One year ago a dear friend of mine sent me an interview that lawyer and author J Sai Deepak for the ANI, which he gave in response to the controversial (“inflammatory”) footnotes by Udayanidhi Stalin on “Sanathanam”. Very politely he asked my views on the subject. I replied with a long-form reaction to him on Whatsapp. Recently another friend on reading this encouraged me to publish this. Here follows my essay on Dravidianism.

I agree with much many of the large points that J Sai Deepak states in this discussion here. I think Dravidianism is an extremely dangerous ideology that finds false and ahistorical alliances: Brahmin-Sanskrit-North Indian-Hindu vs Non-Brahmin-Tamil/Dravidian-South Indian-Non-Hindu. I don’t think these are borne out of the historical facts and experiences of the region or have been furthered in this stark a way by Tamils themselves. Second, the bigger problem of course is the open call for violence especially in the 30s-50s in Madras against Brahmins, and the very vicious hate against Brahmins, Hindu religion and texts, and gods and believers. While I don’t think such violence to a staggering degree has occurred, Tamil society has been completely broken and polarised to an almost irreparable degree due to the ideology. Third, I also agree that a good part of Dravidian movement was about landed castes of low ritual status trying to vie for power and also the failure of Dravidian politics to do much for untouchables in Tamil Nadu. As to US’s remarks, I didn’t follow the speech in the entirety, based on what I understand it is unnecessarily provocative.

Now having said all of that, the agenda of JSD is too hard to miss and hence makes this conversation very problematic and going by its popularity already, really harmful. In the first part, on the little historical errors – I think deliberate – which are very telling. It is obviously true that missionary activity formed the bedrock of Tamil Nationalist ideology, but the bashing of missionary work is very misleading always not merely for the service – I think there is a  lot in this – done by missionaries of the Evangelical-Danish tradition, but by way of exactly the aspects JSD talks about: scholarly. He cleverly identifies a few missionaries to make his larger point: Breaking India but completely suppresses the fact that their interlocutors are also missionaries.

Of course the Dravidian proof was furnished by FW Ellis, Alexander Campbell, and Robert Caldwell (the first of whom was not a missionary by the way) but the primary interlocutor of Ellis was William Carey of Serampore, a staunch evangelical, who believed Sanskrit to be the origin of all Indian languages (a conclusion he was convinced of by Brahmins in Bengal where he was based). The first stone tools in India were discovered by Bruce Foote, a missionary. Missionaries by virtue of being among the most learned men of the time ventured into intellectual pursuits. It’s easy to line up a few whose work in retrospect led to an inconvenient consequence to identify them as conspirators against your nation. Next, how does it matter who and to what end, the development of the Dravidian as a language family occurred when it is so sound-proof. It was a landmark movement in historical and comparative linguistics and the principles that made it possible also allowed the classification eventually of all language families. That this fact also led to Dravidianism should not make us credit such valuable work.

Now what was Ellis’ proof? It was his reading of Telugu grammatical texts written by Brahmins where erringly scholars name Sanskrit to be the ‘main type’, ‘Marga’ and their own language as ‘Deshya’ – the  vernacular (Telugu owing to its highly Sanskritised literary culture adopted these tropes straight from it and was open to calling itself Sanskrit’s child). However, these same scholars call Tamil primarily as the Anyadeshya: the other vernacular. Ellis because of his interaction with Andhra Brahmins saw in this the story of Telugu and Tamil having a common origin. No work by any coloniser was ever done in isolation. It was informed by informants who demonstrated excessive influences upon the white men. Often misleading even. Now even Caldwell himself gets the word Dravida from Kumarila Bhatta (9th c?) in his Tantravartika used it to refer to a linguistic category. He said that Sanskrit Pandits had a tendency to find Sanskrit origins for all words in all languages but Dravida words are clearly distinct and we think he had Tamil in his mind when he is talking of ‘the Dravidian language’ (for all we know Kumarila is the originator of the Dravidian proof – maybe he is Anti-Bharat too?)

