POLITICS OF CASTE

 

After the Justice Party had come to power as a result of the 1920 elections,it proceeded to strengthen its position in the public life of southIndia by bringing before the Legislative Council in Madras a series of resolutions designed to give non-Brahmans in the presidency a greater proportion of government jobs. These resolutions and the subsequent Government Orders fostered great enmity between the non-Brahmans and those whom they sought to displace - the Brahmans - but the Justice Party pursued its demands doggedly, for it realized that the implementation of Government Orders to redistribute government appointments in favor of non-Brahmans would fulfill some of the party's first-articulated ideals—administrative power, social position, and economic security.[1]

 

But the more the Justice Party pressed its demands and the more successful it seemed to be, the more it lost the support of individuals and groups who had assisted it in its original campaign to achieve recognition for non-Brahmans as a backward group which needed official support in order to survive in the political battles implied by the Montagu–Chelmsford Reforms. With power, the Justice Party gradually limited its objectives and closed its ranks, pursuing the needs of non-Brahman caste Hindus to the exclusion of other groups such as the untouchables and the Muslims. Tension between the Tamils and the Telugus within the Justice Party also became apparent soon after the party came into office, and these differences were never entirely resolved.[2]

 

One of the main reasons for the Justice Party's decision to cooperate with the government and to contest the elections to the new reformed councils was that it saw in this method an opportunity to enhance the economic and public position of non-Brahmans. By far the most important means by which the Justice Party sought to implement this ambition was through pressure on the government in Madras to issue an executive order that would assure the non-Brahmans a more prominent place in the government services. The promulgation of what came to be known as the Second Communal Government Order in 1922 capped the long drive of the Justice Party for a greater distribution of government posts among non-Brahmans. This G. O. instructed collectors and other officials with the power of appointment to government posts to give priority in their recruitment policy to non-Brahmans and other so-called “backward” communities. But the executive decree establishing a balance between the different caste groups in the presidency was only in part a result of Justice Party pressure within the Council; it was also a natural evolution of the government's policy during the half-century preceding the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms. The history of the growth of government antipathy toward Brahmans in politics and in the administration helps to explain why the Madras government was finally willing to give in to Justice Party pressure within the Council.

 

As a result of a long series of conflicts in the early nineteenth century between district officers and subordinate staff in areas where Brahmans, by nepotism, had contrived to usurp much of the direction of the administration of a district,' the Board of Revenue in Madras promulgated in 1851 a standing order—popularly known as Standing Order No. 128, Clause 2—which laid down the means whereby the number of Brahmans in the revenue service of the government could be controlled. It was stated in the order that the Collector should always divide the ‘principal appointments in each district among the several castes’, and that a proportion of the tahsildars in each district should belong to castes other than Brahman. Also, it was made mandatory (a standing rule) that the “two chief revenue servants in the Collector’s office (the huzur sharistadar and the English head clerk) should be of different castes.  An inquiry into staffing three years later by the Board of Revenue yielded the information that the revenue officials of Nellore district included forty-nine relatives and ‘connections’ of G. Venkataramanayya, a Telugu Neyogi Brahman, despite the promulgation of the Standing Order No. 128. In the Board's minutes for March, 1854, the case was noted with considerable forcefulness. “Whatever may be the attitude of the members of this family for public service and whatever may be the family differences and disputes between themselves, it is evident that the head of the office—the European officer—must be almost powerless to detect and punish fraud and wrong, on the part of members of this family—and as a necessary consequence, he will be powerless to protect the people against extortions or oppressions of the family”. Large numbers of Brahmans in the revenue and other government services, particularly when they were connected by family, were considered deleterious to the public good, since it meant that the responsibility for the well-being of any given district lay not with the district officer but with his subordinate staff.[3]

 

Nevertheless, attempts to implement the Standing Order were largely unsuccessful until nearly the end of the century. At last, in the 1890's, in an effort to affect not only the Standing Order but also the recommendations of the Public Services Commission Report of 1886, the Madras government decided to fill appointments in the Provincial Civil Service—a service in status and responsibility halfway between the Indian Civil Service and the Subordinate Service—by open competition. In 1893 the principle of open competition was extended to the recruitment of Deputy Collectors. But the system did nothing to break the Brahman monopoly: in the years 1893-1895 all except one of the successful candidates were Brahmans, owing, as the Madras Chief Secretary put it, to the extraordinary ability displayed by this class of the community in passing examinations”. The Board of Revenue still considered, as it had in 1854, that a disproportionate number of Brahmans in the service hampered good administration. In addition, it also left no “opportunities available to Government, in justice to the other classes of the community, for promotion from the Subordinate Service of deserving officers of that class”. Between 1896 and 1911, therefore, when renewed attempts were made to prevent Brahmans from monopolizing the Provincial Civil Service, the Board of Revenue abandoned its total reliance upon competitive examinations and selected personnel partly with a view toward efficiency but also with a desire for social justice.° It was at this time that a remarkable series of pamphlets was issued by a pseudonymous author under the name ‘Fair Play’, on the relations between the non-Brahmans and the public services in Madras. ‘Fair Play’ was anxious to establish a non-Brahman political organization and a journal to propagate its views, but he also argued that the public services should be “secured to the men from among the millions of the non-Brahmin subjects who form the bulk, if not the whole, of the population [of presidency]”. The ‘just share’ of the services that ‘Fair Play’ thought was due to the non-Brahmans corresponded to the proportion of non-Brahmans in the presidency.' “The 97 per cent of the non-Brahmin population must have 97 per cent of appointments in the public services reserved for them”.[4]

 

But still the Brahmans continued to dominate despite the concerted efforts of the Madras government for nearly a half-century to limit their number, along with a policy, beginning in 1904, of deliberately including non-Brahmans among government; servants; and despite, also, the publicizing of the issue by pamphleteers like ‘Fair Play’. In 1912, when it was announced that the second Public Services Commission was about to investigate recruitment, pay, pensions, and promotion opportunities in, government services, it was discovered upon inquiry that there:' was still a marked preponderance of Brahmans in many departments. Again, orders were issued urging the collectors and others who made government appointments to comply with the Board's Standing Order No. 128.

