27-year-old Kavin Selvaganesh, a native of Tuticorin district and belonging to Scheduled Caste Devendra Kula Vellalar, was murdered by her dominant caste lover's brother Surjith—who belongs to Denotified Maravar subcaste—on July 27, 2025. Speaking to reporters in Tirunelveli, Kavin's father, Chandrasekar, alleged that Palayamkottai inspector Kasi Pandian threatened his son 15 days before the murder.
Both Surjith and his father, Saravanan, a serving Sub-Inspector, have been arrested and booked for murder under the Indian Penal Code as well as relevant sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. His mother, also a Sub-Inspector, has been suspended. The family had earlier demanded her arrest too, suspecting her involvement in the crime. They have also slapped the Goondas Act on Surjith. After five days of protest and a standoff with authorities, the family of 27-year-old Kavin Selvaganesh received his body on August 1.
This murder is not one of its kind, it is an outcome of a deep-seated caste-based inequality—materialised in the form of hatred, sustained and perpetuated in the interest of endogamy/purity of one's caste. These recurring episodes of caste-based violence are a direct outcome of the caste hegemony and socio-political mobility of the Dominant Castes. Such violence is not just a display of the power of the dominant castes, but also a means of building 'moral narratives' (Nandan & Santhosh, 2019) that justify the violence, deepen the harm inflicted on Dalits, and enable the perpetrators to evade remorse.
This evasion of remorse is evident in the impunity granted to them by law in various atrocities and massacres, where the perpetrators are rather celebrated than treated with severe punishment. The media portrayal of these perpetrators in caste based honor killing—frequent in the cases of inter-caste relationships—as caste heroes, as someone 'guarding their caste'1 is to maintain a brahmanical order in the casted society by preventing any intermixing of castes or subcastes.
Furthermore, the exploitation of the legal loopholes only emboldens the perpetrators with immunity to commit more such atrocious acts. This is closely linked to the political support of the dominant castes, where the political parties rely on caste-based mobilization and vote-banking to win elections. As a result, caste mobilisation is encouraged in harmful and distorted ways.
It is ironic that these murders happen in the Tamil Nadu state, which is known for 'social justice'. With the legacy of Dravidian politics2, it banked on the principle of social justice and the alleged Dravidian Model with a specialized department of the Social Justice Monitoring Committee too, to monitor proper social justice in the state. Yet, there are no stringent laws in the State to prevent caste atrocities on Dalits.
At this juncture, it is highly important to invoke Periyar's and Ambedkar's thoughts on Social Democracy preceding the Political Democracy. Periyar argued that the machinery of the state is inherently exploitative, structured to serve the interests of those positioned at the top of the caste and class hierarchy. In his view, such a government—deeply aligned with dominant social groups—cannot genuinely act in the interest of the socially and economically oppressed. Its loyalties lie with preserving existing power structures, not dismantling them (Parithi, 2018).
Similarly, in his un-delivered presidential address Annihilation of Caste to Jat-Pat Todak Mandal, Dr. BR Ambedkar argues for the need to remove the deep seated dogma of caste from its root as the first and primary problem that India must target, consequently he argued that before any other systematic changes that needs to be made in the society it should be preceded with annihilation of caste, as he argued that "turn into any direction you like, caste is the monster that crosses your path. You cannot have political reform, you cannot have economic reform, unless you kill this monster" (Ambedkar, 2014, 47).
Subsequently, few important spaces of caste reproduction that is often overlooked are educational spaces, and institution of families in harbouring caste consciousness and the sense of belongingness, and the uncritically guarding of the sanctity of one's caste community by ensuring it remains closed through any means of violence — as seen celebrated in movies, the depiction of masculinity to protect the pride of the family through any extreme means and violence. The female's role in maintaining the Caste is in preserving the community's pride or 'manam' in Tamil.
The spaces of education and peer group interaction on caste based violence are creating internalisation of caste division among the children from a very young age. The Nanguneri Caste Violence3 is raising an alarming concern as to the space where learning must happen is forming a breeding ground for caste socialization and therefore creating the "others" from a very young age, and hence restricting social interaction.
This sense of "othering" creates a bubble around the child, growing up in a socio-environment that is emotionally unresponsive to anything beyond their clan, community, or family. As a result, the child develops a lack of emotional empathy towards the suffering of others.
As pointed out by Ramesh Bairty TS in Beyond governmentality: caste-ing the Brahmin, French Philosopher Louis Dumont argued that "when presented with insistent evidence of change in the structures of caste in conditions of modernity, had proposed the idea of substantialization of caste. He argued that when the 'traditional' principle of hierarchy, in terms of the dominant religious value of purity encompassing pollution, begins to break down, caste entities which retained meaning only in their relationality to one another in the traditional context, begin to function like substances, 'impenetrable blocks, self-sufficient, essentially identical and in competition with one another.
