Saturday, November 20, 2004

The origins of Tamil political oppression of Brahmins

November 20

I found the following mail from a thoughtful brahmacharini quite thought-provoking. I have withheld her name below. I would only add that 'South Indian' is the wrong term, it is peculiarly 'Tamil', the oppression described below. There is other oppression of Hindus and Brahmins in other states, for instance the Marxists have utterly impoverished the Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala. But this particular intellectually vacuous and laughable fanaticism is a Tamil specialty.

I would urge everybody to not use 'South Indian' as a synonym for 'Tamil'.

Once again, this 'Dravidian' mythology is complete nonsense manufactured by one Bishop Caldwell. It has been highly useful for certain Tamil politicians such as EV Ramaswamy Naicker, Annadurai, Karunanidhi and so forth and their hangers-on.

Rajeev

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In view of the current events, the arrest and harassment of Sri Jayendra
Saraswati Swamigal, I felt a need to bring out the background of South
Indian politics for many people who are not aware of it. I am quoting a
passage from Michel Danino's book, "The Invasion That Never Was".

Respectfully,

(name withheld)

21 November 2004

Starting on page 34:

... "the "invasionist" syndrome used depths upon depths of tangled
distortion to convince Indians that this new invasion of "British
Aryans" was meant to finally save them from the aberrations that had
stemmed from the first invasion!

"Unfortunately, many of the wounds the Aryan invasion theory inflicted
on Indian society are still painfully open today, nurtured as they have
been by missionaries, Marxist historians, and politicians, who together
have made sure that divisions between castes have sharpened rather than
subsided-for the simple reason that without such divisions they would
all be out of business. A typical example of this short-sighted strategy
is the common identification of Dalits with "non-Aryans" and the use of
the word 'adivasi' (i.e., "original inhabitant" or aboriginal) to depict
the tribals, thus trying to put a stamp of evidence on the
"colonization" and "Aryanization" of India by the higher castes: for if
the former are aboriginals, what are the latter? Yet, as we will see,
the so-called Adivasis are no more "adi" than Brahmins or any other
higher castes.

Aryan-Dravidian Divide

"Another instance can be found in South Indian politics, where a
frequently heard refrain has been that the Dravidians came to India long
before the "Aryan invaders," whose Brahmin descendants have sought to
"impose their culture on all non-Aryans" and should therefore be
resisted.

"The following observation by a noted South Indian writer and academic
is a painful index of how deep those divisive doctrines have penetrated:
"Again and again Tamil has had, during its long history, to stand the
impact of alien influences and cultures, Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu,
French and English, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam and Christianity-these in
successive or concurrent waves have threatened to overrun the Tamil
language or destroy the character of Tamil culture. But Tamil has always
managed to assimilate the foreign matter..." Sanskrit, Buddhism or
Jainism are "foreign" to Tamil culture!! We may contrast this
astonishing statement with Swami Vivekananda: "The South had been the
repository of Vedic learning." ... many sound scholars have argued that
South Indian languages are deeply related to Sanskrit, and neither Tamil
tradition nor archaeology show any North-South or Aryan-Dravidian
conflict on the cultural level.

"Yet, a few years ago a "Dravidian" politician urged Tamilians to impose
a "social boycott of Brahmins," whom he threatened with "an intensive
movement to quit the State.""

And the book goes on giving more examples.

7 comments:

Test said...

Dear Sir, there are bad and good politicians. No one hates gandhi or associates him to a brahmnin. Annadurai and EVK are such persons.
I donno what makes you talk against EVK...during his reign things were different and there was a lake in kerala were low caste peoples were not allowed. He fought against that..is this cheap politics??? this definitely brings to light the cheap and one-sided mindset of the author.

Test said...

Here i am forced to chip in another comment..

"I would urge everybody to not use 'South Indian' as a synonym for 'Tamil'"

This lacks awarness and is a cheap comment. Does that mean that we have to generalise the ppl of gujarat as murderers?? now dont give me reasons like they attacked after muslims burnt the train..even in tamilnadu dravidians were suppresed for some time and just like how advani is trying to stir up hindu passion some guys here try to stir up the dravidian passion..

Anonymous said...

Hey ... I didn't know you were a racist. That's pretty pathetic.(You know nothing about a Tamilian or Tamilnadu). Tamilnadu and Tamilians welcomed people from Kerala, Andhra, and North India. Everybody uses Tamilnadu and Tamilians and then back stab them.

Anonymous said...

Tamils are a race? The known races are black, white, and yellow. Which one of these are Tamils?

Tamils are just the same as all other Indians. They are not a separate race dropped from Dravidian heaven.

Tamils have also gone to all other parts of India and lived there. There is nothing special about others living in Tamil Nadu.

Anonymous said...

Dude you need to work on your english.

Anonymous said...

this particular intellectually vacuous and laughable fanaticism is a Tamil specialty.So Rajeev, then you're Tamil too?

Have a wonderful day, got it?

Sudhakar Nair
sudhakar@easy.com

Anonymous said...

You can look at Tamilians from 2 views :-)

1) Very open -
They allowed Periyar (A Telugu Naidu?), KArunanidhi (A Telugu). Vaiko ( Telugu), Jaya (Not Tamilian), MGR, Rajnikanth to flourish there..

2) Very incapable -
They could not rule themselves.. so MGR, Karuna, Java need to come to their rescue to rule them

I read some one saying neither 'Karuna' nor 'Nidhi' is Tamilian...