Dravidian Movement &tamil Nationalism

The process of redefining national and ethnic identities often relies on a close relationship between cultural and linguistic traditions, political movements and
religious communities. This manuscript seeks to understand how the religious
aspect influenced regional identity-building under conditions of colonial rule in
India. The paper draws on a project concerning itself with the political implications
of regional identities during the twenties and thirties of the 20th century. The
project compares the movements of the Sikhs, the Tamil "Non-Brahmans" and
the Pakhtuns.
It is intended to outline the evolution of the religious aspect in these movements
through three major stages of political mobilisation: revivalism, loyalism
and radicalism. The issue seems to be of particular interest in the Indian case
for two reasons:
- Was there any common pattern behind the influence of religion on group
identity? What were the similarities and the differences in the role of religion
in the three movements?
- Was there any peculiarity in the Indian case under colonial rule as compared
to the time of independence?

My project examines the similarities and differences between silambam and kalaripayat, two South Indian martial art forms. In the present time, these martial arts are used for demonstration and in performances, rather than in actual fighting; as such they are important cultural artifacts. My research focuses on two broad areas of enquiry: what is said about them by the gurus, and how the actual physical techniques differ. My aim is to delve beyond the popular misconceptions, the folk stories and sacred history that is repeated without question, issues of nomenclature due to language differences, and isolate factual data points that can be assessed objectively. The research I present examines the oral tradition of these art forms, so that they can be understood within the context of the social and cultural role they play within the castes and communities that practice them in Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

A short video of the presentation: https://youtu.be/fVDhhjvnlnI

Decipherment of the Indus script This paper describes a decipherment of the Indus script. The decipherment is based on observed similarities between Protocuneiform script and the Indus script. Meanings were transferred from Protocuneiform characters to characters in Indus script, and Dravidian words were used to obtain sounds for Indus script characters. Correlation between Brahmi letters and corresponding Indus characters were further used to correct the readings obtained. These readings show that Indus civilisation was largely Dravidian. It also shows that caste divisions specific to modern South India

Conversation : S V Rajadurai, V Geetha & Vidya Bhushan Rawat on Periyar's ideology, self respect movement and opportunism of political parties S V Rajadurai is one of the leading intellectuals from Tamil Nadu who has written, in English and Tamil, on a range of issues to do with Marxism and literature; with Tamil politics and modern history, including Periyar and the Dravidian movement and translated widely, both fiction and non-fiction. Associated with a broad spectrum of left movements, he has worked for several years in the civil liberties movement and was Vice-President, PUCL. V. Geetha is a feminist historian, writer and translator, who has been active in the women's movement for several years. She writes, in English and Tamil, on issues to do with caste, education, feminism and contemporary Tamil society. V. Geetha and S V Rajadurai have worked together for over 25 years-as authors and translators. Their major work comprises essays on the Dravidian movement and politics published in the Economic and Political Weekly, and the book, Towards a Non Brahmin Millennium: from Iyothee Thass to Periyar. They have also authored monographs on western Marxism, including a comprehensive volume on the life and thought of Antonio Gramsci. Rajadurai and Geetha continue to translate poetry and fiction from English to Tamil. The importance of Periyar and his self respect movement is immense and yet neither the Indian state nor the state of Tamilnadu where politicians chant his name, none have felt it important to compile Periyar's speeches and writings and make it available to rest of the country men. This rare conversation of Vidya Bhushan Rawat, with Rajadurai and Geetha will definitely be important for students of social movements and political science in India. Even though it is lengthy yet it explains so many things hitherto unknown to common people. VB : Periyar was one of the tallest revolutionaries of India. His thoughts on secularism, on Brahmanism surpass any other political leaders of his time. He was enormously popular with the masses. Why does today's Tamil Nadu seem absolutely reverse to Periyar's thoughts when we see the growing religiosity in the state and a huge number of Shudras following it? SV & VG : Periyar's radicalism comprised several parts – his critique of Brahminism was many-sided. At one level, it was a rejection of the Brahminical abhorrence of labour and touch. Describing the differences he harboured with Rajaji, who was also a personal friend, he remarked that C. Rajagopalachariyar (Rajaji) stayed true to his mission, which was that ‗he did not want his caste men to have to pick up a spade and labour'. In another instance, speaking of the winning flexibility of Brahmin intellectualism, he observed that some Brahmins might abhor a ‗Panchama' entering their homes, whereas others might not be averse to the same ‗Panchama' entering their kitchens; why, some might even ‗allow' a Panchama to enter the sanctum sanctorum of their altar-room, and there were Brahmins who did marry Panchamas. In all this, though Brahmins made choices that worked to their advantage – he used the Tamil word ‗balithavarai', that is whatever ‗worked' for them. At another level Periyar argued that Brahminism had to do with the hierarchical logic of varnadharma, which, like a ladder implicates everyone – in this sense, each of us carries a ladder in our consciousness, and we measure ourselves and others on the basis of where we are placed on this ladder. However, what drew the

