The Dravidian Movement & Rescuing Tamilnadu

                                            

 The Dravidian movement, initiated by Periyar EVR, imported the western concept of atheism; into Tamil employing the Sanskrit originated Tamil word ‘nAththikam’ – நாத்திகம். But the Sanskrit word nāstika – नास्तिक   had a meaning different from the western concept of atheism, as explained below.

“ Āstika (Sanskrit: आस्तिक āstika; "it exists") and Nāstika (नास्तिक, nāstika; "it doesn't exist") are technical terms in Hinduism used to classify philosophical schools and persons, according to whether they accept the authority of the Vedas as supreme revealed scriptures, or not, respectively. By this definition, Nyāyá, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta are classified as āstika schools; and some schools like Cārvāka, Ājīvika, Jainism and Buddhism are considered nāstika.^[2] The distinction is similar to the orthodox/heterodox distinction in the West.

In non-technical usage, the term āstika is sometimes loosely translated as "theist", while nāstika is translated as "atheist". However, this interpretation is distinct from the use of the term in Hindu philosophy. Notably even among the āstika schools, Sāṃkhya is an atheistic philosophy

The different usages of these terms are explained by Chatterjee and Datta as follows:

In modern Indian languages, "āstika" and "nāstika" generally mean "theist" and "atheist", respectively. But in Sanskrit philosophical literature, "āstika" means "one who believes in the authority of the Vedas" or "one who believes in life after death". ("nāstika" means the opposite of these). The word is used here in the first sense. In the second sense, even the Jaina and Buddha schools are "āstika", as they believe in life after death. The six orthodox schools are "āstika", and the Cārvāka is "nāstika" in both the senses. “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%80stika_and_n%C4%81stika

According to the atheist minded Western writer Jean-Pierre Lehmann , “  The planet needs a sense of moral order, spirituality and an ethical compass. The Indian religious and philosophical traditions can provide a great deal of all three.” In his article ‘The Dangers of Monotheism in the Age of Globalization’ .

Did the above distortion of nāstika to mean Periyar EVR style atheism in Tamil, decrying the Indian heritage – especially Tamil & the Tamil heritage- , deprive the Indian heritage based “sense of moral order, spirituality and an ethical compass”?

What are the ‘moral order and the ethical compass’ practiced by most of the leaders of the Dravidian Movement, and the significant sections of the society following them?

Let me brief the actual inputs from my experiences, observations, and inputs from reliable persons I had interacted in various phases of my life in TN.

Most of the writers, speakers, intellectuals in Tamil tolerate value free & corrupt individuals in their social circle, while strongly condemning all kinds of injustices in the world.

Even otherwise law abiding persons in the upper middle class and the affluent sections do not dare to restrain a person indulging in wrong doings, simply because that person’s help is needed for their personal life – even if the wrong doing results in great loss to another person whose relative value in helping them is less, or to the society. Most of such persons, in my observation, were the supporters of the Dravidian Movement or/and Periyar EVR style atheists, and pro-Western supporters. Interestingly Periyar EVR strictly followed the Hindu heritage based ‘moral order, and an ethical compass’ ,unlike most of his present followers, and died as a Hindu, without undergoing conversion to Islam, he advocated more as a threat, and with his own interpretation of Islam – not approved by any pro-Islam groups.

Life skills in TN to become rich fast included all kinds of value free wrong doings including serving the unethical needs of wealthy and influential persons. Such 'Dravidian' rich people command VIP respect in family and social functions, over ruling the traditional priority in the family and social circles.

All the above became the dominating social trend, after the birth and growth of the Dravidian movement in TN.

Whether both are inter-related or independent of each other need to be debated to rescue TN.

What could be the reason for their indulgence in value free life and corruption, to go on amassing wealth, during the rule of the Dravidian parties in Tamilnadu?

With the weakened Hindu heritage based ‘moral order, spirituality and an ethical compass’,  most of the people in Tamilnadu seemed to have been infected with ‘social comparison’ - to earn wealth at any cost, subordinating all human relations including family and friends to serve that aim.

In ‘The Paradox of Choice – why more is less ‘, Barry Schwartz explained the pitfalls of social comparison, as quoted below.

