CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

The politics of Tamil Nadu in the eaily part of the twentieth

centmy was dominated by the *Brahmin-non-Brahmin' conflia. The

tenn 'non-Biahmin movement' is usually applied to the happenings in

the Tamil society in this eaily period. It was during this time that the

caste identity of certain groups of elite non-Biahmins was challei^ed.

Also, the social and cultural 'differences' were politicized in ways which

laid the groundworic for the emergence of Tamil political identity.

However, Tamil political identity does not become widespread until the

1950s. First comes the concept of a non-Brahmin community which

becomes synonymous with Dravidians. Since Dravidian and Tamil

identity meld together at a later stage, examination of the emergence of

Dravidian political identity in the context of the non-Brahmin

movement is the key to understandii^ the creation of the "Tamil

People".

Furthermore, although Brahmin-non-Brahmin antipathy is an

important consequence of the eariy *non-Brahmin movement', it is by

far not the only or even the most in^xjrtant lastii^ effect. The most

interesting problem is not why these two rival elite groups found
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themselves at loggeiiieads during this period but how the contest led to

development of a radical political ideology and a restructurii^ of

political identity.

The Diavidian movement in Tamil Nadu can be dated to begin

from December 1916 when a "Non-Biahmin Manifesto" was released.

In the manifesto, the Diavidian concept was anti-Brahmin specific

because the patrons of the movement, the British imperialist ruleis, had

wanted it that way, and for good reason as I shall expound below. The

manifesto was authored principally by Dr. TM. Nair and Rao Bahadur

Theagaraya Qietty. It candidly advocated the continuance of British

imperialist rule because it was contended that the British alone could

"hold the scales evenly between the castes and creeds" of India.

The manifesto was immediately denounced as a handiworic of the

British rulers with an aim to divide the freedom stru^e. Dr. Annie

Besant, then editor of New India, and a prominent personality in the

freedom struggle, debimked the manifesto as "mischievous and

unpatriotic". The non-Brahmins in the freedom s t n ^ l e such as Kesava

Pillay were also appalled by its blatant casteist approach and distanced

themselves from it.

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Since the Dravidian movement's focus was defined and set solely

against the Brahmins without an ideological structure for developii^ a

pan non-Brahmin consciousness, with the movement's founding, the

seeds of its demise were also planted. It has taken time, but today the

decay and moral bankruptcy of the Dravidian movement is evident in

the land of its birth. Its demise seems imminent.

The movement grew first with British imperialist patronage, and

especially after beii^ given a militant edge by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy

Naicker, a Congressman to begin with. In 1932, the movement suffered

a setback when Dr. B.K Ambedlar rejected the British offer of separate

electorates for the Scheduled Gistes, and sided with Mahatma Gandhi to

sign the Poona Pact. By then Periyar had left the Qjngress and militantly

advocated godlessness and atheism. He even declared Ravana a

Dravidian hero. Under Periyar the Dravidian movement came close to

developii^ an ideology that could have provided a durable basis for its

survival, but even Periyar could not overcome the erroneous

assxmiptions and basic internal contradictions on -w^ch it was founded.

The Poona Pact, for example, dealt a blow to those who had thoi^ht

that the Scheduled Castes would en masse defect from Hndu society.
 241

After the late 1930s when many Justicites entered the Coi^ress,

and when the Congress gained increased support, the Dravidian

movement became pretty much a Tamil affair. Thus it is somewhat

ironic that when Dravidian cultural identity crystallized into Dravidian

political identity in 1938 through the demand for a separate 'homeland',

the demand was for a Dravida Nadu.

However, it is noteworthy that between 1925 and 1944 the Self-

Respect L e j ^ ^ continued its social reform activity. After 1938, the

League (and the Justice Paity) demanded an independent Dravida Nadu.

They also escalated agitational activities by moving from criticism of

Hndu gods and goddesses to actual destruction of religious idok. In the

meantime, the Congress had managed to attract more adherents as non-

Brahmins replaced Brahmins in party leadership positions and as the

Congress emerged as the most likely post-independent ruling party. In

1944, the Dravida Kazhagam was formed to try to win wider support

for the ideas of social reform and Dravidian separation.

At the same time, the Coi^ress in Madras emerged from Qvil

Disobedience with great prest^e, but very few influential supporters and

almost no organization. Most of the prominent men in provincial

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affairs, including many old Coi^ress members, steered well clear of the

nationalist movement when it plui^ed into Station in 1930. The

machinery of party organization had fallen into disarray durir^ the

torpid years of the late 1920s; it could not be refurbished before Qvil

Disobedience began, and in both 1930 and 1932 the government jailed

all expenenced leaders and workers as soon as agitation started, and

gave the Congress no chance to build up a provincial organization.

