NOTES ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF 'DRAVIDIAN* IDEOLOGY 99 There is more such evidence in religious shastras. Their intention is nothing other than making women slaves of men (Ramaswamy, 1984: 84-85).22 This far reaching critique developed by E.V. Ramaswamy established Hinduism as constituting multiple relations of power and not merely caste relations (as represented in the early 'Dravidian' ideology). In other words, now the Movement could address a wider range of issues by problematising a number of inferiorised identities. The newly opened up terrains of conflict was what ensured the Self Respect Movement a basis for mass mobilisation. Different subordinate social groups such as Adi Dravidas, Sudras, women and labouring poor could, thus, articulate their grievances through the Movement. Not only did E.V. Ramaswamy's conceptualisation of Hinduism expand the terrain of political contest, it also conferred political agency on different subordinate groups by freeing them from Vellala paternalism. In investing the victims of the past and the present with political agency, he elaborated and propagated the concept of 'Suyamariyathai' or self-respect. According to him, the foremost thing an active political subject required was the realisation of his/her self respect. Extending this concept to the sphere of political intervention, Ramaswamy argued that it was the victims of inequity and freedom alone, who, through their active intervention in history, could ensure self emancipation. He believed that no one could speak for and represent the oppressed, but themselves. For example, he discounted men's participation in the movement for women's freedom and argued that only women, by appropriating political agency to themselves, could attain independence and equality: 'Can rats ever get freedom because of cats? [Can] sheep and fowl ever get freedom because of foxes? [Can ] India's wealth ever increase because of White men? [Can] non-Brahmins every get equality because of Brahmins? . . .' (Ramaswamy 1984: 83-84). He repeated this line of argument to different subordinate social groups, whom he continuously addressed throughout his life as a political propagandist. Thus, his discourse proliferated with innumerable oppressors and oppressed, each changing into the other contextually and relationally: a Sudra male was the oppressed in relation to the Brahmin, but simultaneously he was an oppressor in relation to women or Adi Dravida. In short, the struggle for freedom through history became multiple, with porous boundaries, shifting identities and numerous agents of change. Its resolution lay beyond any simple binary like Brahman vs. non-Brahmin. This politics based on multiple identities, by not privileging any single subject position, subverted the Saivite Vellalas' claim to be the sole arbiters of the Tamilians destiny. Now everyone of the oppressed could mediate politics on his/her own terms.