“with the explosion of telecommunications—TV, movies, the Internet—almost everyone has access to information about almost everyone else. A person living in a blue-collar urban neighbourhood forty years ago might have been content with his lower-middle-class-income because that brought him a life comparable to what he saw around him. There would have been little to incite his status-enhancing aspirations. But not anymore. Now this person gets to see how the wealthy live countless times every day. We all seem to be swimming in one giant pond nowadays, and anyone’s life could be ours. This essentially universal and unrealistically high standard of comparison decreases the satisfaction of those of us who are in the middle or below, even as the actual circumstances of our lives improve. ” (page 191)

Unfortunately the additional import of the western concept of individual freedom, removing the heritage based family values and constraints, converted the people into a kind of human robots programmed to suffer under the social comparison. This unfortunate consequence is well explained below.

“Nobel Prize–winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen as also examined the nature and importance of freedom and autonomy and the conditions that promote it. In his book Development as Freedom he distinguishes the importance of choice, in and of itself, from the functional role it plays in our lives. 

“ Instead of being fetishistic about freedom of choice, we should ask ourselves whether it nourishes us or deprives us, whether it makes us mobile or hems us in, whether it enhances self-respect or diminishes it, and whether it enables us to participate in our communities or prevents us from doing so. Freedom is essential to self-respect, public participation, mobility, and nourishment, but not all choice enhances freedom. In particular, increased choice among goods and services may contribute little or nothing to the kind of freedom that counts. Indeed, it may impair freedom by taking time and energy we’d be better off devoting to other matters.” (Prologue- bold mine).

The first causality in Tamilnadu  is the decline in the intellectual wealth, followed by the damages to many heritage valued places, and inscriptions in the hills blasted by the quarry contractors for earning wealth, during the rule of the Dravidian parties in Tamilnadu.

Also TN public suffer from the basic survival problems like lack of  water, drainage, road, etc. Mostly the affected people themselves, especially the women more than men, conduct some kinds of agitations to solve the problems, while most of the TN parties and forums frequently conduct programmes and agitations for the problems related to the Srilankan Tamils, banning books, films, etc, Interestingly this paradox itself, deserving a serious debate, do not find a place in any Tamil media, to the best of my knowledge.

In the recently held parliament elections, the election commission had a tough time to prevent the distribution of money to the voters, who in many cases, in fact, wanted that money.

In other words, money had replaced God, and those who live with moral order, spirituality and an ethical compass, are treated as fools in their social circle including the family. Those with ill gotten wealth are respected as VIPs in all social and family functions.

Interestingly a significant number of persons in the middle class and lower middle class persons, who still live by the traditional values, started avoiding/disrespecting such ‘quick rich & value free’ persons. Also a significant number of persons in the upper middle class and the affluent sections , who still live by traditional values, need to ‘exhibit’ their respect to the ‘new rich & value free’ ‘Dravidian VIPs’, to ensure problems free life.

Also those who even now lead a simple life with moral order, spirituality , an ethical compass and minus social comparison, command unusual great respect in the places they live, by people belonging to all castes, religions, and all sections like poor, middle and above.

A study of the current social trend would reveal that a kind of unparalleled social disjoint had started developing in TN, which may offer a rescue route. What kind of rescue route was revealed in my present study of the book ‘ON GROWTH AND FORM’ BY D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON? ( http://tamilsdirection.blogspot.in/2014/10/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none.html )

Also it may not be surprising if most of ‘emotional’ Periyar EVR followers are ignorant of his following statement.

Periyar EVR once conceded that the present day Brahmins could not be descendants of the Aryans in view of the so many mixing of people that had taken place in the history. He declared that if the Brahmins could live without enforcing the 'differences', he had no reluctance in accepting them as one among us. ( Kudi Aracu - 14.07.1945)

Aryan invasion theory was proved incorrect and even Marxist historians like Romila Thapar agreed to that. ( http://ascjnu.tripod.com/aryan.html)

Also genetic mapping make any such division just meaningless.

(“it is reasonable to believe that Brahmins may not be entrants from outside but may have originated as a caste from the tribal population of this country.” http://tattvaanveshanam.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/genetics-delivers-another-blow-to-aryan-myth/ )

Archeological evidences pointed out that the most literate people in Tamilnadu prior to British rule were  ‘Kammalas’ ( present ‘viswakarma’ castes). Most of the Brahmins priests were rendering prayers in Sanskrit without the knowledge of reading & writing Sanskrit. Highly educated Brahmins were also trained in martial arts and served as the ministers to the kings. Brahmins became dominating in education only after the British rule.

