The state is a mix of paradoxes. It is one of India’s most
developed states. And yet it is one of her most conservative
societies. The state is home to a glorious ancient culture and
literary tradition. It has produced great litterateurs and musicians
and seers and scientists. The state has the maximum number of
temples in any Indian state, many of them built to magnificent
scale in size or architectural grandeur. That the temples in
the state continue to practice ancient traditions of worship
and rigid dress codes is surprising in a state ruled by professed
atheists for over half a century.
Most middle class families in the state initiate their girl
children into the study of classical music or Bharata Natyam
to nurture their artistic sensibilities. The growing crowds
every year at Tiruvayyur during the annual Tyagaraja Aradhana
festival are proof of this. And lumpen elements find their way
into the cadres of political parties to cause murder and mayhem
for love or for money. During the anti-Hindi agitation in the
sixties its crowds burnt alive, police officers, who in the
line of their duty obstructed them from venting their anger
by burning public property. The people of the state are very
expressive in their emotions. This could be the reason for the
Thalaivars or Thalaivis (leaders, male or
female) to encourage their cadres to prostrate before them in
public, as an expression of reverence. For the same reason,
it was no surprise, when some of its citizens were so grieved
that they did not hesitate to immolate themselves when their
hero MGR passed away. They can make a temple for an actress
one day if her anatomy is appealing enough and bring it down
when is she is seen to be crossing a conservative Rubicon.
In Tamil Nadu, democracy and freedom of expression, lofty ideals
for media men and women, are only to praise the Thalaivars
or Thalaivis with encomiums and prefixes like Puratchi
(revolutionary) and Kalaignar (litterateur). Even the
most virtuous journalists dare not omit prefixing the names
of Thalaivars or Thalaivis with the honorary
doctorates that the states’ universities routinely confer on
them like confetti in a wedding. Governance in the state is
in a permanent state of musical chairs with the Thalaivars
or Thalaivis of one dynasty alternating the
other.
Political parties nurture private armies of goons to do their
bidding. When these mobs go on a rampaging spree no body save
their masters are safe. We have seen only recently, the internecine
warfare within the ruling dynasty spilling out into the streets
of many towns causing murder and mayhem. All in the name of
social justice and secular ideals, it saw the burning
of a newspaper’s offices with some unfortunate employees included.
This is not something new to the state. Beating up of journalists
for offending the Thalaivars or Thalaivis
has been such regular a happening that it no longer surprises.
T. N. Seshan the tall Chief Election Commissioner who made
mighty political parties cover did not find the five-star Taj
Coromondel hotel in Chennai safe, when he uttered something
that displeased a Puratchi Thalaivi. Her goons ransacked
the hotel guarded by one of the most powerful security companies
that money can buy, only to find that the bird has flown the
coup. Her private army did not flinch when ordered to kidnap
the editor of a national, secular newspaper in the
capital of a neighbouring state. She did not hesitate to have
a Shankaracharya arrested on trumped up charges when he crossed
her path or when she felt that it would serve her political
interests.
Anti-Brahmanism
as a credo…
The lynching of Alfred Dreyfuss in Paris is said to
be an indication of simmering anti-Semitism in Europe, which
led David Ben Gurion to seriously contemplate the need for a
separate Jewish state. The roots of anti-Brahmanism in Tamil
Nadu are not clear but may have something to do with Christian
missionary work. In any case it gave Ramaswami Naicker a handle
to beat Brahmins with holding them responsible for all ills
of the society although they have, if at all, only exceptionally
wielded political power.
The Dravidian movement made persecution of Brahmins its ideological
plank to seize political power. The tufts that they wore as
a religious symbol were pulled causing acute pain, the holy
tilak they wore was licked or forcibly erased, their
customs ridiculed and their women molested. The situation of
Brahmins during most of the twentieth century in the state was
similar to that of the Kashmiri Pundits in J & K during
the last decades of the century. The cream of them emigrated
to other states or nations. Those who remain have to struggle
for their existence in a state in which they are overtly not
wanted. The reservation policy, an instrument of positive discrimination
that gave a handicap to the downtrodden in other states, is
an oxymoron in Tamil Nadu as at 69% it is designed to only exclude
Brahmins from jobs, educational institutions and parliamentary
democracy. There was a time when political persecution was extended
to institutions owned by Brahmans as well and The Hindu,
it was said, contemplated moving to Bangalore. Indira Gandhi’s
infamous emergency was a godsend for Tamil Nadu and more for
the paper as she dismissed the Karunanidhi government based
on charges of possible secession and corruption. The grateful
owners of the paper jumped on to the Samachar News Agency
bandwagon shunned by all self-respecting newspapers as it was
formed as a handmaiden to sub-serve her majesty’s interests
and to control the flow of news and information. The Veeranam
project conceived to transport drinking water to Madurai was
never completed but the ‘existential dilemma’ of evidence
saved Karunanidhi from corruption charges - as all other political
leaders in India at whom a ‘needle of suspicion’ pointed. And
as the wheel of musical chairs turned to bring his party back
into power the charges were totally dropped.
As the Hindu religion and rituals are considered a part of
Brahminical culture it was portrayed as a north Indian import
and the myth of Aryan north and the Dravidian south was fuelled
as a continuous tool to achieve political ends. Although later
archaeological and other scientific evidence negated the ‘Aryan-as-an-alien’
theory, originally propounded by Christian missionaries to drive
a wedge in the Hindu society, it suits the Dravidian parties
to continue with its perpetuation.
The recent remarks of Karunanidhi, the secular chief
minister of Tamil Nadu, posing an existential dilemma about
Sri Rama whom millions of Indians worship fits into the general
scheme of Dravidian politics, exhibiting if not ignorance of
advances in scientific knowledge, low animal cunning pandering
to a constituency that may be slowly slipping away as the imaginary
enemy, the emasculated Brahmin is no longer a perceptible threat.
An apology will
only enhance Karunanidhi’s stature…
When his predecessor, for personal or political reasons resorted
to having the Shankaracharya of Kanchi arrested, there were
no violent protests in the state, mostly because the Hindu pontiff
was perceived as an icon of the Brahmin community, known for
its stoic forbearance of hardships and not given to violent
expressions of anger. While most of the secular media remained
a mute spectator, The Statesman of Kolkota was the
one newspaper, which exhibited courage, objectivity and balance
in questioning it. In an editorial entitled “God,
man, law - Is India principled, secular enough?”
the paper asked, “Jayendra Saraswati
is acknowledged as a pontiff of India’s majority community,
and that hasn’t stopped his arrest. But it could be asked, could
the law go as far with religious leaders of the minority community
- that, too, is a test of secularism.”
Could one ask whether Karunanidhi who wanted to know which
engineering college Sri Rama attended for constructing the Sethu,
would be bold enough to ask people of other faiths to proffer
proofs of their messiahs and their credentials? And by the same
token could one ask an atheist to obtain a postgraduate degree
in genetics and prove the legitimacy of his birth?
According to the scripture, Sri Rama respected the word of
a lowly citizen as more venerable than familial ties. Would
the erudite Karunanidhi be gracious enough to respect the sentiments
of millions of his own citizens and apologise for hurting their
sentiments? It will only enhance his stature as a great leader.
