Monday, September 12, 2005

South India or Southern India

sep 11
 
interesting comment from a reader.

why do i say 'south india'? i have noticed my parents use this as part of their mailing addresses all along: eg. kollam, kerala, s. india. so i guess i have been using it as a habit.
 
there are some differences between north and south india, of course. south india is full of madrasis and north india is full of biharis :-)
 
i jest, no offence meant. but i found the best way to cure northies of their tendency to call all southies 'madrasis' was to call them all 'biharis'. very salutary, instant impact :-)
 
i will make an observation and a conjecture on the reasons for the difference. the difference may lie in the level of civilizational destruction. mohammedans did not make as much of an impact on the south, and therefore did not wound the civilization as much. for instance, it is remarkable that the classical dances of india are:
 
a) bharat natyam -- south
b) kathakali -- south
c) kuchipudi -- south
d) odissi -- southeast
e) kathak -- north
f) manipuri -- east
 
what this suggests is that in the entire area where the mohammedan impact was felt most strongly, ie. the indo-gangetic plain, dance ceased to exist under puritanical mohammedan rule. dance was pushed to the fringes, to areas where mohammedans were not so powerful. (kathak was entertainment for noblemen, so it was allowed to survive, i guess, like geishas in japan).
 
similarly all the other arts were extinguished; learning and erudition too. after the great universities of the north were decimated, indian sciences only flourished in vijayanagar and further south (eg. the kerala school of astronomy and mathematics).
 
the impact of vijayanagar in shielding the south for those crucial centuries during barbaric sultanate rule in the north has never been fully appreciated. in essence, vijayanagar allowed indic civilization to survive.
 
fast forward to the present. the survival of the civilization is the reason that the south is ahead on almost every parameter. again, note that the most backward parts of the south are those where mohammedan populations have the most impact: northern karnataka, parts of andhra pradesh, malabar in kerala.
 
this is not surprising, as mohammedanism forces one to eschew change and modernity. this is why the entire arab world has not created even one important idea since 700 CE. the only thing the arabs did that was worthwhile was to preserve and transmit indic and greek ideas eg. in mathematics and astronomy during the time that europe was (under the sway of mohammedanism's twin, christism) even more benighted, although that *is* hard to imagine. i cannot think of *one* original arab invention in the sciences or in art, if one neglects the art of belly-dancing.   
 
so is the south different? heck, yes. is the south different enough to secede? heck, no. although some neo-semitic 'dravidianists' in their imperial fantasies think they want to lead southerners to some sort of 'dravida-land'. unfortunately for them, no non-tamil has the slightest interest in this brain-dead idea of 'dravidianism', and even among tamils, only a small minority of christism-brainwashed people believe in this ('dravidianism' is a creation of christists intent on conversion and divide-and-rule). there is no such thing as 'dravidian' or 'aryan': this is a colonial invention.
 
On 9/7/05, Vijay A wrote:
Hi Rajiv,
 
I am a first time writer to you, but a long time reader of your writings. It is such a pleasure to read your articles and blogs. I came across this piece:
 
"You err, Mr. Kristof, when you casually equate Muslim and Hindu violence"
 
Here, you refer to Marad as being in "Kerala, South India." I have been thinking about these terms "North India" and "South India" for a while. Would it be more accurate to use northern India and southern India instead? After all, these are not (yet!) separate countries like North Korea and South Korea. Do you think it could promote the feeling of unity and oneness of India, and make a geographical area seem just that - a part of the whole?
 
Keep up your "Shadow Warrior" project. I enjoy browsing through it.
 
Thanks for making lives of Hindus easier with your clear answers, explanations, retorts, and dismissals of misnomers and myths. Your work reminds me of Sitaram Goel of "Voice Of India" ( www.voi.org), who fought an intellectual battle with the 4 diseases afflicting India and Hindu society, namely Christianism, Islamism, Secularism/Macauleyism, and Marxism.
 
Sincerely,
 
Vijay


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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Vijay,

You are correct is mentioning that it is not North India, but Northeran India etc...

This really a good observation.

Arjun

Anonymous said...

HI ...

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77994

Did you see that?

Anonymous said...

Dric and others,

Kerala will be the next Kashmir, with the help of Christian and Islamic fundementalists. Christian CM is giving Kochi, as a Onam gift to Dawood Ibrahim through the Dubai Internet city deal(plan to provide 33000 software jobs to Islamic and x-ian terrorists near the naval base). Islamists - NDF,SIMI,PDP and Al-Umma are very active and have major plans to organnize series of blasts all across kerala. Temples would be plundered with help of communist and Christian frockling terrorists.