When the Public Services Commission visited Madras early in 1, 1913, the matter began to take on a political tone. A great many witnesses, government and otherwise, were examined, and the evidence of each day's hearings was published in the daily press. This publication of the evidence aroused a general interest in the government's policy and stimulated demands for change by' the non-Brahmans. Of all the evidence given before the Commissioners at Madras that of Alexander Cardew, the Chief Secretary of the Madras government, was the most provocative. In his evidence, Cardew emphasized his belief that it was impossible to employ the competitive system of recruitment to government service in southern India because of “the astonishing intellectual superiority of a small, rigidly exclusive caste, the Brahman”. And he gave figures: “Out of a population of 411 millions, the number of Brahmans (all ages and sexes) is 11 million, or about 3 per cent., while out of the total number of Graduates of the University [of Madras], 8,821 or 72 per cent are Brahmans. In the competitive examinations for the Provincial Civil Service which were held between 1892 and 1904, out of 16 successful candidates, 15 were Brahmans and only one was a non-Brahman, giving a ratio of 94 per cent of Brahman success”. Competitive examinations for government posts in the Provincial Service would result, he contended, in “the exclusion from office of large and important sections of the population and in virtual monopoly of success by Brahmans”. Cardew concluded that “The Brahman has maintained his lead for 30 years and shows no signs of losing it, and inasmuch as his intellectual superiority is a racial characteristic, it is unlikely that it will be shaken except after an indefinite lapse of time”. Cardew's evidence supporting the claims of the non-Brahmans and urging a more careful control over the number of Brahmans entering the government services was supplemented by the evidence of a large number of non-Brahmans, including Dr. T. M. Nair and P. Tyagaraja Chetti, and others who condemned the great Brahman preponderance in the Provincial Civil Service”.[5]

 

But the most outspoken of these non-Brahman witnesses, some of whom were later to become members of the Justice Party, A. Kumaraswami Tampoe, an I.C.S. officer, and T. Balaji R Nayudu. The former, an Indian Christian from Ceylon whose forebears had been Tamil Vellalas, maintained that the Brahmans were at the head of a social system that was undemocratic “could therefore not develop democratic attitudes themselves Tampoe did admit, on being pressed by Gokhale (a Maharashtrian Chitpavan Brahman), who was a member of the Commission, that this difficulty could be corrected by the values the Western education engendered, but he urged that non-Brahma be represented more strongly in the services”. Balaji Rao Nayudu a Revenue Divisional Officer with the Madras government, was even more outspoken in his opinion that non-Brahmans should have proportional representation in government service, even it meant a temporary lowering of educational qualifications.[6]

 

As all this evidence appeared daily in the press, it was noted and its import clearly understood. The Justice Party referred to Sir Alexander Cardew's evidence in its 1916 Manifesto citing it as conclusive proof of the Brahman's grip on the administrative services. Indeed, Nair and Tyagaraja Chetti adopted part of party policy Cardew's recommendations that two separate competitive examinations be held—one for half the posts be open to all persons including Brahmans, and another for the remaining posts, to be open only to non-Brahmans.

 

 The assumption contained in the Non-Brahmin Manifesto that Cardew's evidence to the Public Services Commission revealed the sympathy of the Madras government with the non-Brahman case was not without foundation. There is considerable evidence to suggest that Lord Pentland himself, as indicated by his discussions with Montagu in December, 1917, feared that “the Brahmans might gain control not only of the administration of the presidency but also of its politics, with all the agitation and inconvenience for the British bureaucracy that this would imply”.  Certainly in the year 1912-1919, the Government of Madras—and particularly Cardew and Pentland—proved unusually responsive to non-Brahman claims and in the discussions with the Southborough Committee pressed for communal representation for non-Brahmans under the Reforms. But Cardew's and Pent-land's belief in government by a bureaucracy made them reluctant to allow the non-Brahmans to dictate policy, by whatever means, on non-Brahman representation in the services.[7]

 

An unwillingness to be dictated to by public pressure did not protect the Madras government, however, from an increasing number of demands from non-Brahman caste Hindus as well as other groups claiming backward status and special consideration in the distribution of government appointments. The Indian Christians, along with the south Indian Muslims and the untouchables, provoked a full-scale inquiry into the relationship between their educational standing and relative position in government employment1e Thus the pressure grew, and when the Non-Brahmin Manifesto appeared in 1916 it was eagerly read by those who knew English, and then, after translation, by Tamil-and Telugu-readers as well.

 

After the new Justice Party started airing its claims and irritations, the Government of Madras began to make even more sustained efforts to assist the non-Brahmans. Lord Pentland revised the number and scope of the Special Tests so as to remove many of the disabilities that were considered unfair handicaps in the way of those “educationally backward classes” that sought to rise higher in the service is However, the most interesting and best documented attempt by a government official to assist non-Brahmans in their rise to administrative power was that of V. Venugopal Chetti, a Telugu Beri Chetti, a Justice Party member, who had been in the I.C.S. since 1890. At a Collectors' conference at Ootacamund in August, 1917, he made a vigorous stand in favor of practical and strong measures to better the condition of the non-Brahmans in the presidency. Some of his arguments reflected Justice Party policy, as promulgated by Justice leaders in Madras and in London before the Joint Select Committee. For example, he made the point that since the major portion of the population—‘the bulk of the tax-payers and a considerable proportion of the landed classes’—were non-Brahman Hindus the existence of a large majority of Brahmans in all the government offices was ‘inequitable’, and the source of much discontent. It was also true that the non-Brahman community was ‘backward’ and that it had not “yet adapted itself to the changing conditions of the country”. He urged the government to come to the non-Brahmans' rescue.[8]

 

Since the non-Brahman Hindus were unequal to the qualifications that the government set for employment, Venugopal Chetti suggested that the imbalance between the caste groups should be remedied by reserving for the non-Brahmans a fixed proportion—he suggested one-third—of the clerical staff and of the students selected for the Engineering, Forest, and Teaching colleges. Their selection should be made on the basis of a relaxation of the examination qualifications.  Acting on Venugopal Chetti's proposal, the conference decided to set up a special committee and requested information about caste representation in the government service from the Secretariat. The statistics of the numbers of non-Brahmans, and Brahmans in the government professional training schools subsequently provided by the Secretariat seemed to prove beyond any doubt the need for some sort of relaxation of qualifications in favor of the non-Brahmans, but when the committee proposed this to the Secretariat, the Secretariat refused to take any action.[9]

 

 

The fate of Venugopal Chetti's proposals is illustrative of what happened on a number of occasions from then on, for five years, when non-Brahmans demanded special treatment in matter of government appointments. On each occasion there are pressures from a non-Brahman group or individual, whose demands were supported by members of the British bureaucracy; anxious to cut through the hold of the Brahmans on the administrative system and the politics in the presidency. These m persons such as Sir Alexander Cardew and Sir Charles T Hunter, were always opposed by one or two members of Madras Executive Council (in the 1920's by A. R. Knapp and R. A. Graham) who were unwilling to sacrifice the efficiency of services in order to satisfy non-Brahman caste Hindu aspirations.[10]

 

