Effects of British Involvement in Bureaucracy and Temple Culture

In understanding the colonialism from a cultural point of view surrounding the Sri Parthasarathy temple, we have seen till now how the temple culture have evolved and simultaneously how the conflicts were taking its shape, this chapter would essentially look into the intricacies of the conflicts and this post would throw light from a period from 1826-1840.

The temple had been largely a self regulating institution, but its incapability to arbitrate its own conflicts in terms of temple property, material inputs and people had invited the state to interfere itself in the temple affairs. The British bureaucratic involvement had reached its zenith, and gradually withdrew itself. The chapter basically looks into the new connotations that were attached to the term Tenkalai as a local socio-political category that designated the political constituency of the temple. While examining the British involvement in the logic of this development, three process play a lead role, which are i) exacerbation of the temple conflict resulting due to directness of the British bureaucratic control, ii) the transformation of the pre-existing tensions in the British ideology of “protection” or “subordination”, iii) the beginning of a new sectarian politics.

The argument establishing the causal relation between the expanded British control and exacerbation of temple conflict can be disintegrated into these different issues:

• · The turmoil around the Mirasi rights issue, the contradiction between the “extractive” function of British rule through abrogation of economic rights and “investive” function of British rule to preserve the stability of society through guaranteed economic rights. This dual objective of the same system led to a “codification” of local rights and privileges which was necessarily both arbitrary and stimulative of conflict.
• · This loosened rights and privileges initiated disputes over honours and shares in the temple processes and proceedings for many interest groups.
• · The extended govt control leading to an altered cash flow of the temple’s local capacity, reducing its economic autonomy. And finally
• · The capacity of the dharmakartha to arbitrate redistributive conflicts was diminished because of lack of an obligation to a legitimate authority, the court.

The second kind of British involvement which created a tension was between its methods of interference versus that of self sufficiency. By 1840 the British bureaucracy’s wish to protect the temple was extended to a control of the temple leading to graver conflicts which could not be arbitrated. The conflicts regenerated itself at all levels of bureaucracy and neither the accusation of misappropriation was eliminated nor there was any attempt to shift the conflicts to court. Thus the tension between the objectives of protection and subordination had not disappeared; even if it was not so evident it was more or less systematized.

The inception of the new sectarian politics was the final process and outcome of the British involvement. The schism between the Tenkalai and Vatakalai sects are quite age old over the issue of control of temple. However during this period apparently the Tenkalai had de facto control over the temple ritual and management. It’s in the context of above mentioned forms of British involvement that the idea of Tenkalai monopoly of temple control had taken root in the interaction between changing native self description (as Mirasi Servants, Ghosty Brahmins, Nadars etc) and the British bureaucratic formalization. Nevertheless the term Tenkalai has remained essentially contrastive with (i.e. Vatakalai) claims and pretensions.

The British involvement had resulted in these many changes in the temple culture, which does not really end with these, rather continues to manifest itself in different forms. The arguments in the book “Worship and Conflict under the colonial rule “are a result of combination of ethnographic fieldwork and archival research. An enquiry into how these discourse analysis and conclusions of participant observer would coincide with the reality requires attention. A discourse analysis might have the risk of being subjected to alteration due to interpretation. The conclusion of a participant observer is also not devoid of alterations either; ideology of observer, problem of recollection etc would further affect their representation of reality. But a method of “thick description” which is not merely factual but theoretical as well as analytical research would give us a description of culture, context, especially a relation of conflict between the temple culture( by which I meant all those people who are related to the temple) and the Britishers. The readers of the story would tend to generate a more empathetic and experiential understanding of the situation and this is essentially the positive of a qualitative research like the thick description.