The Dravidian movement is a political movement that started in colonial India in 1916, in the Madras Presidency. The Dravidians demanded higher representation in government employment and modern education for non-Brahmins, who formed the majority of more than 90 percent in the Presidency. It was spearheaded by the elite non-Brahmins from the four linguistic regions of south India, who spoke the four literary Dravidian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. These non-Brahmin leaders had the benefit of colonial education in English and found the Brahmins, who had the exclusive tradition of Vedic learning for centuries, occupying positions in the government and in professions and seats in educational institutions hugely disproportionate to their number in the population (Irschick 1969, 12–19; Nambi Arooran 1980, 38). These leaders also realized that the Brahmins would be the political leaders in independent India for which the Congress Party was fighting, whose leaders were Brahmins or those who subscribed to the superiority of Brahmanic culture and equated it with Indian culture. The reality of the traditional sacred power of the Brahmins converging with the modern temporal economic and political power in colonial and independent India was threatening to non-Brahmins.

Conversation : S V Rajadurai, V Geetha & Vidya Bhushan Rawat on Periyar's ideology, self respect movement and opportunism of political parties S V Rajadurai is one of the leading intellectuals from Tamil Nadu who has written, in English and Tamil, on a range of issues to do with Marxism and literature; with Tamil politics and modern history, including Periyar and the Dravidian movement and translated widely, both fiction and non-fiction. Associated with a broad spectrum of left movements, he has worked for several years in the civil liberties movement and was Vice-President, PUCL. V. Geetha is a feminist historian, writer and translator, who has been active in the women's movement for several years. She writes, in English and Tamil, on issues to do with caste, education, feminism and contemporary Tamil society. V. Geetha and S V Rajadurai have worked together for over 25 years-as authors and translators. Their major work comprises essays on the Dravidian movement and politics published in the Economic and Political Weekly, and the book, Towards a Non Brahmin Millennium: from Iyothee Thass to Periyar. They have also authored monographs on western Marxism, including a comprehensive volume on the life and thought of Antonio Gramsci. Rajadurai and Geetha continue to translate poetry and fiction from English to Tamil. The importance of Periyar and his self respect movement is immense and yet neither the Indian state nor the state of Tamilnadu where politicians chant his name, none have felt it important to compile Periyar's speeches and writings and make it available to rest of the country men. This rare conversation of Vidya Bhushan Rawat, with Rajadurai and Geetha will definitely be important for students of social movements and political science in India. Even though it is lengthy yet it explains so many things hitherto unknown to common people. VB : Periyar was one of the tallest revolutionaries of India. His thoughts on secularism, on Brahmanism surpass any other political leaders of his time. He was enormously popular with the masses. Why does today's Tamil Nadu seem absolutely reverse to Periyar's thoughts when we see the growing religiosity in the state and a huge number of Shudras following it? SV & VG : Periyar's radicalism comprised several parts – his critique of Brahminism was many-sided. At one level, it was a rejection of the Brahminical abhorrence of labour and touch. Describing the differences he harboured with Rajaji, who was also a personal friend, he remarked that C. Rajagopalachariyar (Rajaji) stayed true to his mission, which was that ‗he did not want his caste men to have to pick up a spade and labour'. In another instance, speaking of the winning flexibility of Brahmin intellectualism, he observed that some Brahmins might abhor a ‗Panchama' entering their homes, whereas others might not be averse to the same ‗Panchama' entering their kitchens; why, some might even ‗allow' a Panchama to enter the sanctum sanctorum of their altar-room, and there were Brahmins who did marry Panchamas. In all this, though Brahmins made choices that worked to their advantage – he used the Tamil word ‗balithavarai', that is whatever ‗worked' for them. At another level Periyar argued that Brahminism had to do with the hierarchical logic of varnadharma, which, like a ladder implicates everyone – in this sense, each of us carries a ladder in our consciousness, and we measure ourselves and others on the basis of where we are placed on this ladder. However, what drew the

This paper will discuss the issues pertaining to the mission in India during the Colonial era and evaluate the complexity in the relationship between missionaries and colonialists. The paper will take the Serampore Mission and the Tranquebar Mission as its case studies to appraise the arguments relating to the problem of caste, dalits, tribals and women in India.

Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Rangers' influential volume, The Invention of Tradition, remains a milestone in scholarly approaches to the study of tradition. However, in emphasizing conscious manipulations of tradition, and in employing a notion of invention that lacks nuance, the authors of that volume do not sufficiently acknowledge the degree to which invented traditions draw from prior traditions. I explore here the limits of conscious constructions of tradition, arguing that traditions that serve as powerful touchstones for identity cannot be invented ex nihilo. I look at an instance of elite formulation of tradition , the Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu, South India, in the first half of the twentieth century, which articulated a new formulation of Tamil tradition based largely on European models and ideals. The leaders of this movement envisioned an ancient Tamil community that was egalitarian, scientific, and non-Hindu, and they employed this vision in their development of policies for education, religious institutions, and industrialization. Their failure to mobilize popular support for their cause was repeatedly demonstrated in their electoral defeats at the hands of the Congress Party, which promoted a reformist tradition based on Hindu symbols and ritual practices. I argue that the Dravidian Movement failed to win political support because they discarded nearly all the components of prior Tamil tradition, and the novel tradition they authored in turn was unrecognizable to ordinary Tamils.

Tamil superstar Rajinikanth has announced his long-awaited entry into politics. This article charts his rise to superstardom and long dalliance with state politics to analyse his political prospects. It is argued that the leader-centric nature of his party is a mere continuation of Tamil political norms, and that his ambivalent “spiritual” politics must be wedded to material concerns if he is to succeed.

This paper explores the rise and fall of pan-Indianism as the dominant identity narrative amongst the Indian diaspora in Singapore in the mid twentieth century, and its replacement with a normative Indian identity based primarily on Tamil culture. It will analyse some of the reasons why a Tamil cultural separatism came to dominate negotiations of ethnic identity in early post-war Singapore. This will include an examination of colonial ethnographic representations, the effects of demographic trends in Indian migration to Malaya during the colonial period, transnational political linkages between Singapore and India, and the effects of the Japanese occupation on Indian identity during World War II. The paper will also focus on the growth of the Tamil reform movement and the ways in which it came to shape the framing of Tamil ethnic identity in Singapore.

The Arabic language has contributed a lot to the development of the Hindi film and music industry. As a matter of fact, the title Hindi film itself is a misnomer as most of these films are in Hindustani. Hindustani is the language spoken in the Indo Gangetic belt including Pakistan. It is neither the Arab, Persian, Urdu nor the highly Sanskritised Hindi. Mahatma Gandhi used to state that the national language of India should be Hindustani, a piece of sane advice which was disregarded by pure language zealots, vociferously clamoring for Shudh Hindi or Pak Urdu. Arabic has influenced Hindi movies through the medium of Hindustani which has got scores of Arabic words in its vocabulary .Further essential difference between Urdu and Hindi is only the script, Urdu using Persian and Hindi Devanagari .The Hindi film industry from earlier times was dominated by the Muslim community. The movie Moghuls included producer directors like Mehboob, K Asif and Kamal Amrohi .The songs were all written in chaste Urdu by poets of the caliber of Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi, Shakeel Badayuni and last but not least the greatest Sahir Ludhianvi. Rendering these songs were the voices now to be heard only by the gods in heaven, Mohamed Rafi and Talat Mahmood. The immensely popular scriptwriter duo of Salim and Javed and Rahi Masoom Reza who wrote the tv serial Mahabharata This probably is the reason for the common usage of Arabic words. Similarly, some of the hit movies like Shirin Farhad, Rustom Sohrab, Alibaba Chaalis Chor and Alaudin had middle east flavor.

Most of you might have been familiar with the name of Thiruvalluvar. He was weaver / Chieftain/ Poet / Saint, according to your preference among the myths. Beyond that, he belonged to a pre-Christian period in Indian History synchronising probably with the arrival of Buddha. Tearing ourselves from history, Thiruvalluvar is famous for his Universal Humanism.This Paper highlights that virtue in Tirukkural.

