centralized system,formal, filed statements of plaints and answers and recorded testimonies

8 9 David Washbrook has argued that the incidence of litigation in the first half of thenineteenth century has been exaggerated, if one considers the numbers of suits institutedrelative to the population, 'Law, State and Agrarian Society in Colonial India',Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 15, no. 3 (1981), p.670. It would seem, however, that in asociety especially preoccupied with public representations of status and rank, the factthat elite persons and families were involved early in litigation is what was strikingto both British and Indian observers.

9 0 Price, 'Raja-dharma in 19th Century South India: Land, Litigation and Largess inRamnad Zamindari', Contributions to Indian Sociology (N.S.), Vol. 13, no. 2 (1979),pp.207-240, and Price, 'Honor, "Disgrace" and the "Domestication" of the Female inPolitical Engagement: Changing Structures of State under British Imperialism in SouthIndia', forthcoming.

9 1 Mark Whitaker, 'Making History in Mandur: A Case of Rural Statement byInterpretive Confusion', Manuscript, Princeton University, n.d.

9 2 Price, 'Dispute Management in British India: Rank, Property and Perjury among MajorTamil Landholders', paper presented at the 16th Annual Conference on South Asia,Madison, Wisconsin, 1987.

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were subject to a different kind of scrutiny and political calculation onthe part of adjudicators and other observers of the litigationperformance.

It appears that, in cases involving issues of caste membership andcaste usage, this scrutiny tended to evaluate statements according tofixed frameworks — objectified visions — of social and politicalrelationships. Assuming such a fixed social universe was necessary forthe universal application of rules in a centralized system of disputemanagement. Thus criteria for the evaluation of arguments included theuniversalizability of the right being advocated and the establishedcharacteristics of, i.e. the 'facts' concerning, the social and politicalcategories which were at issue. These rules and characteristics wereapplied against the backdrop of their past or future relevancy in theadjudication of other conflicts considered to be similar. These processesof evaluation and calculation either established or denied the authorityof written statements as representations of a stable and absolute reality,not one of transformable and relative statuses and identities.

With such official and accessible records, conflicts were no longer soeasily subject to manipulative interpretation as interested parties carriedout later and related struggles. Once participants in competition had anofficial record, it became more difficult for new and 'anomalous'developments to affect the outcome of the competitions. It became moredifficult, say, for new categories of contenders to develop and becomebeneficiaries of a competition.93

These calculations appear to have led over time toward a morewidely accepted mental construction of social totality of stable, fixedidentities and relationships, the now famous 'caste system' of presumed'water-tight' categories. As C. A. Bayly has remarked, as we posit themore fluid nature of caste identities and relationships in pre-colonialperiods, we should not lose sight of the existence of communities ofrelatively fixed relationships of caste in the highly stratified societies ofwet land agriculture and orthodox Brahmanical influence.94 However,outside these more rigid enclaves, especially after the twelfth century,conceptions of transformational identities and relative statuses werecommon. Thus the increasingly wider acceptance of a stable and fixedtotality in the nineteenth century was in marked contrast to the socio-political vision which had pervaded much late medieval competition.

Elements in this general procedure of evaluation and its attendantsocial vision had commonalities with the legal and administrationtraditions of 'secular' Brahmanism which the Niyogi litigants

9 3 Whitaker's insightful study makes this point.9 4 C. A. Bayly, p.156.

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represented. Jan Heesterman has pointed to affinities betweenindividualistic and universalistic traditions in orthodox Brahmanicallegal and political thought and the models for organization andprocedure in the imperial government.95 These structural affinities mayexplain why late eighteenth century officials took so quickly to Sastricscholarship in making judicial policies for Company rule.

Westernized, centralized dispute processing did not, of course,completely transform the political culture of castes and caste conflict.Not only were a number of other variables important for explaining thechanges which took place, but the changes themselves did not necessarilymark sharp discontinuities with pre-colonial values and symbols.

That the legal system was significant in creating a 'Brahman raj' aswell as a British raj in the nineteenth century receives increasingscholarly comment.96 Investigation of the rules and conditions oflitigation conflict helps to explain how the legal system could have madea formative impact. Here we find that Komati and Niyogi litigants andtheir legal representatives took an active part in adapting their conflictto the requirement of successful competition in this arena. We find thatin so far as litigation activities contributed to the ideologies andactivities of social and political mobilization, those definitions of groupidentity which the proceedings privileged became elements in ideologiesof association.