The Madras government could do nothing to prevent discussions on the subject from arising in the Madras Legislative Council, however. In July, 1920, a dispute broke out over the mat of Madras government patronage to an institution in Madras c called the Brahman Widows' Home. M. C. Rajah, an untouchable, objected that similar treatment was not granted to wide of other caste groups and that the support of this home out government funds was a flagrant example of partiality to Brahmans. He placed before the house a resolution to suspend allocation of government funds for the home, but he was unable to force the issue and finally withdrew the resolution.  In all, there were five occasions between 1917 and 1920 when the Madras government had to contend with criticisms in Council—four times from non-Brahmans and once from a Brahman. But this period the government refused to be dictated to public although it sought to increase its efforts to solve the problem administratively.[11]  A question by a Muslim Justice member askig for information on the number of Brahmans, non-Brahmans, Muslims and others employed by the Government of Madras and for information concerning future government policy towards Brahmans in government service brought the terse reply. “The subject is under the close attention of Governments. When the same member pressed the point further a few months later, asking for figures of superintendents and clerks in the Secretariat according to Brahman, non-Brahman, Muslim, and Indian Christian categories, he received a much fuller reply, including tables showing the Brahman majorities in the Secretariat in Madras city.  These tables were, indeed, the beginning of a long series of disclosures by the government which added to non-Brahman confidence and irritation. But the next year, 1919, when M. C. Rajah and P. Tyagaraja Chetti asked whether or not the government proposed to pass orders for the adequate representation of all classes in the lower grades of the public services, both questions were disallowed on the grounds that they were not in the public interest. On the single occasion (in 1918) when the anti-Brahman bias of the Board of Revenue's Standing Rule No. 128 was attacked by a Brahman (V. K. Ramanuja Achariar), Cardew, who was then on the Executive Council, found the question preposterous and unworthy of serious attention. When it came time for Ramanuja Achariar to put the question in Council, he failed to show up, and the resolution was never moved.[12]

 

All the while, however, the Madras government was privately getting ready to implement, on a wide scale, the suggestions made by non-Brahmans in the Legislative Council. In January, 1919, orders were sent out directing Collectors that in appointing Clerks, Deputy Tahsildars, and Sub-Magistrates “posts should be distributed among Tamil and Telugu ... in equal proportion. Brahmans should not exceed half the total number and at least half should be chosen from among non-Brahmans and Muhammadans”. An additional order directed Collectors to compile a list of acceptable candidates according to these criteria 28 Late that same year, after Lord Pentland and Cardew had left Madras, and on the eve of the implementation of the Montagu—Chelmsford Reforms, the Justice Party sent a petition to the Viceroy pleading that the glaring inequalities between Brahman and non-Brahman in the public services in Madras must be rectified. Nothing actually came of this petition, but A. R. Knapp, who later resisted attempts by the Justice Party to de-Brahmanize the administration at the expense of efficiency, noted that “of late years we have spared no pains to distribute appointments”.[13]

 

For years, since the Board of Revenue's promulgation of Standing Order No. 128 in 1851, the Madras government had been trying to protect its district officers from becoming the victims of a district administration dominated by Brahmans. It was evident that the Brahmans were still in the majority, however, despite the attempts. As Brahman preponderance in the services became more and more apparent, the interest of the non-Brahmans in their own future created great public interest. The publication of the official testimony before the Public Services Commission in 1913, the formation of the Justice Party in 1916, and the existence within the Madras government of persons sympathetic to the non-Brahman position all helped to transform this situation. Thus when the Justice Party took office in late 1920 the stage was set for an all-out battle to achieve what ‘Fair Play’ described as the rightful share of government employment for non-Brahmans.

 

In an effort to clarify the issues, K. Srinivasa Iyengar, the Law Member of the Executive Council, defended the right of the government to maintain the quality of personnel appointed to District Munsifships. The point he had tried to make, he said, was that “efficiency is the right test. I never said that Brahmans alone possessed efficiency”. To this Tanikachala Chetti replied: "The implication was that non-Brahmans were inefficient. I put the question: Is it a fact that we are not efficient? ... It is said that the non-Brahmans are not as intelligent as Brahmans. Have all the non-Brahman district munsifs, Sub Judges, District Judges and High Court Judges been inferior to Brahmans? Thus the claim for superior intelligence and efficiency is as ill-founded and untrue as it is audacious”. To strengthen his point, Tanikachala Chetti drew an analogy between south India and Ireland, pointing out that in the same way as it was unfair for Protestant judges to administer justice in a predominantly Catholic country like Ireland, so also in an area such as south India, peopled for the most part by non-Brahman Hindus, it was “scandalous” for Brahmans to be in the majority in the public services  “A truce was established on this particular issue when a resolution calling upon the government to recruit personnel for the judiciary” from amongst non-Brahman Hindus, Christians and Muhammadans so as to secure a due representation of all different communities in the Judicial service” was passed by a large majority.[14]

 

Though some hoped that this measure of consensus would satisfy or perhaps delay other Justice demands, these expectations were not to be fulfilled. On August 5, 1921, a more serious conflict occurred in the Legislative Council over a resolution brought forward by Tanikachala Chetti recommending that the government issue an order directing appointing officers to give preference to non-Brahmans in all government services a' Six other resolutions were scheduled to be introduced by Justice Party members. One of these resolutions requested the appointment of a committee of non-Brahmans to report on the best means by which proportional representation in the Madras services could be secured; the others, which were ultimately dropped, were almost identical to the one proposed by Tanikachala Chetti. A.R. Knapp, Home Member in the Executive Council, whose responsibility it would be to carry out these recommendations, viewed them with dismay. “I am sure,” he said, “that there are many in this House who, on looking at the agenda of this meeting, shared with me a feeling of regret that we were to spend many hours, if not days, in discussing no less than seven resolutions on the subject of communal representation in the public services”. An inconclusive debate over Tanikachala Chetti's resolution provoked Knapp into agreeing reluctantly to a compromise resolution as a way of saving valuable time for the Council. The compromise read as follows: That with a view to increase the proportion of posts in Government offices held by non-Brahmans, the principles prescribed in B.S.O. [Board's Standing Order] No. 12 [clause] 2 be at once extended to all departments of the Government and be made applicable not only to the principal appointments but to posts of all grades, and that the government should issue orders accordingly and insist on their being enforced, and that to this end half-yearly returns showing the progress made should be submitted by the head of each office. Such periodical returns shall be made available to the members of the Legislative Council.[15]

 

In the belief that this compromise would satisfy the Justice Party and would provide it with the requisite assurance that the government was willing to go to considerable lengths to implement the principles set out in the Board's Standing Order, especially with the proviso that the members of the Legislative Council would have access to the results of these efforts, all the members of the Legislative Council, including the Brahmans, joined in passing the resolution unanimously.[16]

 

The ease with which this resolution was pushed through invited further attempts from Justice party members. Another resolution, quickly submitted, was directed specifically at the Madras Government Secretariat: it demanded that the principles implicit in Knapp's compromise resolution be applied to appointments in the Secretariat, which was known to employ a high proportion of Brahmans. Knapp accused Tanikachala Chetti, who introduced the resolution, of ‘ruffling the calm’; he especially resented this criticism of Secretariat employment procedures because a ‘peculiarly high standard’ was expected from Secretariat employees. Knapp pointed out that, in the beginning, only First Class graduates had been admitted to the Secretariat, but with the increase in work and the shortage of First Class candidates, the Secretariat had been forced to recruit Honors graduates as well. Knapp stressed that he had gone to great trouble to look over the list of applications for employment in the Secretariat, but he had found few non-Brahmans with the necessary qualifications. Finally, he was quite unwilling to discard the principle of efficiency in seeking men for Secretariat posts and to ‘supersede men at the top on the grounds of caste’, for, as he said, “I do not attach any importance whatever to the statistics of the population of Madras as giving us an indication of the number of persons of any particular community whom we might expect to be employed in the Secretariat”.[17]

 

In the face of Knapp's implacable opposition to Justice harassment, it seemed improbable that anything substantial would come of this sparring. However, Justice pressure was sufficiently strong to force the Government of Madras to issue a Government Order on September 16, 1921, which came to be known as the First Communal G.O. Its provisions included a government instruction that the Board's Standing Order No. 128, Clause 2, be extended from the Revenue to all departments. Secondly, a report was required of all Heads of Departments, Collectors, and District Judges twice a year indicating the classification of each new recruit to the public services according to the following six categories: Brahman, non-Brahman Hindu, Indian Christian, Muslim, European, Anglo-Indian, and others.

