COMMENTARY

Remembering Lakshmi, Devi

S Anandhi

As a dedicated Mathamma, Devis world consisted of the violent realities of caste oppression and sexual exploitation. Struggling to negotiate her convictions to abolish the practice of dedicating women to the goddess, she wanted to show her fellow Mathammas how it is still possible to struggle for ones own autonomy. Like her life, her death too was a centre of controversy.

ust as her life, Lakshmis death too is dogged by controversy. The news of her suicide was almost unbelievable, indeed shocking, since she was a ghter despite having had to struggle against poverty and sexual violence all her life. At the age of seven, Lakshmi, also known as Devi, an Arunthathiyar woman, was dedicated to her caste goddess, Mathamma, and performed as a dancer during the Mathamma festival in 10 villages of Thiruthani taluka in Tiruvallur district of Tamil Nadu. No one remembers her original name she was known only as Mathamma like the other dedicated women in her village. I met Devi in 2009 as part of my research project on dalit women activists in the ofce of the Rural Womens Liberation Movement in Arakkonam. Looking famished, a bright-eyed woman with attractive features was introduced to me as the president of the recently formed Mathamma Relief and Rehabilitation Association and as one of the activists of the Rural Womens Liberation Movement. As part of her campaign against the practice of dedicating women to the goddess, she rechristened herself Devi and refused to being called Mathamma. Devi was clear she wanted an identity for herself and not to be lost in the generality of being the goddess. However, she feared that removing her mangalsutra or thali, the symbol of her dedication to Mathamma might invite the wrath of the goddess leading to her death or some serious illness. Not surprisingly, many criticised her for not being courageous enough to remove the thali. The Rebel

I thank Fatima Burnad and friends at the Society for Rural Education and Development, Arakkonam and M S S Pandian for their comments. S Anandhi (anandhister@gmail.com) is Associate Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai.

As I understood from my conversations with Devi, she was struggling to negotiate her convictions to abolish the practice of dedicating women to the goddess both in her struggle for survival as an impoverished, outcaste, landless labourer, and as a Mathamma controlled by both the upper caste and her own caste men.
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It was important for Devi not to give up her identity as a Mathamma since she was bargaining with the state for the betterment of all the women who had been dedicated to the goddess. It was equally important for her to be a Mathamma in order to challenge the men of her community from within and to show fellow Mathammas how it was possible to struggle for ones own autonomy even within the limits imposed by the system. Devis world was not just of radical political activism demanded of her by her organisation; it also consisted of violent realities of caste oppression and sexual exploitation specic to her life as a Devadasi.1 As a dedicated Mathamma2 from the age of 16, Devi resisted her caste panchayat regulating her sexual life. She refused to pay the ne imposed on her for living with a Paraiyar man without the approval of the panchayat. After living with her for 18 years, he left her with three children. By then Devi had given up dancing, which had at least sustained her and her family. Nonetheless, she resisted dominant caste men, Naidus in this case, taking advantage of her situation and refused offers of monetary favours in exchange for sex. It is the assertion of her sexual rights and her awareness of what she was entitled to that invited the wrath of her natal family and her caste community refused to help in her struggle to survive. Narrating these bitter experiences she once remarked that she is an outcaste among the outcastes. Persistent poverty and the refusal of the dominant castes to employ her as an agricultural labourer (since she rejected their advances) pushed her back into dancing during the Mathamma festival and, occasionally, into sexual labour for a pittance. This enabled her to survive but did not provide enough to send her son to school. Devi was conscious and aware that many women in her organisation did not share the same moral and ethical world that she lived in but that did not deter her from talking about it and the pain and pleasure it entailed. Indeed, regular consumption of alcohol and her sexual choices were at the centre of the criticism she faced within
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her village and organisation, though the latter was concerned about her health. Devi often dismissed these remarks as talk of privileged people (vasadi ullavanga pesuvanga) but did not get discouraged. Devi carried on her struggle to get patta lands for Mathammas and eventually got three cents of land with a housing patta and managed to build a small hut to live in. Devi was emerging as a formidable leader of the oppressed Mathammas much to the dislike of her community men and dominant castes in her village. She contested the local panchayat election for the post of ward member but was defeated due to a malicious campaign that presented her as a prostitute and an alcoholic. Difcult Death Unfortunately, these were the same moral values with which her death was questioned and judged. On 16 January 2013, Devis son informed her organisation that she had died in a nearby village where she had gone to work and live with her new male partner against his wishes. The organisation and her partner arranged to bring her body back to her village for the last rites. Her partner claimed Devi had committed suicide by consuming fertiliser. Not believing the claim, activists of the Rural Womens Movement demanded a post-mortem. This was stoutly refused by her caste community as many did not want a police probe into the case of a Mathamma who had been at the centre of controversies in the village and Devis body was quickly cremated. It was three months before her death that Devi met her new partner, a coolie worker from Andhra Pradesh, who lived with his wife and daughter. However, the Arunthathiyar caste panchayat in Devis village refused to accept her new partner and imposed a heavy ne on her. They also threatened her partner, telling him to leave the village. In protest, an enraged Devi removed her thali, something she had refused to do on several previous occasions, and left the village. Her son had already occupied her small hut and she was left with nothing in the village. At the behest of her new partner, Devi
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worked as a construction labourer in another village and supported his entire family. However, she was subjected to severe forms of domestic violence. Just ve days before her death, Devi visited her village and told members of her organisation that she was being tortured by her partner and that he did not allow her to leave him as she had been providing for his family. According to the activists of her organisation, though Devi had marks of physical injuries and complained of severe trouble in breathing, she remained spirited and full of life as ever. Her caste men and others were quick to conclude that her death was due to alcoholism, some even attributed it to her so-called sexual excesses. Devi, in their view, was an immoral woman who had insulted goddess Mathamma and therefore incurred her wrath. In several of her interviews with me, Devi spoke of the brutality of the system and the violence of caste in which women like her were treated as less than human. She also spoke of the Mathammas illusionary search for permanent love.

Devis struggle against poverty and sexual exploitation and her search for freedom might have ended but her insights on the lives of the most oppressed and her courage to stand up against exploitation must stay with us. They speak to us of complex histories of power, subjectivity and identity.
Notes
1 Though her movement was equating the custom of Mathammas with the devadasi custom, Devi, in her interviews, denied such equations on the grounds that the erstwhile devadasis were respected and revered and were granted properties, while the Mathammas were left to starve with no one to care for them. As per the ritual practice of Arunthathiyars, dedicated Mathamma women are not permitted to marry. It is generally perceived by others that Mathammas lead an immoral sexual life as they are not constrained by familial responsibilities. On the contrary, the sexual choices of Mathammas are not actually choices of their own. It is well known that they are sexually exploited by the dominant castes as well as by those men who choose to be their sexual partners. On several occasions, Devi has shared her personal experiences of being deserted by men after she gave birth to their children, leaving the burden of providing and parenting entirely on her. The close surveillance of Mathammas by her caste elders ensured that the choice of sexual partners is made only with the consent of the caste members.

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