A report on 'Conversion of Kerala to Kashmir' in Punnyabhoomi (in malayalam)
http://punnyabhoomi.org/printEdition/Sept05/P-1_12-9-05.pdf

Anonymous said...

Rajeev,

You are absolutely correct regarding the contribution of Vijaya Nagar, but you have failed to mention the contribution of Shivaji & the Maratha kingdom in preserving the Hindu Dharma in Western/Southern India. Shivaji managed to create a kingdom in a land dominated by Muslim sultanates and when Aurangazeb, the most bigoted of all Muslim rulers, was ruling in Delhi.

Poet Bhushan, a contemporary of Shivaji, who wrote a biography of Shivaji, wrote: "Kasihki Kala Gayee, Mathura Masid Bhaee; Gar Shivaji Na Hoto, To Sunati Hot Sabaki!" [Kashi has lost its splendour, Mathura has become a mosque; If Shivaji had not been, All would have been circumcised (converted)]

Anonymous said...

There are other, more subtle, symptoms of 'decadence of culture' in Northern India. Consider, for example, the three-language formula of 1956. The first stipulation was : Every Indian should learn three languages, Mothertonge, English, and Hindi. Where Hindi is MT, they should learn one of the southern languages - Tamil, Telugu, Malyalam, or Kannada. What happened to the idea? The Hindi speakers never took it seriously, while the southerners have learnt other languages whenever need be. Would you attribute it to a 'loss of culture?'....

Consider also what the implementation of this simple idea would have done to National Integrittion. Even now, it is a great idea to take up. It will create jobs too.

Anonymous said...

Well, Rajeev, this is another thought provoking and serious matter involving our country.

although it is of a lesser consequence, it is a matter of potential trouble.
The North-South divide (?) or the misunderstanding.

As you said, the typical northie doesnt know anything about the south, for him a person from AP is same as that from Kerala/TN, well, southies are a bit better (Not to a much extent) and would not equate a punjabi/kashmiri to a bihari.
But both the northies and southies are ignoring the people of the NorthEast. Yes, they feel neglected and not just that, due to the idiotic partition, they became remote and difficult to reach (Need to bypass Bangladesh).
And due to the christian missionary hate spread and seperatist feelings, they feel alienated.
Its time that India breaks these idiotic mindsets which no-doubt were generated by Britishers and their bum-lickers the marxists and the 'Dravidians' and continued by greedy politicians for their vote-banks. (DMK, PMK and what not... and in the north we have people like mulayam and others)
We need to have a pan-Indian and a nationalistic mindset, where we see the whole of India as the same nation and not as north/south/northeast or whatever...
Yes, there has not been much influence of muslim invaders of the north (Afghanistan, Iran etc.) on the south India, but however, the christists exploited them and got a lot of converts and ofcourse got an army of 'Dravidians' which is a bullshit concept.
All of India is one, and only when we come out of such narrow enclosures (Created by vested interests) will see the potential of Bharat.
Regarding the languages, I feel, we need to slowly and gradually incorporate Sanskrit as the main language and the National language.
Some may scoff at it... look at Israel, people laughed when they tried to get Hebrew (they called it 'Dead' language) as their national language. When they can do why not we.... Sanskrit is the mother of all Indian languages and moreover, Its the best suited for computers.... who knows... maybe it'll do something great for our already growing IT skills.
It'll lay to rest the issue of national language, which has been ashamedly hijacked by English to the happiness of Marxists. It'll prevent the domination of north Indians and the resentment of south Indians over Hindi, as it will become any other language like Punjabi, bengali, Tamil, Nagamese, assamese etc.
And we can have the 3-language formula.
Sanskrit, the mother tongue and a foreign language, preferably english. Yes, english should be studies... but as a foreign language, not as it is taught idiotically like now.....
Well, this is what I wanted to offer......
Hope to see more of interesting articles on your Blogsite....

Cheers,
Sameer

doubtinggaurav said...

Good points,

Just few suggestions

1) Don't call a Marathi North Indian, Bihari or UPWallah (or for that matter Bhayya), He may take offense. (Marathi is very satisfying language if you want to abuse)

2)Don't call a punjabi Bhayya or Bihari. He may take offense.
(Punjabi is also very satisfying as far as abusing is concerned.)

3) Don't confuse Bengalis with Bhayyas. Bengalis contempt can turn you into stone.

From your 'north indian' reader.

PS. Yes people outside south india call everyone from south 'madrasis'
mostly out of common ignorance and a little out of uncommon malice.
Considering how people in TamilNadu call everyone out of southern states as 'North Indians'
(out of common ignorace or uncommon dravidianism), What's the big deal?
I think everyone likes to dislike other (so as to boost their self esteem)

Anonymous said...

May be an average Indian has some average contempt for another average Indian from another average state.