Politics and social conflict in South India : Non-Brahman movement and Tamil separatism, 1916-1979

In recent years, more and more attention has been directed to regional developments in the Indian national movement. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the effect of a regionalistic movement during the second and third decades of the twentieth century in order to illustrate one aspect of contemporary Indian social and intellectual history. Field work for this book was under taken in 1961-1963 under a Ford Foundation Foreign Area Training Fellowship which allowed me to stay in India for fifteen months and in England for four. However, the responsibility for the opinions stated in this book does not rest with the Ford Foundation, but with me alone. I was also supported during the year 1964 by funds from the Committee on Southern Asia Studies at the University of Chicago, where another version of this study was submitted as a Ph.D. dissertation.

Many persons have given me assistance over the past six years in the preparation of this book. While I was in India I was greatly aided by Professor K. A. Nilakanta Sastri. A. T. Sreshta gave me many interesting details about his father's role in the Justice Party, and I am particularly grateful to K. V. Gopalaswamy for showing me the diaries his father wrote in London in 1919. I also owe much to Vidwan Ira. Manian, B.O.L., B.T., who not only taught me Tamil but at an early stage in my research translated certain materials for me. His insights into Tamil non-Brahman society were particularly valuable to me in writing this book. T. N. Jayavelu also procured many valuable books and pamphlets for me.