Since the beginning of the Dravidian Movement in the early 20th century, there has been an unceasing campaign for the promotion of the Tamil language, which has unfortunately resulted in the mainstreaming of Hinduphobia and anti-Hindi rhetoric.
The reason for this is that the campaign that seeks to elevate Tamil does not seek to do so on the language’s own virtues and beauty, or the great works of literature that have been produced in the language. Instead, it is characterised largely by an explicit opposition to Sanskrit and a denial of the influence that the ‘Brahminical’ language and ‘Brahminical’ culture has had on the Tamil language and the Tamil people.
The weltanschauung of the entire Dravidian movement rests on the central tenet that the Dravidians, the original inhabitants of South India, were systematically expropriated and enslaved by Brahmins. The Brahmins, whom the Dravidianists consider to be originally invaders and migrants from northern India, supposedly derive their ideology of Brahminical caste superiority from Hindu Sanskrit texts. The Dravidian movement was thus anti-Brahmin; anti-Sanskrit, the language of Brahminism; anti-North India, the homeland of Brahmins and Brahminism; and anti-Hindi, the Sanskrit-derived language spoken in northern India. For the first decade or so of Indian independence, the Dravidian movement was also secessionist in nature.
The Dravidian parties have reaped great political dividends in Tamil Nadu by engaging in an ideology most pugnacious and divisive. The Dravidian parties have held sway over the political terrain in pre-independence Madras Province and post-independence Tamil Nadu, obscuring the voices of more inclusive Tamil people and political organisations. This dominant ‘Dravidian’ voice has percolated from political discourse into popular psyche.
While secessionism wins little to no reward today, anti-Brahmin, anti-north India and anti-Hindi sentiments are still present among the Dravidian ideologues. The fierce anti-Brahmin position of the Dravidian parties also led to Tamil Brahmins in the 1970s to the 1990s leaving their homeland for better opportunities. Tamil has also been repeatedly purged of its Sanskritic vocabulary, in the Dravidianists’ bid to ‘purify’ the language.
Brahmins, who were never numerically and politically significant in India, and Sanskrit, a language used in ritual, high culture and secular literature, were targeted and portrayed by the proponents of Dravidian ideology as being oppressive and discriminatory against the so-called ‘lower castes’. The Dravidian ideology resulted in the alienation of Brahmins and North Indians in Tamil-speaking lands. North Indians and Tamil Brahmins were (and still are) viewed with suspicion and contempt. Dravidianists accuse them of allegedly imposing their language and culture in an apparent bid to undermine Dravidian/Tamil supremacy.
Hinduphobia has also taken hold over Dravidianists. This is evident from the ridiculous claim that ‘Tamils are not Hindus’ frequently seen on social media.
Inevitably, a situation such as this has led to the common, popular perception that the two languages – Sanskrit and Tamil – are rivals.
But does such a claim of language-rivalry (and cultural rivalry) hold true historically?
Faulty scholarship
One cannot deny the natural differences between the cultures and peoples of North India and South India, but much of the animosity and aversion between the two is relatively recent and due to historical myth rather than reality. A few European philologists and historians such as Sir John Marshall, George Uglow Pope and Robert Caldwell, in their faulty hypotheses provided the basis for a separate historical Dravidian mythos, which reaches back into an epoch of bygone glory-days. Dravidian ideology reconstructs history from scanty resources and ample conjecture, recalling an antiquity dating from the Indus Valley Civilisation to the powerful Tamil kingdoms of the peninsula.
Across the landscape of history, rulers in the Tamil lands have patronised both Tamil and Sanskrit. We find that the inscriptions of Pallava, Chola and Pandya rulers are not only in Tamil but also in Sanskrit. Often, the inscriptions are bilingual, in both Sanskrit and Tamil.1 The gold and silver coins issued by the Pandya rulers too have Sanskrit inscriptions on them.2 These monarchs also commissioned translations of Sanskrit epics like the Mahābhārata into Tamil.
