ExpertDabbler

I guess not many know the rise of the Nadar community down south. Their progress, both material and in social status in the last century is nothing short of phenomenal. The Nadar community has been historically associated with toddy tapping. They had to face discrimination from other upper caste Hindus because of this. They were ostracized, denied entry to temples etc. But in a span of about 50-100 years, they have become one of the most prominent communities of Tamil Nadu thanks to their unity, enterprise and bloody hard work. It is one thing to grow if you are politically connected and well placed in the society, it is completely different if you do not have money, nor social status, nor education.

The community leaders had initiated a system of Uravinmurai and Maghamai wherein each Nadar family contributes a fixed monthly income to the Uravinmurais. The Nadars, with the funds from Uravinmurais, built their own temples, their own accommodation for their poor traders to stay in major towns, and built their own schools for their kids to study. A few of the software engineers now in US are products of these schools. Some of them had openly said that they could not have progressed this much had it not been for these community schools. My own cousin studied in one of these schools. So it is not as if the schools are reserved only for Nadar children though they do get a preference. In general, I am all for the idea of communities supporting themselves in areas like education. Had they waited for the government to build, support these schools, i guess they should’ve waited forever.

The Nadars had enterprise in their DNA. I cannot think of any other community which has a profitable privately owned bank to its credit - the Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank is essentially a Nadar bank. Today, Shiv Nadar is the richest South Indian, HSB is one of the biggest restaurant brand in Tamil Nadu, and about 50% of the major business establishments in T. Nagar area should be Nadar establishments.

While all the business growth augurs well for the community, it is not without its pitfalls. The concept of community based networking in business and politics works very well during the initial stages but later leads to cartelization when a threshold is reached. For e.g I don’t think its easy for an outsider to start a business in Virudhunagar unless he is a Nadar. I hear it’s better in Sivakasi. But this is the other side of caste based business networking. I guess this is the same in Tiruppur or Karur where the Gounders reign. I think the same applies for caste based politics too.

This strategy of uravinmurais may not hold good for all communities for all conditions. As I previously mentioned, the fact that Nadars were brilliant businessmen helped in no small measure. But nevertheless I think the rise of Nadars as a whole is one good case study of how it can be done. It is also a lesson about how sheer hard work, tenacity, enterprise and adaptability works brilliantly in the long run. I cannot help but say this - when one compares the progress of Nadars with similar disadvantaged groups e.g Muslim communities, and the Dalits, the difference in attitude and approach is glaring.

I did some search on this topic on the net, and inquired with my uncle who lives in Virudhunagar before writing this. For further reading on this subject, refer to:

Uravinmurai concept

Please refer this PDF.

And of course here to get a list of the Nadar institutions and establishments. Please note that most of these should’ve come up in the last 50-100 years.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 4:27 am and is filed under Tamil Nadu. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.