As I mentioned above, in the late eighteenth century imperialofficials decided to use 'Hindu Law', an Anglo-Indian distillation ofcertain Sastric texts, in civil proceedings involving issues of religion,caste and kinship among Hindus. It is clear in the litigation conflictdiscussed here that the Komati litigants looked to the legal system's useof the Dharma Sastra as a way to legitimate their claim to certain ritualobservances.

In the first plaint which Komati litigants entered into court in 1817they commented on the government's decision to use the Sastras in casesinvolving Hindus. The plaint, itself, was mainly a list of allegedmisdeeds on the part of Niyogi Brahmans and their allies; toward theend, however, the Komatis said that their intention was to conform tothe 'special rules laid down in the Hindoo Dharma Sastra, and whichhas been approved of and is acted upon by Government'. 97 Later, in

95 J.C. Heesterman, 'India and the Inner Conflict of Tradition', in his The Inner Conflict ofTradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society (Chicago, 1985), pp.10-25.

9 6 O'Hanlon, 'Cultures of Rule, Communities of Resistance: Gender, Discourse andTradition in Recent South Asian Historiography', in H.L. Seneviratne (ed.), Identity,Consciousness and the Past: The South Asian Scene (Special Issue Series), SocialAnalysis. Journal of Cultural and Social Practice, no. 25 (1989), pp.94-114.

9 7 PC 1845, p.6.

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1825, the Komati litigants asked a witness for the Niyogis:

Are the questions of partition, etc. regarding any of ourcaste, determined or not by the various Courts,according to the rules prescribed for Vaisyas in theDharma Sastra, called Jagannatha Terca Panchanana?98

In the context of centralized management and the universalizationof rules, it follows that during the proceedings of the litigation underdiscussion, participants raised questions concerning the relationship ofthe litigants to their wider group of identification: what was therepresentativeness of the litigants with respect to their caste fellows?This, of course, resulted in further questions of how one defined amember of that caste.

Relatively frequently in the course of the Komati-Niyogi litigationthe Niyogis posed the issue of what it meant to speak on behalf of a castein litigation and what this leadership could consist of. The lawyers forthe Niyogis would occasionally ask a witness: 'Will anybody have theauthority to establish a right for a whole caste?'99 In their 'Grounds ofAppeal' in 1820 the Niyogis' lawyers wrote that the Komati litigants wereacting 'on their own authority, without a power-of-attorney from all therest ....'10° The Komati litigants, themselves, would seem to haveanticipated this issue when they first started the litigation in 1817. Beforefiling their plaint, they collected the signatures of 202 Komatis to astatement to the effect that the litigants represented them in the suit.101

However, the Niyogi lawyers gave added significance to the issue of thenumbers of people potentially involved in this litigation when they spokeof Zilla Judge Todd and his decision in favour of Sastric ceremonies forKomatis:

... On considering the proceeding of the Zilla Judge inpassing a decree in favour of the whole body of thecaste of the [Komatis] .... and in awarding, to the effectthat all the Brahmins should abide by the decree whichwas passed in an action brought against only four of uswhile there are many lacs of Brahmins, and withoutgiving an opportunity to the other Brahmins to statetheir defence, it appears to be an obvious error.102

In considering the development of Brahmanical cultural hegemonyunder nineteenth century imperial rule it is necessary to emphasize that

98 P C 1845, p.139.99 Ibid., p.141.100 Ibid., p.187.101 Ibid.102 Ibid., p.187.

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it was particular strands of Brahmanic tradition which becameprominent or developed further in the course of the nineteenth century.It is beyond my competence to comment extensively on this issue.However, we see here that litigation in the imperial system privilegedcertain styles of Brahmanical argumentation and interpretation overothers. In the filed exchange of formal statements by litigants (plaints,answers, replies and rejoinders) and in the selection of witnesses and theplanning of their interrogation, a restrictive style of thinking about,articulating and defining caste status and identity became dominant. Itbecame dominant because British justices, particularly those at the moreabstract level of appeal adjudication, found it persuasive. Success inlitigation competition was contingent on winning British jurists over toone's point of view. Accordingly, litigants and their lawyers slanted andmoulded their statements and presentations toward British judicial andmoral norms and preferred styles of reasoning.