In the literary and cultural sphere, the two languages have coexisted together, enriching the lives of the Tamil people. Sanskrit was the lingua franca across the Indian subcontinent, and Tamil was spoken in Tamil lands and in the Tamil communities settled along Southeast Asia. Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions have been found in these regions as well.3 The intermixing of Sanskrit and Tamil literary cultures has nourished the Tamil mind with philosophy, poesy, prosody and music. Many stalwarts who have graced the Tamil lands in the past – be it Thiruvalluvar, Kambar, Arunagirinathar, Sri Ramanuja, Appayya Dikshitar or Subramania Bharati – they were born in this Tamil-Sanskrit confluence and were nurtured, directly or indirectly, by both Tamil and Sanskrit.
This ‘contest’ over the supremacy and antiquity of the Sanskrit and Tamil languages can only be attributed to Dravidian politics and the political parties that espouse the disruptive and acrimonious ideology of Dravidianism. Mutual respect for one another’s traditions and culture is an important aspect of living in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, pluralistic nation-state, but for the Dravidianists the notion of mutual respect and harmonious coexistence seems to have taken a backseat.
The Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory, which is fundamental to the Dravidian ideology, has been sufficiently debunked by scholars such as Shrikant Talageri, Koenraad Elst, BB Lal and several others. However, the Dravidianists are still stuck at propagating centuries-old, outmoded theories.
‘Dominant’ Caste?
The Dravidian movement — which seemingly stood for championing self-respect, social and economic equality, upliftment of the downtrodden, women’s rights, socialism, atheism and Russellian rationalism — decisively found its way into politics of a foul nature.
Ironically, most of the men who spearheaded early Dravidian politics were neither poor and nor were they from the lower socio-economic strata of society. Some were not even born in Tamil-speaking families. The pro-British Justice Party, also called the South Indian Liberation Federation, was created for the sole purpose of ending ‘Brahmin domination’ in the civil services of British India’s Madras Presidency. It was an elite affair presided over by affluent men, who sought only to take plum positions in the employment of the British.
One of its co-founders, PT Chetty, was a wealthy lawyer and an industrialist. Another co-founder, TM Nair, was born in a well-off family. His father and brother were prominent district officials and served the British administration. He quit the Indian National Congress after his electoral defeat in 1916 and accused the Congress of harbouring caste-based prejudices. The third co-founder was CN Mudaliar, from a non-Brahmin family of feudal landlords. Two of the Justice Party’s Presidents were wealthy zamindars (landholders) — the Raja of Panagal and the Raja of Bobbili. The Justice Party and its offshoots — the newly-formed ‘Dravidian parties’ — were also hostile to the Indian Home Rule Movement, MK Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement and the Indian National Congress.
The foundations of the Dravidian movement were laid by men in the upper echelons of Tamil society. It was not a grassroots movement against so-called ‘Brahminical oppression’ but a movement aimed at securing certain political goals.
A Re-evaluation
Historically, the term draviḍa or drāviḍa has never meant a separate racial or ethnic identity; it was a geographical marker. It was never an anti-Aryan or an anti-North Indian cultural identity either. On the other hand, the modern Dravidian identity is purely a political identity legitimised by the vague and highly suspect narratives of the “Aryan” Brahmin’s 2000 year-old suppression of the “Dravidian” non-Brahmin by a supposed denial of education and other opportunities of upliftment.
If Sanskrit were indeed a language imposed by political conquest upon the Tamil people, it would not have been so readily accepted by them. Sanskrit and its associated culture would not have flourished so strongly alongside the Tamil language and culture. It is also a testament to the genius of the Tamil people that they have imbibed an appreciation for both Tamil and Sanskrit. They have, at their disposal, two extraordinarily rich means of literary expression and exposition.
It is high time that narratives based on speculation and fantasy are questioned and consigned into the waste-basket of history.
FOOTNOTES:
- Singh, Upinder. A History of ancient and early medieval India: from the stone age to the 12th century (PB). Pearson Education India, 2009. Page 46.
- Government Museum Chennai, Coins Gallery
- Kulke, Hermann, Krishnasamy Kesavapany, and Vijay Sakhuja, eds. Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola naval expeditions to Southeast Asia. Vol. 1. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009. Pages 271-291