Leading British historian David Washbrook, Research Professor in South Asian History, Trinity College, Cambridge, U.K., sees India at a crossroads with Bharatiya Janata Party in government. In conversation with The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy, he shares his views on the decline of Nehruvian secularism, the attempts to rewrite history in India, and the status of research in Britain.
http://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/article6689096.ece

Traditionally Indian political analysts considered minority identities inherently rooted in regional and religious identities as a threat to the process of national integration. Indian Muslims are treated as an uncertain community when it comes to the question of national integration. However, the political history of Tamil Nadu illustrates the fact that regionalism can positively contribute to national integration in general and minority question in particular. This paper is an attempt to inquire into the relationship between regionalism and national integration with reference to the Dravidian movement and its approach to the Muslims - the major religious minority in the region.

The Muslim community of Tamil Nadu is one of the oldest extant Muslim communities in the Indian sub-continent. Tamil Muslims, who speak Tamil and who could by and large claim an ethnic identification with the region were able to maintain their identity as a religiously distinct group and they retained a degree of caste-consciousness. This study examines how the contradictions between being Tamil, Muslim, and Indian identities emerged and how Tamil Muslims addressed themselves in the political sphere between 1920 and 1967. This chronology makes it possible to analyze Dravidian politics up to the formation of first DMK government in the state.

The language of Dravidian movement enabled Tamil people to combine multiple identities in the name of ‘Tamil pride’ and it provided little scope for the construction of a single ‘Hindu’ or Muslim community. As a result of this, conventional ways of looking at Hindu-Muslim relations were and remain inapplicable to Tamil Nadu. Their representation of Islam as Arabic term for peace, humility, and dedication and it is a religion having...one God, worship of a formless God, and peace, unity, mutual humility, devotion, and fraternity contributed to the Tamil society to maintain a greater tradition of communal harmony than north India. This paper tries to enquire how Dravidian Politics enabled Tamil People to imagine themselves as a singular community.  This study assumes that Regional identities have proved to be the most potent force in integrating religious identities.

Keywords: Dravidian Movement, Tamil Muslims, Regionalism, National Integration, Tamil Language, Democracy.

"Indo-Mauritian literature" is a problematic idea, often asserting ahistorical and essentialist constructions of the "Indian" through a recent France-published canon. A critically contextual literary history of Mauritian literature is necessary to question these constructions erasing the diversity of indenture-born communities and complex political dynamics between South Asia and its various "diasporas."
With the Tamil community of 20th century Mauritius as focus, I wish to discuss the relevance of social and political histories in the media and aesthetics of literary expression. Notions of gender, class and caste, but also religious polemics and conflicting nationalisms will all provide crucial lenses. First, I will argue that the early 20th century saw a redefinition of "Indian" cultural life, through a negotiation between modern literary culture and the indenture-brought literary imagination mainly mediated by transgressive oratures and operatic performances. Within the Tamil niche, Asériyars (Tam āciriyar, "schoolteacher") rose as the authoritative curators of narrative knowledge and cultural respectability through colonial education and nationalist discourses on the Dravidian Self. The other half of the communication will focus on the work of translator Mootoocomaren Sangeelee (1902-1996). Through an analysis of his works and many influences ranging from Ramalinga Swami to La Bruyère, and by comparing his preference for theatre and didactic poetry to Hindi/Tamil-writing contemporaries, I will argue that Sangeelee defined Tamil literary literary heritage through the language of Catholic devotion and French classical préciosité, and that these choices still impact literary self-fashioning among Mauritian authors of (South) Indian descent.

... Though the non-Brahmin manifesto did not use the term “Dravidian,” the party's Tamil ... and showed that there was another strand of culture and literature in southern India, whose ... A mis-sionary named Robert Caldwell (1814–1891) published A Comparative Grammar of the ...

This paper will highlight attitudes to British colonialism among some middle-class Indian Christian communities and will use as a case study the anti-colonial discourse within the Methodist Church. It will illustrate how diverse shades of political resistance existed among this Church community despite fears of state retribution. Discourses such as Dravidian Nationalism, Eastern Nationalism, and even the Methodist Church itself were influential in creating oppositional space and fostering intellectual freedom at a time when such expressions were frowned upon. This study thus challenges the perception that middle-class Indian communities were so pro-British that others often derogatorily referred to them as "Black Europeans".

In this article of mine published online 2014 in Global Discourse I attempt to explain the current changes within 'Western' conservatism. Starting from my understanding of conservatism based on my reading of Max Horkheimer  I conclude that the study of conservatism in India helps to understand the universals in international conservatism.
It is available at
http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/qQfFC2jvXn66c95T6uKY/full