Hence, the growing sense of caste pride amongst the young, which is reflected in the dominant castes shamelessly hoarding names of their caste in social media pages, stickers in vehicles, and marriage banners in Tamil Nadu. Looking at caste as a problem of lower caste is problematic, and as Ramesh Bairy suggest that the scholarship on caste in social science is limited in empiricist understanding of caste and not in analytical sense, he argues that "empiricist ghettoization almost definitionally rules out our ability to study caste as privileging and including certain subject positions, and thereby, to the extent that we have little sense of what is taking place in the upper caste locales (even if only in terms of sociologically rich descriptions), we are fated to replicate and reinforce the upper caste common sense that contemporarily caste means politics, reservations, lower caste lives and identities"4. Hence, there is a need to study the perpetuation of caste in the dominant caste household, too.
So, Kavin's murder is not an honour killing alone, but a manifestation of the deep-seated inequality embedded in the caste system—an institution that remains resistant to socio-economic, cultural, and political transformation of Dalits. Because the root cause of caste lies in recognition of the social actor of their relative privilege in the vertical hierarchy and hence letting go of the privilege and power for actual social change, which doesn't occur only through external pressure alone but also through an internal entity of an individual to surpass himself out of the cocoon of caste belongingness to embrace the universal value of— equality, fraternity and liberty, enshrined in the foundational thought of our Constitution.
Hence, the blood of Kavin and, likewise, violence are in the hands of all who still capitalise, associate, and reproduce the caste system in some or other way. It is amply evident that caste formulates the material reality of people; it also entrenches deep-seated cultural socialisation based on Caste hierarchies in the minds. Caste's influence is deep and multifaceted; reducing it solely to political or economic mobilization misses the broader cultural dimensions—such as caste-based pride, endogamy, and inherited social status. If we aim to eliminate caste and achieve a truly casteless society, the transformation must begin with individuals and families—especially those benefiting from caste privileges. That's where the hardest yet most essential contestation lies. Otherwise, "annihilation of caste" risks becoming empty rhetoric—another borrowed political slogan, recycled and misused without fully grasping its transformative potential.
Notes
- S. Yuvaraj, the prime accused in Gokul Raj murder case in 2015, another case of honor killing - is a former president of Dheeran Chinna Malai Peravai, A caste association of Gounder community (dominant caste group in Kongu Belt). Yuvaraj was later charged with murder but recently when he was on bail to attend his family function, he was welcomed by his caste members with garland and he was rallied from prison to the function hall with people on scooters. Thus these videos were posted online, with edits and music praising Yuvaraj
https://www.indiatoday.in/law/story/gokulraj-murder-case-madras-high-court-upholds-life-sentence-of-8-convicts-2388138-2023-06-02 - To condemn and revolt against the overrepresentation of Upper castes in administrative, political and cultural spectrum, steered a strong Non-Brahmin movement, which in Southern India, in the name of Dravidian Movement was spearheaded by Periyar. The aim and principle of the movement was proportionate representation of people from all spectrums, and he strongly advocated for the abolition of Caste and hence brought many key initiatives, i.e., Self Respect Movement ( Self Respect Marriage and Conference), advocating for social democracy. Followed by this, the split between Periyar and Annadurai, where the latter formed Dravidian Munnetra Kazhagam ( DMK), and hence the subsequent emergence of Dravidian Parties which have been in the helm of Power ever since 1967 in Tamil Nadu.
- Three members of the immediate dominant caste hacked a Dalit boy and his sister with machetes. because the Dalit kid(both of them are classmates, studying 11th standard) had disregarded the orders of the boy from the dominant caste.
- See Ramesh Bairty TS Beyond governmentality: caste-ing the Brahmin
https://www.india-seminar.com/2012/633/633_ramesh_bairy_t_s.htm#:~:text=The%20French%20theorist%2C%20Louis%20Dumont,not%20in%20the%20religious%20domain.
References
- Ambedkar, B. R. (2014). Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches. Dr. Ambedkar Foundation.
https://www.mea.gov.in/Images/CPV/Volume1.pdf - Dumont, L. (1970). Homo hierarchicus: an essay on the caste system. University of Chicago Press.
- Nandan, A., & Santhosh, R. (2019). Exploring the changing forms of caste-violence: A study of Bhumihars in Bihar, India. European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 6(4), 421-447.
https://doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2019.1668282 - Parithi, P. (2018, 09 19). Periyar and Anna: The conflict over electoral politics. The News Minute.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/tamil-nadu/periyar-and-anna-conflict-over-electoral-politics-88609