 

The issuance of this First Communal G.O. was the Justice Party's first major breakthrough. It proved that if it pressed the government hard enough it could force it into a policy that would help the non-Brahmans in their rise to administrative and economic position. At the same time, the winning of this preliminary part of its legislative program gave the party the morale and self-confidence it needed to pursue its efforts. A month after the First Communal G.O. was issued the Justice Party did in fact enter upon another, more strident, campaign to coerce the government into issuing a still more comprehensive statement which would give a conclusive majority to the non-Brahmans in the services. In a resolution asking that a special officer be deputed to gather statistics of the total number of Brahmans, non-Brahmans, and others in government employment, Tanikachala Chetti urged that these statistics should not be limited to an analysis of new recruits but should constitute a comprehensive review of government employment policy. He also wanted these returns to be submitted to the Council, so that its members could see whether “we have been going forwards or whether we have been going backwards” in the recruitment of non-Brahmans. Knapp dismissed this resolution on the grounds that it served no public purpose and that it was not a “matter of very great importance”.[18]

 

On this occasion Knapp was able to forestall any government action, but soon after this he was appointed Special Commissioner to settle the Moplah rebellion in Malabar, and Sir Lionel Davidson, a man far more sympathetic to Justice Party claims, took over as Home Member. On August 15, 1922, another government order was issued under the sponsorship of Sir Lionel and Sir Charles Todhunter which was longer, more comprehensive, and much more definitive than the First Communal G.O. Popularly referred to as the Second Communal G.O. (it is reproduced in full in appendix 3), this major policy decision declared that the government concurred entirely in the desire of the members of the Legislative Council for information on the six categories set out in the First Communal G.O., not only for new appointments but for all government employees, including personnel in permanent, temporary, or acting appointments, and those appointed either for the first time or promoted from subordinate grades. It further directed that the principle implicit in the Board of Revenue's Standing Order No. 128, Clause 2—that the main appointments in each district should be “divided among the several communities”—should be realized not only at the time of recruitment but at every “point at which men are promoted wholly by selection and not by seniority”. In order to keep Legislative Council members informed of the progress made in distributing the government appointments among all the communities of the presidency, yearly returns were to be made by heads of departments “showing the extent to which each of the six main sub-divisions is represented in each department”.  Gazetted or listed officers were required to indicate into which of these six subdivisions they fitted, so that this information could be added to the Quarterly Civil List.[19]

 

This order was an important landmark in the history of the Justice Party and in the non-Brahman movement generally, and the effect that its promulgation had upon Justice Party members cannot be overstated. By giving in to Justice pressure the government had fulfilled a goal that had been a part of Justice propaganda and thinking since the founding of the party in 1916. Yet it was to become quickly apparent that this important policy decision now on the record books was perhaps too easy a solution to the problems of Brahman—non-Brahman competition for government jobs. The party, with one of its main focuses of attention removed, was left open to fragmentation. In achieving its aims as painlessly and easily as it did, the Justice Party was paving the way to its own early demise.[20]

 

In February, 1924, the Madras government took the penultimate step in resolving the conflict produced by the ever increasing demands of the non-Brahmans in the Legislative Council for increased representation in government services. This step was the establishment of a Staff Selection Board consisting of three senior civil servants and two non-official appointees of the governor”.  It was made quite clear by the government order establishing the Staff Selection Board (see appendix 4) that the Board itself was intended as an examination body which would eliminate the dangers implicit in nomination or patronage and would utilize the device of competitive examination, but would also take into account the principles set forth in the Second Communal G.O. By this mechanism, the government hoped to take the discussion of its recruitment policy out of the legislative arena and put it on a more impartial and nonpolitical basis, while at the same time honoring the principles articulated in the Second Communal G.O. Establishing a Staff Selection Board was also a means whereby the Madras government could deflect pressure from the central Indian government to cooperate with the central Public Services Commission expected to come into existence shortly after the time of the Government of India's circular entitled “The Services under the Reforms”, which was discussed earlier.[21] In 1919 the central government had communicated to the Madras government a scheme whereby such a commission might be established for the whole of British India to institute “some more impersonal method of selection” for government personnel. Many members of the Madras government felt, however, that a commission of this sort could never know Madras conditions well enough to take over the job of selecting candidates, and the Madras government therefore preferred to set up its own Staff Selection Board.  In 1929 Madras became the first province to institute a provincial Public Services Commission.[22]

 

Since the constitution of a Staff Selection Board removed discussion concerning communal representation in government jobs from the Legislative Council, it was seen by many Justice Party members as a distinct loss of power. They feared that their opportunities to criticize the government's employment policy would diminish and that appointments previously under the control of the Legislative Council would be removed from its purview. The first man to question the validity of the new board was Mariadas Ratnaswami, a Tamil Catholic. Ratnaswami contended that the Staff Selection Board would not be impersonal or unbiased, and since its members would include heads of departments, it was almost inevitable that each department head would determine the appointments within his own department. He further objected that the establishment of the board would mean that Council members and ministers would lose their control over appointments. The Council was quickly reassured on this point by the Rajah of Panagal, who, as Minister for Local Self-Government, controlled the greatest number of appointments: the Staff Selection Board, he said, was not expected to make “appointments which have been hitherto made either by the Ministers or by Members of the Executive Council”.  Ratnaswami's resolution to cut the funds for the support of the Staff Selection Board was then defeated.[23]

 

Justice members also criticized the Staff Selection Board on the grounds that it would not represent the intention or interests of non-Brahmans or the principles set out in the Communal G.O.s. Only a month after the establishment of the Board, C. Natesa Mudaliar, who was primarily interested in communal representation in the services, asked Sir Charles Todhunter whether or not the Board was honoring the principles set forth in the Communal G.O. The answer he received was more a description of the functions of the Board than an analysis of its recruitment procedures and some months later he approached the question more directly. There was, he said in October, “a great deal of heart-burning and discontent” as a result of the belief that the Communal G.O.s were not being observed. A. Ramaswami Mudaliar now joined in the battle. As the Justice spokesman in the House—a position he had won through his eloquence and debating skills—Ramaswami Mudaliar argued that the Board could never represent the interests of the presidency, much less the Council. P. N. Marthandam Pillai, a Vellala, also of the Justice Party, demanded that if “the country of the Hottentots must be governed by the Hottentots and if Southern India is populated by non-Brahmins, who are in a majority, Southern India must be governed by Non-Brahmins”.[24]

 

At this point the Madras government, represented by R. A. Graham, the Finance Minister, took up the defense. The government should exist for the benefit of the entire population of the presidency, Graham declared, and it was wrong of the non-Brahman Hindus to dominate the Staff Selection Board and turn it into a partisan body: The only purpose for which a Board consisting of non-Brahman Hindus could be constituted would be for the purpose of seeing that no one except non-Brahman Hindus is appointed to Government service. The Government on the other hand adheres to the principles laid down in G.O.No. 658 [the Second Communal G.O.] that all communities should be properly represented and that steps should be taken to see that they are represented.

