Amna Majeed

A turning point in South Asian scholarship has been recognising that caste, long-assumed to be exclusively Hindu, also intimately configures Muslim societies, shaping marriage, occupation, notions of purity, etc. I examine the exceptional case of Tamil Muslims, who are widely described in both academic and popular discourse as casteless. While caste remains pervasive among South Asian Muslims and across Tamil Hindus and Christian communities, Tamil Muslims continue to be seen as an exception. How does a community forge casteless relations within a caste-based society? What ethical sensibilities have produced this exception? I examine: (1) the use of Tamil Muslim caste nomenclatures—Rowther, Lebbai, Maraikkayar—on matrimonial websites and in Tamilnadu’s two-decade-old affirmative action policy for Muslims; (2) Discourses on waqf and egalitarianism among reformist organisations (Sufi and Wahhabi); (3) inter-caste dynamics in neighbourhoods, madrasas, and universities. My project intersects critical caste studies, the anthropology of Islam, and the anthropology of ethics. What I am undertaking is not a simplistic endorsement of claims to castelessness but an exploration of the tension between building empirical evidence of the Tamil Muslim exception and the justified skepticism that accompanies claims of castelessness in general. Thus, merging classical egalitarianism with the emerging field of “indifference to difference”.