Caste Ceiling

This is an unusual memoir for several reasons. It was written in the first decade after Independence by a man who had achieved distinction in life, but it is not about success but about struggle. The memoir ends abruptly, even before the author has secured appointment in the ICS, but tells the formative story of his life, his boyhood years in a poor, low-caste family in the first decades of the twentieth century. It is not about overt caste prejudice but about the endless little humiliations of being born in a 8220;low caste8221;. And it is written in English, in a spare, unadorned prose that lives up to the title.

A.N. Sattanathan 1905-1991 was born in Shencottah in a poor family belonging to the Padayachi caste. His father was a musician but wanted an English education and Government job for his son. Helped by some wealthy benefactors who never allowed him to forget their patronage 8212; even his name was formally changed to please them, Sattanathan obtained a First Class Honours degree in History in 1926 and qualified for the Superior Civil Service in 1929. Retiring as Collector of Customs and Central Excise, Calcutta, he was Chairman of the first Tamil Nadu Backward Classes Commission constituted in 1969 by the DMK Government under M. Karunanidhi. As this book8217;s editor, Sattanathan8217;s grand-daughter Uttara Natarajan remarks, the Report of this Commission, 8220;a labour of love8221; for which Sattanathan refused to accept an honorarium, was his greatest contribution to the cause of social justice. Among its recommendations 8212; one that was first accepted and then withdrawn 8212; was an income limit to prevent the accumulation of reservation benefits by an 8220;upper crust8221;. The second part of this book contains three lectures on the Tamil Nadu Non-Brahmin Movement, delivered by Sattanathan in 1981 at the University of Madras. They are a welcome change from the heated rhetoric of contemporary debates on affirmative action.

But it is the memoir preceding these lectures that best illuminates this commentary, adding the vividness and intensity of lived experience. It begins with his mixed feelings about Shencottah and the house filled with 8220;grim, sad, hardworking women8221;. Family history is an effete indulgence: 8220;Family records have no place among the poor. Even remembrance does not go beyond two or three generations.8221;

Ever-present beneath the controlled prose is a sharp awareness of his family8217;s deprivation and its effect on their lives. Sattanathan8217;s memoir is also about his difficult quest for education. Lamp-light sufficient to study by is difficult to find; school fees are hard to manage; at school, there is separate drinking water for the Brahmin students, and the boys are sharply aware of caste prejudice. The absence of educational concessions leads him to seek charity. Even in 1928, when he gets a job in a Trichy college, it is because the College Committee has mistakenly assumed from his First Class Honours degree that he is a Brahmin. When the Principal finds that Sattanathan is a Non-Brahmin, he tells him that he need not pay the customary courtesy call on the Chairman and Secretary of the College Committee. But the times have already begun to change, and when some of the students hear about the episode, they become admirers of the new Non-Brahmin lecturer. The memoir ends on this optimistic note.

But at the burning heart of this narrative of youth, bringing tears to one8217;s eyes, is the boy8217;s sense of injustice at the long, cruel hours he is made to wait outside his patrons8217; houses. It is only the thought of his family that drives him on. Poverty, he remarks dryly, is a great motive force. Plain Speaking is the powerful, moving account of one man8217;s struggle for a better life and a more equal society.