The preferred style of reasoning did not favour the conceptualvagueness and looseness which suited conflict management orientedtoward political compromises in localities. The successful style was oneof precision in making definitions, in marking sharp distinctions betweendifferent rules and their application, and in giving full complements ofdetail to substantiate and prove points. The norm of universalapplicability, in 19th century British judicial practice, required this style.The 'Grounds for Appeal' which lawyers for the Niyogis submitted in1820 made a powerful, if awkwardly worded, plea, one which evidentlytouched the consciences of the Justices of the Sadr Adalut and the PrivyCouncil:

If a claim can be preferred without proof, it willfurnish occasion for persons of other castes also toprefer similar claims, and the Respondents [theKomati litigants] have no reason to claim the exerciseof the ceremonies prescribed by the Sastras for thepeople of the Vaisya caste, without first adducingproper proof that they are of the Vaisya caste.103

We have noted that judges from the coastal region — Zilla JudgeTodd and two of the three Justices in the Provincial Court of theNorthern Division — were unmoved by the reasoning of the Niyogilitigants and their lawyers. They wrote short decisions supporting thepundit serving the Zilla Court. The dissenting opinion of First JudgeNathaniel Webb of the Provincial Court of the North, on the other hand,was long and detailed. He supported the major points of the Niyogiposition, including importantly those concerning proof of Vaisya status

1 0 3 PC 1845, p.188.

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and the representativeness of the Komati litigants, e.g.:

of many thousands of the ... [Komatis'] caste, onlythree had come forward with these pretensions,without producing any written authority to shew thatthey represented their caste generally ....104

What was potentially damaging to Komati honour, however, wasthe overall conclusion which Webb drew as to the Komatis1 status; farfrom being Vaisyas, they were Sudras, the lowly servant varna of thethree twice-born varnas. The Judge stated firmly his opinion that theevidence given of general caste usage showed that the Komatis belongedto the fourth class: 'they are not to be considered as dwijas [twice-born]but Soodras, as their own acharams [religious rituals] sufficientlybespeak them'. 105 Even the Niyogis and their lawyers had not gone sofar in their discussion of Komati status and customs as to smear themwith the brush of such degradation. For Sudras were 'degraded', in boththe literal and figurative meaning of the word. As one Benaras Brahmantestified, the point of view of the Sastras was that Sudras had 'wickedminds'. 106 In formal statements and in questioning witnesses, theNiyogis accepted that Komatis were generally considered as being of thethird class of Hindus, but they were not real Vaisyas, descendants of theoriginal Vaisyas. In the Iron Age, only the Brahmans remained of theoriginal three varnas. It was left for an unwary British judge, followingthe seemingly inexorable logic of his training, to draw what wouldappear to be the logical conclusion: if these people could not be realVaisyas, they must be real Sudras ....

As mentioned earlier, caste had developed from antiquity in southIndia with only one varna, the Brahman, receiving wide recognition.The varna system was not a major model for conventional socialclassification in south India. This is one of reasons why the Komatistruggle to be accepted as Vaisyas had been so long and drawn-out,involving several centuries of agitation. Until the nineteenth century, itappears that the category Sudra was not relevant to the way non-Brahmans thought about their status. It became relevant in thenineteenth century mostly as a point of contention raised by the Anglo-Indian legal use of translations from Sastric texts and by the commonBritish conviction that Hindus properly were divided into four varnas.

The Sadr Adalut did not repeat the logical exercises of Webb, butsimply said that they accepted the conclusions of the four Pundits. ThePrivy Council chose to focus on the litigation proceedings and announced

1 0 4 PC 1845, p.215.1 0 5 Ibid., p.214.1 0 6 Ibid., p.133.

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with few words that the Komatis had not proved their case. It wouldseem that the more than four printed pages of Webb's discussion hadrendered it unnecessary for the justices of the higher courts of appeal tomake further comments of their own.