 

Unlike earlier occasions when the Madras government had been forced to modify its original position on non-Brahman representation, Graham could now hold his ground effectively against the pressure of the Justice Party because he could always point to the existence of a comprehensive and authoritative statement giving non-Brahmans a distinct advantage in government employment. The pressure did not end, however. There were objections in late 1925 from J. P. Saldanaha, an Indian Christian from the west coast, and the following year from Ramaswami Mudaliar.  At last, in December, 1928, the government agreed to the establishment of a Communal Representation Committee, which would survey the procedures of the Staff Selection Board.

 

Justice Party drives for greater administrative power during the years 1920 through 1926 had foisted upon a reluctant bureaucracy a means by which it could neutralize the constant rattle of questions and resolutions in the Council on the matter of non-Brahman representation in the services. But the great esprit de corps with success in this direction endangered among the non-Brahmans, and the willingness of at least some senior British bureaucrats in the Madras government to cooperate with the Justice Party in its upward journey, also produced a marked polarization of political forces in the presidency. The bitterness between the two sides was reflected in the debates in the Legislative Council, in which it was evident that the Brahmans were out of their element in the increasingly competitive style of communal politics. The Madras government was quite aware of the antipathy, as it showed in passing the Communal G.O.s and establishing first a Staff Selection Board and finally the first provincial Public Services Commission. As we have seen, these developments, successful as they were for the Justice Party, also made the party increasingly vulnerable to disintegration. Not only did it lack a real goal, but it was faced with growing hostility from a once friendly government. But those who suffered most from the communal quarrel were the Brahmans, who were losing their position of superiority not only in the Council but in the educational world. Satyamurti, the Swaraj leader, a Tamil Smartha Brahman, referring to the establishment of selection committees to assist non-Brahmans to enter government colleges, protested against what he termed “this nefarious attempt to deny the benefit of education to a section of the people because they have the misfortune of being born in a particular community.  There could be little doubt that the challenge to the Brahmans in the services, in the Council, and in education was threatening the very means by which Brahmans in south India could maintain their culture, standing, and economic position. The wheel had turned full circle. The Hindu (Nov. 17, 1923), noting the increasing distrust between Brahmans and non-Brahmans at the time of the elections to the second Reformed Council, characterized this issue as having provided the Madras bureaucracy with the means to divide and rule the presidency: But other ‘problems’ have cropped up presumably to their delight calculated to make united, effective action on the part of the Council an impossibility.[25]  For not only have the racial, religious, caste .....differences been accentuated, but other fresh antipathies have arisen into prominence. The claims of linguistic and local patriotism have been set up.... In the last three years [1920-1923], the Council's energies ... were utilized in tackling the Brahmin-non-Brahmin problem. In the next triennium, is the Council to have nothing better to do than set up and attempt to solve a Tamil-Andhra problem? If the Council seriously engaged itself on that issue, when can it get rid of such issues and set itself up to broader, more useful and national problems.

 

The years 1920-1923 had indeed been marked by great controversy in the Legislative Council, and the Hindu was perceptive in anticipating a debate between the Telugus and the Tamils. The way in which this debate occurred and the issues that were debated were, indeed, a clear result of the prevailing style of politics in Madras at this time, in which each group, linguistic or caste, sought to establish its own position and identity in public life.[26]

 

Bitterness between Tamils and Telugus was not without precedent. The Andhra movement of 1913, and the struggle within the Congress organization for a separate unit for the Telugus had involved considerable bitterness. Congress solved the Tamil-Telugu antagonism in 1917 by granting the Telugus their own unit, giving them control in their own linguistic region and thus providing a measure of insulation between the Telugus and the Tamils to the south. The Andhras had had additional demands, as expressed by Konda Venkatappayya and Pattabhi Sittaramayya (both Neyogi Brahmans), including a separate province for Telugu speakers and their own Andhra University. But agitation for these demands had been put aside at the time first by Montagu's visit, then by the discussion of the Reforms themselves, and finally by Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. K.V. Reddi Naidu, speaking in 1925, considered the decline in the Andhra agitation for a separate province and university for Telugus a result of the diversion of energies into “the non-Brahmin movement and later the non-co-operation movement”.[27]

 

A number of Andhras entered the Legislative Council in 1920, and on two occasions, once in 1921 and again in 1922, they questioned the government about its attitudes toward the formation of a separate Andhra state and university. On the second of these occasions, a Telugu Brahman named M. Suryanarayana from Vizagapatnam district introduced a resolution recommending that the Madras government create a separate Andhra province. This resolution provoked a serious difference of opinion among the Executive Council and among the three Justice Party ministers. It is important to remember in connection with these discussions that the Joint Parliamentary Committee in 1919 had provided for a commission to be appointed by the Secretary of State to inquire into requests made by “any distinctive racial or linguistic territorial unit” for a separate province.36 With this in mind, Sir Charles Todhunter wrote a long minute for the Government of Madras on the history of linguistic demands in the Imperial and Legislative Assemblies in Delhi and in the Madras Legislative Council. When the time came for Suryanarayana to press his resolution, A. P. Patro, the Justice Education Minister, persuaded him to desist. But Reddi Naidu, in his minute, still felt there was room for the demand and the reality of a separate Andhra province. The Telugus of the Northern Circars have always agitated for a separate Andhra Province and those in the Ceded districts are not in favor of it or, at any rate, are not enthusiastic about it. Personally, I have always been of [the] opinion that an Andhra Province is a necessity. But owing to differences between Brahmins and non-Brahmins in recent years, my attitude has slightly altered. I am still in favour of a separate province for the Andhras provided statutory guarantees are made for a majority of non-Brahmins in the Legislative Council and in the public services of the new provinces.[28]

 

Norman Marjoribanks, a senior I.C.S. member, commented that it would be “interesting to see how the proposition is reconciled to the idea of Indian nationalism”. Though a demand for a separate Andhra province did not arise in the Council proceedings again until early 1927, the idea of an Andhra university was seriously broached soon after the establishment of the first Justice ministry. A. P. Patro, the Education Minister, brought forward a scheme for such a university as an equalizing device to the bill, then pending, to reorganize and strengthen Madras University.  For non-Brahmans, at least, Madras University was understood to be a university primarily geared to the interests of Tamil Brahmans, where non-Brahmans and especially students from Telugu areas were looked upon as unwelcome foreigners. It was natural for the Tamil non-Brahmans to regard the reorganization bill as an attempt by the Brahmans to tighten their hold on an already over-Brahmanized institution. But to the Andhra members of the Council the bill was even more than that—a threat to their hopes for a separate university. The Madras University Reorganization Bill was subsequently passed, but on the eve of its becoming law, in March, 1923, G. Vandanam pointed out that “those of us who supported the organization scheme of Madras University did soon the distinct understanding that the Madras University reorganization would help us to get an Andhra University at no distant date.[29]