In February 1937, the Congress party in the Madras Presidency

won 159 out of 215 seats in the provincial Legislative Assembly at the

first elections under provincial autonomy. It was the most convincing

viaory for the Congress in any province of British India, and neither the

Madras Government nor the Cor^ress leaders had e^jected it. In the

two-and-a-half years of Congress rule that followed, their ministers

made adept use of their power. They cut land revenue and dismanded

the procedure for revising the land revenue demand, thus appealing to

the pocket of every landholder. They re-instated all the village officers

who had been dismissed for aiding the Congress during Qvil

Disobedience, thus rehabilitatir^ the leaders of rural society where the

source of power and influence now lay. They passed two measures to

alleviate the burden of agricultural debt, and threatened to legislate in

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favour of the tenants inside the major landed estates. Meanwhile, for the

first time, the Congress established a netwoiic of committees throughout

the province, and by 1939 this new machine had placed virtually every

local government board under a Q>ngress regime. The number of

Congress members in the Tamil and Andhra areas rose from 115,971 on

the eve of the 1937 elections to 594,397 in 1938; this kind of five-fold

increase is unprecedented in the history of Tamil Nadu Congress.

Thus the Congress acquired in fact the oig^nization and the

political leadership that it had aspired for so loi^. Although the

Coi^ress withdrew from the ministries in 1939 (partly because of the

British attitude towards India in wartime, and partly because it needed

time to attune its new organizational machine to the demands made

upon it), it returned to power once the war had ended and retained it for

the next twentyyears.

Under the Congress Ministry of C Rajagopalachari in 1937, the

study of Hindi language was made compulsory in schools of the SoutL

Taking this as an affront to Tamil culture and its rich literary tradition,

Tamil patriots reacted with violent protest, and Naicker, ready to exploit

the opportunity, waved the black flags of rebellion in his first anti-Hindi
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campaign. The Station against the imposition of Hndi inflamed the

non-Brahmins against the Ministty and brought Naicker to the

forefront. The campaign which brought the death of two j^tators in

police firings forced the Government to change Hindi from a required

to an optional subject in schools. The following year, 1938, while in jail

for his anti-Hndi campaign, Naicker was elected President of the Justice

Party.

Under Naicker's leadership, the party resolved that Tamikad

should be made a separate state, loyal to the British Raj and "directly

under the Secretary of State for India". This demand for a Dravidian

State soon became the fundamental issue of the Justice movement,

giving a new lease on life to what had been a dyir^ party. The Justice

Party was reorganized under Naicker's guidance in 1944 as a highly

militant mass organization and was renamed the Dravida Kazagham, or

Dravidian FederatiorL Naicker, who in the 1930's had visited the Axis

countries as well as the Soviet Union, declared that "members of the

Kaz^ham should wear black shirts whenever possible, as a symbol of

the present down-trodden condition of the Dravidians". The

organization of the party was to be based upon units in each vilk^e,

taluq, and distria. The objective of the DK was proclaimed to be the

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achievement of a sovereign independent Diavidian Republic, which

would be federal in nature, with four units corresponding to the

linguistic divisions (Madiias, Kerala, M)«ore, and Andhia), each having

residuaiy powers and autonomy of internal administration. The party

proclaimed its opposition to the British, and Naicker called upon the

DK members to renounce all titles conferred by the British and to

resign all offices connected widi the National War Front. This action

greariy enhanced the prestige of the movement, at both state and

national levels.

After the formation of the Dravida Kazhagam, propaganda

activities entered a new radical phase. Laige nimibers of radical social

reform publications were produced; radio broadcasts were regulariy

arranged; the Dravida Kazhagam leaders edited and published

pan^hlets, journals and newspapers; large social reform conferences

were held at which Untouchable (Adi-Dravida) cooks were used;

Untouchables were taken into temples, and numerous Hindu idols were

smashed in protest demonstrations. The central message of Dravida

Kazhagam prop^andists consisted of radical reform, Dravidian

separation. Brahmin perfidy and the need for non-Brahmin vmhy.

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The role which radical Dravidian movement and specifically the

DK played in spreading the notion and facilitatii^ the acceptance of

Tamil political identity underscores the faa that cultural collectivities are

not 'natural' phenomena. Cultural nationalisms and the cultural

collectivities they create often reflea a complex etiology which includes

political leadership, oiganization, and ideology as important variables.

Transformation in the caste system provides the structural framework

within which a new identity could emerge. However, relative deprivation

remains an important mechanism which gives political meaning to

collectivities and legitimacy to nationalist 'solutions'.

Ironically, growth and penetration of support for the Dravidian

ideology and a Tamil identity (which was mainly associated with the

DMK) occurred in one of the best administered, most prosperous

Indian states. Uatil 1967, the Congress Party was in power in the state.

