Unfurling Voices: The Role of Tamil Dalit Print Media from 1869 to 1970 in Shaping Public Discourse and Modern Identities

Abstract

In this study, the rich tapestry of Tamil Dalit print media is traced back to 1869 and to distant lands like Burma, South Africa, and Sri Lanka where Tamil speaking Dalit migrants reached from India.  However, a focused exploration of the significance of this media, periodicals to be specific, seems to be conspicuously absent in the history of Tamil print media. The present study is an attempt to rectify this oversight and recover the resilient Tamil Dalit voices. In the course of this paper, I intend to explore the pivotal role these journals played in shaping public discourse, knowledge production and the sociopolitical landscape of modern Tamilnadu. With reference to around fifty Tamil periodicals published between 1870 to 1970, this study traces the evolution of Dalit journals as catalysts for social change, the burgeoning counter-narrative of non-Brahmin print media within the Dravidian movement and the negotiation of Dalit agency in the Brahmin dominated media discourse of Tamilnadu.