 

 

When the suggestion to create an Andhra university was first brought up in 1921, C. Natesa Mudaliar, a Tamil Vellala in the Justice Party, raised some strong objections on the grounds that it was impossible to define Andhras or the Andhra country. In the course of a somewhat devious speech laden with historical arguments, he finally came out with his real objection to the idea. Any resolution, he said, that proposed the creation of an Andhra university “savours of disunion among the members of the non-Brahmin community”. Despite reassurances that the establishment of an Andhra university “will not affect our non-Brahmin movement in the least”, many Tamil Justice members still had misgivings. One Tamil Sri Vaishnava Brahman, interestingly enough, supported the scheme on the grounds that it would “help to advance knowledge, will help to advance the status and civilization of the people, and it will be the first step and the next step will immediately be another university for Tamil land”.

 

Natesa Mudaliars opposition to an Andhra university epitomized the distrust with which many Tamils in the Justice Party viewed any efforts of the Telugus to enhance their already substantial position in the party. Tyagaraja Chetti fostered the distrust by neglecting the Tamils in the constitution of the first Justice ministry in 1920, and the antipathy came to a head in 1922. In a stormy party meeting in Madras in May of that year, J.N. Ramanathan, who came from the Tamil district of Madura, accused Tyagaraja Chetti of failing to recognize the hard work and zeal of many Tamils in the party: The Tamilians have been noted for their hospitality, and I am proud that the Tamilians have contributed not a little to the strength of the party in power as is evident from the staunch support within the Council and from the princely and loyal receptions accorded to the Ministerial progress in the Southern [Tamil] part of the Presidency; whereas the tours [of the Ministers] have been marked by many hartals and hostilities in the Northern [Telugu] parts. This clearly illustrates that the followers or admirers of Sanskrit have no sympathy with the [non-Brahmin] movement, whereas the movement is held dear by the Tamilians.[30]

 

Ramanathan warned Tyagaraja Chetti that if no Tamil minister found a place in the next Justice ministry in late 1923, the Tamilians in the Justice Party might break away from the party altogether. In August, 1923, at Trichinopoly, a group of Tamil discontents in the party held a Tamil Nadu Non-Brahman Conference, in defiance of the annual Justice confederations held in December. The Rajah of Ramnad, one of the dissidents, told his audience that “the Tamils with an ancient civilization and a tradition of unexampled glory have now elected themselves into a distinct political party in order that their interests may be specially safeguarded and advanced”.

 

As a peace offering, Tyagaraja Chetti suggested that for the 1923 Justice ministry Reddi Naidu should step aside as Minister of Development to allow the appointment of a Tamil,    T.N. Sivagnanam Pillai, a Vellala from Tinnevelly district. The peace offering was accepted gracefully, and harmony was restored. The Telugus then got their university with the help of the Tamils, who joined them in late 1925 in approving a bill that would establish a university for the “rapid development in the study of Telugu language and literature”.  There was some opposition from the Telugus to the title “Andhra University”.  Reddi Naidu (now no longer a minister) contended that the bill should be called the Telugu University Bill. Both “Andhra” and “kingdom of the Andhras” were, he insisted, Aryan in origin: “We Telugus have always been recognized as Dravidians (hear, hear), and when I ask this bill to be named after the Telugus, I appeal to my Dravidian friends, my Tamil friends, my Kanarese friends, my Malayalam friends, not to part with us as different from them”.[31]  Similar appeals to common Dravidian origins were made by others in the debate on the Andhra University in an attempt to prevent a party split between the Tamils and the Telugus. Natesa Mudaliar, who had doubted the wisdom of forming an Andhra university on the grounds that it might tend to divide the party, now appealed for unity: “Telugus can never be separated from the Tamils”, he said. “We are Dravidians and will not be separated”. Ramaswami Mudaliar also pointed out that the Telugu University would be concerned with Dravidian culture in contradistinction to Sanskritic studies. These attempts to establish a Dravidian identity provoked S. Satyamurti, of the Swaraj Party, to plead that the Council members ought to “show by of votes that Brahmin-hatred must stop at the Staff Selection Board and must go no further”.  Reddi Naidu's proposed amendment was rejected, and the bill was passed by the Council on November 6, 1925. The following year Andhra University, after a great controversy as to who should be Vice Chancellor, came into existence with C. Ramalinga Reddi as the Vice Chancellor.[32]

 

Tamilians now also began to demand that a separate university be created in the heart of the Tamil country to serve the interests of Tamil culture, since Madras University, with its Sanskritic and Brahmanical affiliations, was unable to give Tamil-speakers the right kind of cultural atmosphere and training. Their demand was supported by the Madras University Senate, which passed a resolution recommending the establishment of a university for each “principal linguistic area within the Presidency”. As a result of a discussion in the Council on March 22, 1926, a Tamil University Committee (originally under the chairmanship of the Justice Party Development Minister, T. N. Sivagnanam Pillai) was set up. During the course of 1927 it took evidence from a great many educators, politicians, and others as to the precise nature that the proposed Tamil university should take. P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar, a Tamil Sri Vaishnava Brahman scholar of considerable academic repute, who had suggested the need for an Andhra university in 1916, told the committee that there was a good deal of popular demand for a Tamil university.  Another Tamil professor, S. Somasundara Bharati, said that “the mere fact that the Tamils see that the Andhras have achieved a university of their culture and language has whetted the desire of the Tamilians for a university”. The deciding factor was the receipt of a substantial endowment from Sir Annamalai Chetti, a member of the Nattakottai Chetti caste group long famous for its donations to temples and other religious and educational establishments, both non-Brahman and Brahman. Thus Tamil wishes were met, and in 1929 a university, called Annamalai University, was founded at the temple center of Chidambaram in South Arcot district. Under the terms of the grant, the university was to encourage both Tamil and Sanskrit.[33]

 

The passage of both the Madras University Reorganization Bill and the Andhra University Bill put great strains on Telugu—Tamil unity within the Justice Party. The problem had no doubt been aggravated by P. Tyagaraja Chetti with his failure to see the necessity of cultivating Tamil sympathies during the formation of the first Justice ministry. But its basic cause lay in the desire of each group to prevent the other from getting too large a share of the spoils, either in educational or in administrative spheres, and non-Brahman demands were often characterized by a type of competition along linguistic lines which could only be cemented over by appeals to a common Dravidian origin. This sort of appeal in turn tended to push the Brahmans even further away, making political and social equilibrium between non-Brahmans and Brahmans increasingly impossible.