Emergence of Tamil political identity has been etiologically

related to the iateraction of variables that are broadly social, cvdtural,

economic and political in character. Transformations in the caste system

and other dislocations resukir^ from modernization processes, social

change and truncated economic development created the structural

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potential for emergence of new forms of identity. However, whether or

not the potential for cultural nationalism is e3q)loited and the direction

that nationalist ideology takes depends primarily on political leadership

and secondarily on government policy. Collectivities, political identities,

even nationalities are not natural phenomena to be 'discovered', they are

ideological constructs created and lived in. 'Non-Brahmin community',

T)ravidian people', 'Tamil nation' are all ideological constructions for

ordering South Indian political reality. The broader ideology which

encompassed these identities was a template which was more or less

useful and compelling for masses of people as social, cultural, economic

and political change moved the Tamil society in specific direction. In

this sense, the observation that cultural nationalism can emerge in post-

industrial societies as well as in less developed countries depending on

the nature of social change must be elaborated to specify the interaction

of socio-cukural and economic conditions, leadership potential,

government policy and political ideology in the creation of new

identities.

The Dravidian movements most cleariy e3q)ress populist

sentiment in Madras State. Their economic and social radicalism draws

strei^;th from classes which hope to preserve or enhance their status: on

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the one hand, merchants and local industrialists who fear North Indian

competition, artisans threatened by industrial advance, cleris, and other

white-collar worisere clinging to a precarious respectability, and on the

other, skilled and unskilled wodsers, communicadons and polirical

specialists, and rural elements, especially the socially mobile lower

peasant castes which have benefitted from the prosperity of the peasant

proprietor and from poHncal democracy, who see prospects for further

economic and social gains.

The Dravidian movements often use the vocabulary of the

socialist left. But when they appeal to the poor z^ainst the rich, it is not

as proletarians, but as men with litde property and status who would like

to have more. A genuine, ardent Socialist commitment is discounted by

Dravidian concern against North Indian exploitation, which they

identify with the socialist inspired all-Indian economic planning of the

Coi^ress Govenmient in Delhi

When the Brahmin dominance in the Tamil Nadu Congress

leadership was firmly entrenched and the rivahy between the two key

Brahmin leaders C Rajagopalachari and S Satyamurthi was brewing,

Kamaraj wove his way into the top echelons of the Tamil Nadu
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Congress organisation as the representative of the non-Brahmin enclave.

The 'Brahmin image' of the Congress foimd its affirmation at the hands

of Rajaji when he introduced compulsorjr Hindi in schools in 1938 when

he was the chief minister.

This move was met with resentment and brought about an open

confrontation between him and E V. Ramasamy in 1938. A massive

anti-Hindi £^itation was launched by E V Ramasamy unleashing a

vehement onslaught on the nexus between Rajaji, the Brahmin and

I-Endi, the 'Aryan languj^e of oppression'. The statewide anti-Hindi

campaign involved picketing schools, picketing in front of Rajaji's

residence and hunger strikes. E V. Ramasamy was arrested in December

1938 and imprisoned for a year.

This confrontation sharpened the conflict between the non-

Brahmins and the Brahmins within the Coi^ress organisation. The

agitation was continued till Rajaji had to opt for making Hindi an

optional subject in schools in February 1940. At this crucial moment,

Rajaji's candidate, CP. Subbiah, was defeated by K. Kamaraj with the

support of the Brahmin leader, SatyamurthL Kamaraj was elected as the

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president of the Tamil Nadu G)ngrcss in 1940, the post which he held

till he became the chief minister of Tamil Nadu in 1954.

The advent of Kamaraj as the party boss from a low caste non-

Brahmin background made a "powerful appeal to the vast non-Brahmin

majority^ and attracted the non-Brahmin elite and the political-minded

elements "who had long resented the power and privileges" of the

Brahmins, and broadened the social base of the Coi^ress. The non-

Brahmin presence in the Congress gained ground, rallyii^ around

Kamaraj, a 'rustic' leader who transformed the Congress into a people's

party championing the causes of the lower castes, Kamaraj grew steadily

from strei^;th to strength displayir^ his organising skills to control men

and matters. During these years his contaa with the people and the

respea he commanded made his position unassailable. The untimely

death of Satyamuiti in 1943 iir^roved his position and gave him a

further lease of power. With the Congress machinery under his control,

he overshadowed his party men and effectively reduced the Brahmin

dominance in the party.

As the party chief, Kamaraj commenced his active role in the

successive elections of the Congress legislative party of Madras and was

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the prime author of installing three chief ministers between 1946 and

1952: T Prakasam, Omandur Ramaswamy Reddiar and Kimiaiaswamy

Raja. The next successor Rajaji was certainly not Kamaraj's choice but

was appointed by the Congress high command. There-entryof Rajaji as

chief minister without even an election could have derailed Kamaraj's

emerging equations with non-Brahmins.

After India's independence, the G)r^ress saw the Dravidian

movement as a tool to keep other national opposition parties from

gathering strer^jth, and used them as ideological storm-troopers. It

never thought that the Dravidian movement could cidminate in power

and office andreplacethe Congress itself.