ABSTRACT
Mylapore has long been a site of cultural production and contestation; indeed, it is a social space produced in some measure by and through Smarta negotiation of culture and identity. The relative density of Brahmans and their visibility are products of Mylapore’s early role as a temple center and its subsequent importance as a residential area for those elite Indians employed in the colonial civil service. Mylapore’s Smarta Brahman population had long claimed high ritual status as priests and scholars, though that did not automatically imply political or economic dominance. Brahmans have been reckoned officially as a “forward” community, that is, one in which socioeconomic progress was not impeded by caste. The Brahmans’ charge of reverse discrimination was a strategy that sought to preserve or reclaim privileges ordinarily associated with middle- and upper-class status, such as access to elite educational institutions and opportunities to pursue professional employment.