 

In many ways the most outstanding quality of all these legislative enterprises—the Communal G.O.s, the Andhra University Bill, and the Hindu Religious Endowments Act—was their provincial orientation. Both the sponsors and the critics of these measures believed that they were contending with problems that were unique to Madras presidency, or, if not unique, at least more urgent and more in need of legislation in Madras than in any other province. In this sense, the functions of the Reforms were being amply fulfilled, and the Council was performing its intended role, that of enhancing political awareness, not only of provincial issues but of issues of importance generally, both within the House and out. Perhaps the success of the Councils under a non-Brahman ministry was bound to exacerbate the feelings of distrust and uneasiness between Brahman and non-Brahman, between Telugu and Tamil, and between Indian and Englishman. Certainly the first-named was the most severe. The concerted antipathy toward the Brahman was inescapable, the subject not only of the most practical legal measures but also of the most ringing speeches, which by claiming a common Dravidian background for Telugus and Tamils effectively shut out the minority Brahmans. By the end of the Second Council the Brahmans were clearly on the defensive. The Justice Party, flushed with success, and sidetracked from its earlier social reform ideals by the leadership of Tyagaraja Chetti, Tanikachala Chetti, and the Rajah of Panagal, bound itself even more firmly to the interests of a narrow non-Brahman caste Hindu group whose social horizons were extremely limited. During its term of office the Justice Party did little to promote general religious or social reform. Aside from consolidating the position of the non-Brahman caste Hindu, its only other piece of legislation with an avowedly social reform bias—with the possible exception of the Hindu Religious Endowments Act—was the enfranchisement of women in 1921.[34]

 

As often happens, success was a prelude to decline. The disunity within the Justice Party was revealed even as early as 1922, when the Tamils began to feel slighted on appointments to office in the Justice ministry. Even more disastrous, however, was the failure of the Rajah of Panagal and Tyagaraja Chetti to prevent whatever Justice organization there had been from falling into decay. The Madras Mail, which was becoming increasingly critical of Justice activity, pointed out this failure, and its probable causes, on the eve of the 1923 elections. On October 1, 1923, it noted that a speech of Ramaswami Mudaliar's was "more remarkable for its arrogant assertion of the permanency of the non-Brahmin Party's supremacy in the Council of this Presidency and the inference that since that supremacy is assured, the non-Brahmin Party can afford to ignore the electors”.  The Mail had commented in September on the singular lack of election bustle, either in the mofussil or in Madras city, though Ramaswami Mudaliar retorted that this was so because the Justice Party had no opponents “who were worthy of their steel”. The Swarajists did in fact contest the elections that year, but they were only able to place eleven candidates in the Council. On the other hand, the Justice Party found that its support had dwindled substantially. Either because of its lack of electioneering or because of the ineffectiveness of its local organizations, or both, it won only forty-four places in the 1923 Council elections as compared with sixty-three seats in 192O. Only the appointment by the Government of Madras of seventeen additional Justice Party members (for a total of sixty-one) helped the party to maintain its strength in the new Council.[35]

 

Contrasted with the success of the 1920 win, the 1923 showing was ominous. Much had happened in the intervening years to narrow the support of the Justice Party. In the first Council, the Muslims had given valuable support, but they were alienated over the question of appointments. One Muslim member, Abbas Ali Khan, speaking in late 1923, said that the Muslims had originally joined the Justice Party because it had seemed most likely to preserve the interests not only of the non-Brahmans but also of south Indian Muslims. Therefore, ‘after a good deal of hesitation’, the Muslims ‘joined forces with the Justice Party’.  Disillusion soon set in and as Abbas Ali Khan himself pointed out, “I have found out from actual experience that whenever the question of appointments came in they always preferred a Mudaliar [Vellala], a Nayudu [Balija], a Chettiyar or a Pillai [Vellala] but not a Muhammadan. Many non-Brahman caste Hindus were alienated by the Rajah of Panagal's distribution of patronage, and this antagonism culminated in a no-confidence motion brought against the Justice ministry on November 28, 1923, by C. Ramalinga Reddi, the Madras University representative in the Council, and a Justice member during the first ministry. This resolution was defeated by a comfortable majority, but Ramalinga Reddi remained in opposition, along with his friend C. Natesa Mudaliar, who had also been irritated by the autocratic misuse of patronage powers by Tyagaraja Chetti and the Rajah of Panagal and, even more, by their arbitrary political favoritism when it came to supporting candidates.[36]

 

Reddi Naidu further argued that if the party was to survive and prosper it needed to close its ranks, and that it should ask Natesa Mudaliar and others who had resigned in disgust to come back. “You will also admit”, he wrote, “that though our party men are in office as ministers, they are not in power and that this is largely due to dissensions”. Such division could be effectively eliminated, he thought, if the party were to draw up a constitution, which had been proposed in the past “whenever we were threatened with the cloud of crisis, but as often dropped when the cloud cleared away”. Reddi Naidu also complained that the party no longer had any program of action and no policy, either to present to the electorate or to follow in the Legislative Council. He urged that intensive and serious efforts be made to start new branches of the party and to revive the old ones throughout the presidency.[37]

 

One of Reddi Naidu's most interesting points was his recommendation that the Justice Party should take on a more national look. “We never cared”, he wrote, “to send our representatives to the [Legislative] Assembly [in Delhi]. The Hon'ble Mr. C. P. Ramaswami Iyer will tell you in what esteem we are held in Simla”. To attain a national outlook and status, he suggested that the party should “join the Congress for purposes requiring all-India united action ... For my part I will not spin to join the Congress”, but, he warned, “we are ignored now by the rest of India”.  That no representatives from the Justice party had been invited to the Unity Conference in Delhi in September, 1924, indicated to Reddi Naidu the degree of the non-Brahmans' isolation from all-India happenings. Two years ago, Reddi Naidu said, the organizers of the Unity Conference “would not have dared to ignore us in this fashion”.

 

The Madras Mail had earlier noted the existence of numerous Nayudu conferences, Kamma confederations, and Vellala sangams, and had suggested that if the Justice Party members had wanted to or were united enough they “could capture every elected seat in the Central Legislature [in Delhi] so overwhelming are their numbers. They failed, because they did not organise and work to capture the seats, and they failed to organise because they were riven with dissension”. Adopting the same line, the Hindu in mid-1924 predicted that if the Justice Party were to continue, it would have to seek all-India support. Even Ramalinga Reddi told a group of Madras non-Brahmans, including the chairman A. B. Lathe, who headed the non-Brahman group in Bombay, that “Congress is not and does not profess to be an alliance of Brahmins. It is open to everybody. If you are suspicious of Brahmins you should become members of Congress and take its management into your own hands so as to leave no room for suspicion”.[38]

In line with this sort of advice, several Justice leaders did try to do something to broaden the party's horizons. Ramaswami Mudaliar and B. Munuswami Naidu, a Telugu Kamma from Chittoor district and later Chief Minister of Madras (1930-1932), were ultimately sent as representatives to the Unity Conference in Bombay in November, 1924. But the only tangible benefit they derived from the conference was a meeting with A. N. Surve, who represented the Bombay non-Brahmans, and with whom they made preliminary arrangements for an all-India non-Brahman confederation to coincide with the Indian National Congress session scheduled for the last week of December, about a month later.

