15 July 2025

Photo: Novels by Vai. Mu. Kothainayaki Ammal

Rewriting Reform

Women’s Voices, Caste, and Agency in Early 20th-Century Tamil Print
Culture (1900–1930s)

This research investigates the complex intersections of gender, caste, and socio-political reform in early 20th-century Tamil Nadu by focusing on three transformative movements: the anti-Devadasi movement, the Tamil Revivalist movement, and the Self-Respect movement. While these movements have been recognized for their role in reshaping public discourse and social structures, the study foregrounds the largely overlooked contributions of women within regional print culture. Through extensive archival work at major Tamil institutions, the project analyzes both journalistic and literary texts, with particular attention to women’s writings in Tamil and English-language periodicals such as Madhar Marumanam, Pen Kalvi, Stri-Dharma, and The Indian Ladies’ Magazine. These publications provided critical platforms for women to articulate feminist thought, negotiate reform, and engage with the complexities of caste, morality, and modernity.

A central literary focus is Vai. Mo. Kodhainayagi Ammal’s novel Aparadhi, which offers a rare, nuanced perspective on justice, guilt, and social reform from a female standpoint. Framed by critical works such as Web of Deceit: Devadasi Reform in Colonial India, the study interrogates how Tamil women writers not only responded to, but also actively shaped and contested, the reformist agendas of their time. By recovering and analyzing female-authored texts that challenge dominant constructions of femininity, this research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of gender, authorship, and agency in colonial South India’s vernacular print culture.

The Tamilex monthly seminar will take place on 15 July 2025, at 10:30 CET (14:00 IST). This will be hybrid event; for the Zoom link, please contact Charles Li(charles.li"AT"uni-hamburg.de).