On the false animosity between Brahmins and Non-Brahmins. His choice of the example is one where the kings of India please the Dharmashastric vision of kingship where the Brahmin is on the top. But that tells almost nothing. That Brahminism and its understanding of religion excluded members of society was clearly widespread – best evident in the countless poetry where Brahmins are made fun for their haughtiness, but even better, Bhakti poetry where poetry in subtle ways are posed by lower caste characters. The prevention of Nandanar and Tiruppan Alvar from the temple in Tamil Nadu but also Kanakadasa in Karnataka and Namdev in Maharashtra are all great examples but in each of them, there is a bending backward of the Bhakta for the authority of the Brahmin – so I believe the divisive nature of caste merely did not lead to rampant protest (apparently Virashaivism in Karnataka may be an exception – there might have been violence on Brahmins too there) but oppression was acknowledged in innumerable ways. As to kings- there are exceptions there too. Unlike other non-kshatriya rulers who sought Kshatriya status, Kakatiyas in the thirteenth century famously were comfortable being Shudras and actively progressed an anti-brahmin agenda with a sharp decline of Agraharas, and commissioning of temples, with revenue being diverted to lake-development and other infrastructure activities.

That JSD alludes to Agrahara merely to talk of patronage of Brahmins by rulers and nothing else reveals so much.  There were many kinds of land grants in India but by far Brahmadeyas are the most ubiquitous of all and most in number. The model of Brahmadeya is one where land is non-taxable by the sovereign or his vassal or a tax-collector, instead it is a self-serving unit. All tax money is to go for the maintenance of a few Brahmin families and revenue is raised from the work of all other castes. The inscriptions that he asks listeners to go consult always prohibit the encroachment upon these lands and place distasteful and harrowing punishments upon those who do so (one caveat I can think of though is that the instances of the execution of these maybe far less than the inscriptions envisage – but the ideal is clear and with premodern India one is always meant to correct for the ideal-reality gap). So much for “landless destitute Brahmin” and casteism being a “two-way street”.

Same with Modern Madras. It is preposterous to believe that a big part of respectable bureaucratic, official, and state positions were held by Brahmin, and yet no wealth either led to it or off it. JSD is right in that Vellalar and the many Thevar castes were landholding castes but that’s hiding the full truth – which is that Madras is the one region where others also held land unlike in Bihar and Bengal where land too was exclusively a Brahmin privilege. I am unable to find statistics for caste-based landholdings in Madras for the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. I am sure the data was collected but I’d have to consult the colonial documents – but it should suffice that Brahmin Mirasidars was a category in colonial revenue collection. And the at least one historian has acknowledged that the fee paid to serfs/pannaiyals by Brahmins was consistently less than by other castes because these services were read to be essential by the nature and structure of caste.

As I said, I think Dravidianism was a bandwagon for the landed and much of its outrageousness went unchecked but I think everyone looking at history should ask questions about normalcy of something instead of just distressing about it.  I think it was connected to the real complaints that the dominant castes had about both the Congress party and bureaucracy – very reasonable and brilliant men in Andhra either uphold Ramaswami Naicker or had contested elections from Justice Party tickets; it was entirely kosher. How was this possible in spite of their friendships with Brahmin counterparts? This should have to do with some genuine complaints in society – this was what led to the blind eye to the very horrifying words and acts by Dravidian players.

It is almost amusing to see JSD take the side of the Congress for the colonial period – and his once again acute picking of two names as representatives: Rajaji and Besant, both clear apologists to Brahminism, especially the latter. Besant: “The caste system assigned learning to the brahmana and splendour to the kshatriya, wealth to the vaishya. It has been the glory of the brahmana to be poor. Millennia of studious poverty have built up a body of fine nervous development, refined, sensitive and admirably adapted for its functions and have chiselled out an incomparable brain that has not its peers, as a class, in the whole world. The brain of the average brahmana compared with the average of any other class in the world is superior. Individual brains may be found anywhere of the finest value but taking as a class, the average brahmana brain is unrivalled and it has a quality, a timbre if we may borrow an untranslatable word, which is unique. Natural law has been utilised and the result is there before us.” She was also famously upset with Gandhi’s Ashrams because she was scandalised with the prospect of Brahmin and Dalit children sitting next to each other. Now, why choose new heroes or even take sides with any historical figures merely to critique and expose Dravidianism? Can a fair historiography not be made without identifying “real patriots”?

My last point is relevant because in JSD’s exposition it is evident that he is not critiquing Dravidianism but really apologising to Brahmins and Hinduism and inasmuch as Hinduism is not exclusively Brahminism, to him it mostly is. And as long as men like J Sai Deepak use the Brahminical thrust to isolate and observe Hinduism, there will be calls to destroy Hinduism.