Status competition through Anglo-Indian litigation processes wasfraught with a number of pitfalls for conventionally accepted statusesand authorities. The new rules of competition not only privilegedparticular styles of political reasoning and views of caste identity, butthey brought ordinary castefellows into political processes in new ways.The practice of taking witness testimony made the testimony ofcommonly insignificant castefellows potentially threatening to one oranother party in litigation. Any member of a caste (however that mightbe defined at the time) could give testimony which would, theoretically,have to be considered. For, along with issues of representativeness vis-a-vis a caste population and of definitions of caste membership andstatus, was the related and major issue of the reliability ofgeneralizations about caste practice: what was the incidence of a certainpractice? The evidence of an ordinary castefellow, who testified on hiscommon practice and those of others, could be as significant as that of aperson of higher rank. The older, local focus on the personal authorityand control of caste headmen was undermined by new needs forgeographic breadth of control. Aspects of this new significance wereexpressed in the public mandates which caste associations, such as theSouth Indian Vysia Association, assigned themselves: they wouldpromote the betterment even of poorer members — or at least givelipservice to such an ideal.107

The rules and conditions of status competition in the Anglo-Indianlegal system spelled the death of elite membership in the right and lefthand factions and associated groups. Not only was such a local andvertical focus on the organization of status competition ill-suited to thelong-term requirements of litigation, but membership in these groupswas incompatible with presenting oneself and one's cause in court asrespectable. The right and left hand model for conflict and associationslike the Mandri Maha-Nad could not survive the combination of publicexposure and official comment in litigation proceedings. The tone ofofficial statements submitted in the course of the litigation discussed heresuggests the dubious light in which officialdom viewed these institutions.Because of their association with group violence, the imperial mindviewed them as existing on the borders of illegality.

It appears that the Masulipatnam litigants and their legal advisorswere well aware of the ambivalent status of these institutions in the eyesof officialdom. Both groups of litigants either played down their

1 0 7 Thurston, Vol., III, p.344.

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relationship to these organizations or, as in the case of the mandris,claimed that accusations of a relationship were false. The Komatisadmitted to being in the right hand faction. However, they asserted thattheir present conflict had nothing in common with the public processionswhich they said were the customary focus of right hand interests.108 TheNiyogi litigants on the other hand represented themselves as having nohistory whatsoever of involvement in caste disputes. They did call as awitness a right hand leader (the 'Chettypeddah' mentioned earlier) fromanother town. This man had responsibility for usage among right handmembers and was opposed to Komati attempts to sanscritize their ritual.In effect, he contradicted the Komati assertion that theirs was not adispute of the right hand faction by saying that their endeavours were onthe same order as common right hand concerns, such as appropriation ofthe use of palanquins in public processions.109 It took the interrogationof the Komatis, acting as their own lawyers, to reveal that this man wasalso involved in Maha-nad activities.

In avoiding linking their cause to the activities of these localinstitutions, the litigants diminished the desirability of association withthem. They did this in a context which had expanding implications forfuture political development. Effective performance in the courtroomrequired wider constituencies of caste support than the essentially localright and left hand organization could provide. A shift to horizontalmobilization was encouraged by the centralized legal setting and therules of successful litigation.

Conclusion

From a view located in indigenous usage, we can say that local conflictsover rank and status in early nineteenth century south India had at basepolitical characteristics of concerns with ruling authority. However,because of the truncation of indigenous political structures under Britishimperial rule, these conflicts took on different meanings from those theyhad had under pre-colonial regimes. In the context of imperial conflictprocessing, Indians paradoxically relied on nineteenth centuryinterpretations of the statecraft of orthodox Brahmanism in theformation of a civil society which was formally divorced from thestructures of the state. This civil society retained, however, manycharacteristics from pre-colonial monarchical cosmology, among whichthe transformational nature of status and identities was prominent.Thus the nineteenth century was a period of continuous conflict overstatus and rank as groups struggled to alter their social and political

1 0 8 PC 1845, p.196.1 0 9 Ibid., p.126.

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identities. Once these conflicts became subject to centralized imperialmanagement, the terms of litigation competition tended to encouragethe mobilization of members of communities beyond their localities. Aswe have seen in the case of Komati-Niyogi conflict in Masulipatnam,conflicts which took place in public in a locality acquired new significancein the process of imperial management to become the issues of anindigenously defined public, the membership of which stretched beyondthe locality.

Research and writing for this article was supported by the Institutt forSammenlignende Kultur Forskning, Oslo, and the Norwegian Research Council(NAVF). I thank Burton Stein and Sandy Freitag for critical readings of an earlierdraft. Robert Frykenberg should recognize in this piece points of view he has suggestedin the past.

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