S. Gunasekaran

This article argues that in the Madras Presidency, the caste Hindus treated both the European masters and their 'outcaste' domestic servants as impure due to their shared practice of beefeating. This, consequently, fostered a relationship of mutual dependence between them. Although not all servants participated in the preparation of food in European houses, they had to deal with beef in one way or another, such as purchasing and serving it, or simply working with the people who ate beef. Therefore, a willingness to handle beef was one of the essential criteria for employment in colonial bungalows that benefitted the outcastes exclusively. These new employment opportunities under colonialism created an educated 'higher-class' among them. This class later played a pivotal role in organising the outcastes and advocating for their rights. Though dependent on each other, the relationship between Europeans and their outcaste servants was not always cordial; there was tension inherent in it. The article further posits that attempts to maintain European racial and cultural dominance did not always succeed in the domestic sphere.

This essay is an attempt to write the social history of the Chakkiliyar community of South India, often classified in the colonial records as a caste occupying the lowest position in the caste hierarchy. This paper argues that the colonial period was marked by lowering opportunities for economic and social mobility for the community. Traditionally involved in the manufacture of leather goods that were central to irrigation, the Chakkiliyars had relatively better opportunities and some even occupied the status of petty landowners. But the advent of pumpsets and the mechanization of leather processing during the colonial period severely affected their economic opportunities. Adding to this, the colonial and missionary records, inflated with the prejudices of their upper caste informers, repeatedly portrayed their low social existence. Therefore, despite certain genuine motives and formidable social reforms, the colonial and missionary documentation of the caste in fact further strengthened the existing social stereotypes and thus added yet another layer into its history of discrimination. Besides recovering the various ways in which Chakkiliyars were described in the documents of colonial officials and Christian missionaries, this paper also analyzes the recent attempts by the members of the community to produce a counter narrative to the stereotypical representations of their caste.

Societies interpreted their dreams in various ways. While dream interpretation has always been an essential part of medical and philosophical discourse, it was only recently that historians began to show certain interest in writing what is called the cultural history of dream interpretation. In fact, dreams, rituals, myths, social memories and consciously constructed histories all share certain similarities since they engage with the past and are expressed in a narrative form. Dream psychology, therefore, may provide a useful analytical tool for historians who are interested in mapping the mental structure of societies. This article is an attempt to unearth the patterns of dream interpretations by analysing the dream expressions found in Tamil literature up to the twelfth century ad. The social attitude towards dreams in the Sangam literature, early Tamil epics and Bhakti literatures is studied in the sociocultural context of their times. One can presume that the literary language of dreams more or less reflected the contemporary cultural beliefs and social practices.

With both the government and business refusing to even acknowledge the existence of the practice of bonded labour in stone quarries of Rajasthan, quarry workers in the state, it seems, are committed to a life of servitude.  - See more at: http://www.epw.in/journal/2014/30/reports-states-web-exclusives/debt-bondage-sandstone-quarries-rajasthan.html#sthash.p94elCS7.dpuf

The course will introduce students to various approaches to the study of the forms of historical knowledge produced and maintained in the pre-colonial societies and will discuss how different social groups constructed and interpreted their past. Thus, it would acquaint students with the broader questions of historical consciousness and nature of history writing in pre-colonial India. This will be done by using examples from the historical narratives available in different vernacular narrative traditions of medieval India. The first part of the course (Lectures 0-5) will offer an overview of approaches to comprehend the relationship between memory, history and narratives. This part will begin with a discussion on social function of memory and subsequently will emphasize various conceptual paradigms like collective memory, social memory, social framework of memory etc. The relationship between individual and group memories, how did they influence each other while creating, negotiating a powerful social past, how the construction of social memory defined and redefined the identity of communities, various mnemonic techniques employed by the communities belonging to literate and non-literate medieval societies, the interrelationship between literary tradition and the historical narratives etc., will also be covered. The second part (Lectures 6-12) will supplement the theories with specific case studies. These cases are chosen from the historical studies on narratives that deal with the social and historical memory of people from different lingual and cultural regions. Thus these case studies represent various aspects of medieval history of modern regions like Assam, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, etc. These narratives are broadly dated between the 12 th and 18 th centuries.