Diwan Bahadur Dewan Bahadur or Diwan Bahadur was a title of honour awarded during British rule in India. It was awarded to individuals who had performed faithful service or acts of public welfare to the nation. From 1911 the title was accompanied by a special T ...

Rettamalai Srinivasan (7 July 1860 - 18 September 1945), commonly known as R. Srinivasan, was a

Scheduled Caste The Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are officially designated groups of people and among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The terms are recognized in the Constitution of India and the groups are designa ...

activist and politician from then

Madras Presidency The Madras Presidency, or the Presidency of Fort St. George, also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision (presidency) of British India. At its greatest extent, the presidency included most of southern India, including the ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

(now the

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indepen ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is a state in southern India. It is the tenth largest Indian state by area and the sixth largest by population. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu is the home of the Tamil people, whose Tamil language ...

). He is a

Paraiyar Paraiyar, or Parayar or Maraiyar (formerly anglicised as Pariah and Paree), is a caste group found in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and Sri Lanka. Etymology Robert Caldwell, a nineteenth-century missionary and grammarian who ...

icon and was a close associate of

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

and was also an associate of B. R. Ambedkar. He is remembered today as one of the pioneers of the Scheduled caste movement in India. He founded the Adi dravida mahajana sabha in 1893. Cotextualizing scheduled caste Movement in South India, Pg 10

Early life

Rettamalai Srinivasan was born in 1860 in a poor Tamil family in Madras Presidency.

Talisman A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...

, Pg xxvi His family was able to send him to a residential school in

Coimbatore Coimbatore, also spelt as Koyamputhur (), sometimes shortened as Kovai (), is one of the major metropolitan cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyyal River and surrounded by the Western Ghats. Coimbat ...

because of his father Rettamalai's trade relations with the British. He was the only

student among the 400 pupils in the school. He then worked as an accountant at Ooty which was then the summer capital of the Madras presidency. Ooty was brimming with Dalit political activism then and Srinivasan grew interested. He was a brother-in-law of the famous scheduled castes activist

Iyothee Thass C. Iyothee Thass (20 May 1845 – 1914) was a prominent Tamil anti-caste activist and a practitioner of Siddha medicine. He famously converted to Buddhism and called upon the Paraiyars to do the same, arguing that this was their original relig ...

. He worked as a

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

in a South African court when Gandhi was practicing there as an advocate; he was instrumental in Mahathma Gandhi putting his signature in Tamil as "Mo.Ka. Gandhi" (

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

in Tamil). Thirumavalavan, Pg 227 Srinivasan established and led the ''Paraiyar Mahajana Sabha'' in 1891 Thirumavalavan, Pg 44 which later became the ''Adi-Dravida Mahajana Sabha''. He founded a Tamil newspaper called ''Paraiyan'' in October 1893

, Pg xxvii which started selling as a monthly with four pages for the price of four annas. However, ''Paraiyan'' experienced great difficulties in its early days. Srinivasan was a participant in the freedom movement and an arrest warrant was issued against him claiming that he was fleeing the nation. In 1896, a case was filed against the newspaper and Srinivasan was dragged to the court citing a letter to the editor. The editor Srinivasan was fined 100 for his writings.

Round Table Conference

Rettamalai Srinivasan represented the Paraiyars in the first two Round Table Conferences in London (1930 and 1931) along with B. R. Ambedkar. Cotextualizing Dalit Movement in South India, Pg 29 In 1932, Ambedkar,

M. C. Rajah Mylai Chinna Thambi Pillai Rajah (17 June 1883 – 23 August 1943) was an Indian politician, educationist, social and political activist from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Rajah was born to a Tamil family of Madras. He entered politics after ...

and Rettamalai Srinivasan briefly joined the board of the Servants of Untouchables Society established by Gandhi. In 1936, he established the Madras Province Scheduled Castes' Party. In the Round Table Conference, he shared the dais with

Ambedkar Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956) was an Indian jurist, economist, social reformer and political leader who headed the committee drafting the Constitution of India from the Constituent Assembly debates, served ...

and continued to have interaction with him. But, he differed greatly with Ambedkar on the question of untouchables converting to other religions. In the Yeola Conference in 1935, Ambedkar thundered "I was born as a Hindu, I solemnly assure you that I will not die as a Hindu". Rettamalai Srinivasan said, " Depressed Classes are not in the Hindu fold. They are full blooded Dravidian in race". In 1936 he was conferred to the title of '

' by British government for his service to Depressed Classes.

Memorials

Commemorative stamps have been issued in memory of Rettamalai Srinivasan by the Department of Posts of the Government of India. Cadres of the

Viduthalai Siruthaigal Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (; VCK) formerly known as the Dalit Panthers of India or the Dalit Panthers Iyyakkam (; DPI) is an Indian social movement and political party that seeks to combat caste based discrimination, active in the state o ...

party claimed to have discovered the remains of the Paraiyar leader in

Otteri Otteri is a developed residential area in Central Chennai, a metropolitan city in Tamil Nadu, India. Otteri is a part of Purasaiwakkam but is too distinct to be called hence locals simply refer it as Otteri. Police station *There is a police ...

and constructed a memorial over his mortal remains and named it ''Urimai Kalam''. On 6 July 2011, Chief Minister

J Jayalalithaa Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and actress who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for more than fourteen years over six terms between 1991 and 2016. From 9 February 1989 to 5 December 2 ...

had directed that his birth anniversary on 7 July be observed as a government function and ministers to honour him by garlanding his statue located inside Gandhi Mandapam, Chennai. His grandson B. Parameswaran became a minister in the Government of Tamil Nadu and a member of the Indian parliament.

Notes

References

* * *

Early life

Round Table Conference

Memorials

Notes

References

Further reading