Budalur, a non-descript village on the Thanjavur-Tiruchi Road, is known outside the Cauvery delta districts as the birthplace of Krishnamurthy Sastri, a renowned Gottuvadyam player, Vaidhyanatha Iyer, the founder of Ananda Vikatan, and Naveenan, Tamil writer. It also has a unique place in the history of social reforms. It was in the agraharam (village inhabited by Brahmins) of Budalur that the Tamil Nadu government ran a hostel for the Adi Dravida students in the 1970s, before shifting it to a new building.
“The government must have paid the rent for occupying the house. But what is important is the circumstances that favoured the transition in the 1970s. It should be viewed from the fact that houses for rent are denied to particular communities and non-vegetarians even in cities like Chennai,” said S. Armstrong, Professor and Head of the Department of English, University of Madras.
Today, in Budalur, only three or four families of Brahmins live in the agraharam. Other houses are occupied by families of various communities. The old house where the Dalit hostel was located once remains in a dilapidated condition. “[Back then] Dalits were never allowed to enter the agraharam. If they rode a bullock-cart carrying paddy or other goods, they would stop it at the entrance, and it would be driven into the agraharam by the workers of intermediate communities. It was a great change that Dalit students could live and study from a Brahmin settlement,” said K. Kesavan, Head of the Department of Physics, Periyar Maniammai Institute of Science and Technology, Vallam, Thanjavur.
Mr. Armstrong, a native of Budalur, argued that the disintegration of the feudal system in the delta districts, the emergence of the Communist and Dravidian movements and access to schools and colleges prepared the ground for such a change.
He pointed out that Sri Sivasamy Iyer Higher Secondary School, in the neighbouring Thirukattupalli, which is more than 100 years old, made education accessible to everyone. “People listened to radio not just for film songs or dramas. News became an integral part of their lives and man’s landing on the moon had left a lasting impact. I was named after Neil Armstrong. There are a few more Armstrongs, Lenins, Marx and Stalins in Budalur and neighbouring villages,” Mr. Armstrong said.
Communist leaders from other communities would eat at the houses of Dalits. The Dravidian movement also made a tremendous impact, and there is a statue of Periyar, which was installed after a lot of resistance. The backbone of the caste hierarchy was broken and communities live in amity in Budalur. Writing in the Frontline, a sister publication of The Hindu, in August 2018, J. Jeyaranjan, now vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission, said migration for work among Brahmins increased from 1960 when the anti-Brahmin movement gained enormous strength and with the ascendancy of the DMK to power (in 1967).
Krishnamurthy Sastri joined Kalakshetra as a teacher when Rukmini Arundale founded it and stayed in Chennai till his death. The only person in Budalur who has seen him is 83-year-old Karuppasamy, the father of Mr. Kesavan. The land reforms and the Tenancy Act amendments undertaken by the DMK government made the continuation of landlords untenable. “The most prominent feature of tenancy today in the delta, as compared with the past, is the complete decline of Brahmin dominance in most of the villages. Brahmins have lost their land either through sale or through appropriation by lower-caste tenants,” Mr. Jeyaranjan said.
Today only the Abathsahayaswarar temple, constructed by Raja Raja Chola when the Big temple was built in Thanjavur, reminds one of Budalur’s place in the ancient feudal world. It has also fallen on bad days. The outer wall covering a vast area is no longer there. Just a crumbled portion and the entrance structure overgrown with vegetation testify to the indifference of the locals, who seem to have no sense of belonging to it.