 

The All-India Non-Brahman Congress duly convened in Bombay, in an atmosphere highly reminiscent of National Congress sessions. Ramaswami Mudaliar presided. Of all the speeches, his was particularly noteworthy for its description of the non-Brahman movement as a “jobocracy”.

 

To prove that it was serious in its goal of bringing good to the entire nation, the Non-Brahman Congress passed a host of resolutions urging the support of indigenous industries, linguistic provinces, and village propaganda, and it approved a detailed program of constitutional reform, including provincial autonomy. But in the end little came of this attempt to unite the forces of the non-Brahman movements of Madras and Bombay. The second and last effort was the All-India Non-Brahman Congress at Amaraoti, in late 1925, after the death of Tyagaraja Chetti, at which the Rajah of Panagal, now elevated as party leader, gave a tepid speech which did little more than review Justice legislative activity in Madras and offer a few suggestions on constitutional reform.[39]  After the meeting, several members of the party, appalled at such indifference, 'decided to revamp the Justice program in Congress terms, even to include hand spinning, which had earlier been anathema to most party members. A resolution had already been passed at a Justice Confederation early in 1925 urging “on the attention of the non-Brahmin public the paramount necessity of supporting all indigenous industries and the need for the encouraging of Swadeshi enterprise”.[40]

 

The non- Brahmin agitation of then still has its takers in the form of theorists but in terms of practice the difference has only been in terms of improvements in the jobocracy.  Other aspirations are yet to be realized.

 

R E F E R E N C E S

 

[1]       Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 358-67.  Also see Andhra Patrika, June, 20, 1920, pp. 5-6, A. Satyanarayana, Dalit and Upper Castes; Essays in Social History, New Delhi, Kanishka Publishers, pp 117-165.

[2]       K. Chinnaya Suri, “Non-Brahmin Movement in Andhra”Dr. Garigipati Rudrayya Chowdary Endowment Lecture, Ramachandrapuram, 2000, pp. 1-30.  Also see Y.Vaikuntham, Education and Social Change in South India: Andhra, 1880-1920, Madras, New Era Publications, pp. 165-200.

[3]       K. Chinnaya Suri, Op.Cit., pp. 10-20; and Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 171-210.

[4]       R.L. Hard Grave, The Nadars of Tamilnad, pp. 150-70.  Also see Eugene F.Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 136-50.

[5]       Ibid., pp. 218-50;  C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 270-80; A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp.230-40.

[6]       Ibid., pp. 275-90.  Also see C.J. Baker and D.A. Washbrook, Op.Cit., pp. 170-90.

[7]       C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 230-40.  KrishnaPatrika, August, 25, 1919, pp. 5-8.

[8]       Ibid., pp. 236-42.  Also see Uma Ramaswamy, “Belief System of the Non-Brahmin Movement in India: The Andhra Case”,Asian Survey, Vol. 18, No. 3, March, 1978, pp. 25-30.

[9]       C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 250-60.  A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 230-35.  Also see Uma Ramaswamy, Op.Cit., pp. 27-28.

[10]      Andhra Patrika, September, 20, 1920, pp. 7-10.  Also see C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp.270-71.

[11]      Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 225-40.

[12]      D.A. Washbrook, Op.Cit., pp. 230-40.  Also see Y. Vaikuntham, Op.Cit., pp. 180-90.

[13]      Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., p. 112.  A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 240-50.

[14]      Ibid., pp. 120-30.  C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 170-75.

[15]      D.A. Washbrook, Op.Cit., pp. 270-75.  A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 281-82.

[16]      See Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 280-90.  Also see C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., p. 263.

[17]      Ibid., pp. 230-45.

[18]      E. Thurston, Op.Cit., Vol. V, p. 141.  Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., p. 368 and also Suryadevara Raghavayya Chowdary, Brahmanetara Vijayamu (Telugu), Tenali, 1925, pp.20-30.

[19]      Andhra Patrika, August, 22, 1922, pp. 6-8.  See C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 260-70.

[20]      E. Thurston, Op.Cit., Vol. V, pp. 140-45.  Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 245-55.

[21]      Ibid., pp. 369-77.

[22]      KrishnaPatrika, June, 16, 1929, pp. 5-6.

[23]      C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 270-72.

[24]      Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 368-72.  Also see A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp.380-85.

[25]      Andhra Patrika, November, 18, 1923, pp. 5-6.

[26]      K. Chinnaya Suri, Op.Cit., pp. 15-20.  S. Raghavayya Chowdary, Op.Cit., pp. 35-40.  Also see Uma Ramaswamy, Op.Cit., pp. 30-35.

[27]      C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 170-90.  Also see K. Chinnaya Suri, Op.Cit., pp. 40-45.

[28]      G.V. Subba Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 30-35.  Also see S. Raghavayya Chowdary, Op.Cit., pp. 85-95.

[29]      A.P. Patro, Op.Cit., pp. 40-45.  Also see C.J. Baker and D.A. Washbrook, Op.Cit., pp. 180-90.

[30]      G.V. Subba Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 215-30.  Also see A.P. Patro, Op.Cit., pp. 45-55.

[31]      Ibid., pp. 232-40.  C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 235-45.  Also see A.P. Patro, Op.Cit., pp.40-50.

[32]      C.J. Baker and D.A. Washbrook, Op.Cit., pp. 175-90.  A. Narayan Rao, Op.Cit., pp.111-17.  C.R. ReddyPapers File No. 122-A, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.

[33]       See E. Thurston, Op.Cit., Vol. VI, pp. 60-65.

[34]      C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., p. 92.  Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 230-45 and A. Narayan Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 35-40.

[35]      L.I. and S.H. Rudolph, Op.Cit., pp. 70-75.  Also see Francine, R. Frankel and M.S.A. Rao (ed.), Dominance and State Power in Modern India: Decline of a Social Order, Vol. I, Delhi, O.U.P., 1989, pp. 39-45.

[36]      C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 225-35.  Y. Vaikuntham, Op.Cit., pp. 190-200.  A.Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 261-70.  Uma Ramaswamy, Op.Cit., pp. 35-40.  K.Chinnaya Suri, Op.Cit., pp.20-25.

[37]      G.V. Subba Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 290-300.  Also see S. Raghavayya Chowdary, Brahmanetara Sangha Dharasyamu (Telugu), Bapatla, 1927, pp. 15-20.

[38]      C.R. ReddyPapers File No. 122-A.  C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 271-75.  Uma Ramaswamy, Op.Cit., pp. 15-18.

[39]      S. Raghavayya Chowdary, Brahmanetara Vijayamu, pp. 75-80.  A. Kaleshwar Rao, Op.Cit., pp. 285-90.  C.J. Baker, Op.Cit., pp. 275-80.

[40]      Eugene F. Irschick, Op.Cit., pp. 311-51.