Mother, Mother-Community and Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu

Mother-Politics in Tamil Nadu C S Lakshmi This paper examines not only the concept of the mother but the context of the mother. It attempts to locate the mother in the functional context of Tamil culture and politics and to understand the multiple ways in which meanings have been haded on the term mother literally splitting mothers into mothers and non-mothers, pure mother's and whore mothers, mothers of sons and mothers of daughters. The effort is to problematise the term mother by contextualising it and revealing its multiple and constantly altering meanings and the kind of politics that accompanies essentialisation.