ABSTRACT
The indigenous inhabitants of the settlements expected the colonial power to act as a South Indian little king and arbitrate the disputes. In Madras, where the position of the colonial power was relatively strong, the disputes gradually disappeared. The institutions of the colonial capital had assumed a bureaucratic aspect and indigenous society was becoming more differentiated. Later, the colonial administration successfully tapped into the universe of patron-client relations and established itself as the immediate protector of the Paraiyans. In Tranquebar the process of codification was negligible and the understanding of caste privileges more in keeping with the pre-colonial order, in which ritual hierarchies were defined according to fluctuating local circumstances. In Tranquebar the colonial dialogue produced different notions of Indian society, reflecting the fact that the Indian element of the colonial dialogue was stronger. The concepts employed in this discourse were hybrids which cannot be attributed exclusively to either the ‘Europeans’ or the ‘Indians’.