My research had revealed that ‘untouchability’ in music in Tamilnadu was a colonial  import. ( http://tamilsdirection.blogspot.in/2013/11/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_13.html )  Also the ancient Tamil texts, branded as anti-Tamils by Periyar EVR, proved to be the intellectual treasures that could help to develop marketable products involving modern technology.

Periyar EVR, probably due to his lack of education, could not understand the multidimensional value of the Indian ‘purAnAs’ ( religious stories), like many western writers ignorant of it, and hence missed the intellectual content in those texts. (’ The study of the ancient Indian texts: Probable pitfalls in the western based rationalist approach’; http://tamilsdirection.blogspot.in/2014/09/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_19.html ) 

Time has come for a serious probe to verify if the absence of serious scholarly challenges to Periyar EVR, after the Birth of DK in 1944,  had  caused an unique social mechanism enabling lumpen elements to rise up in the social ladder to become wealthy and powerful under the garb of  ‘anti-Brahmin Tamil sentiments’. Also the probe shall include the role of the negative emotions in fooling the otherwise well educated persons to encourage the above ‘lumpen elements’.
 
If the followers of Periyar EVR &  ‘anti-Hindu’ pro-Western intellectuals  could come out of their mental prison, and wake up to the new findings, all antagonistic divisions, encouraged by the foreign funded NGOs,  will vanish.

Even the concept of 'varna' and the probable later distortions, deserve an open minded debate.

The so called pro-Sanskrit groups & forums had started to exhibit pro-active interest in native languages like Tamil, and different native schools of thought. In fact my draft on rescuing Tamil medium in Tamilnadu had encouraging response in Tamilnadu ‘Hindutva’ circles than the Periyar EVR circles.

Pro-Sanskrit forums encourage everyone (irrespective of caste & religion) to learn Sanskrit, contrary to the Periyar EVR followers’ propaganda & perception of its exclusive learning only by Brahmins.

From all kinds of negative motivations and feelings, we are in transition in favour of positive motivations, feelings, and constructive actions. PM Modi and BJP had transformed India from ‘reactive’ Hindutva, indirectly aiding colonial inspired antagonistic divisions, into ‘proactive’ Hindutva, unifying & involving all Indians in corruption free, discrimination free, peoples’ development oriented pro-patriotic governing, isolating all anti-patriotic persons among the Indians.

Unless one is aware of the dynamics of the social contradictions and their reflections in the people based political parties, they will be fooled by the course of events, surprising them. No wonder all anti-Modi ‘secular’ & pro-Western intellectuals & even anti-Modi persons in the  ‘Hindutva’ groups, living as the slaves of the ‘past’, were shocked by the results of the last parliament elections. ‘Hate writings’ & ‘Hate speeches’ had become ‘anachronistic’.  Anti-Brahmin, anti-Muslim, & even anti-Hindi speakers are getting isolated in Tamilnadu. In fact, if any media brings out any specific case of caste or religion based discrimination in any educational institution , govt office or private companies in Tamilnadu, with objective evidences, it will be condemned by the people of Tamilnadu, irrespective of caste & religion, No caste or religion based forums in Tamilnadu will dare to support the culprits.

Discouraging hate speeches and encouraging positive actions, including open minded objective criticisms will isolate and weaken the hate speakers. Now most of the criticisms by the hate-speakers, instead of focusing on the content ,mostly focus on the person whose content is to be criticized. But they get exposed soon for their lack of expertise in criticizing the content.

Social emotional strength related to such colonial rule encouraged antagonistic divisions, helped the social culprits excelling in corruption & unethical acts, to escape from the social scrutiny and the due punishment. The people of India had woken up.

Hence, fortunately 'the social culprits' are being weakened, especially among the well educated youth, even in Tamilnadu. Hence the future is bright.

Will the open minded & honest supporters of the Dravidian groups & parties, wake up to emerging ‘reasons’, freeing from ‘emotions?  Otherwise they will wither away due to the anachronistic , intoxicating & self defeating ‘emotions’.

Note: A study of 1930s ‘Kudi Aracu’(Tamil Weekly),  would reveal that Periyar EVR (prior to DK phase)  published criticisms from his dissidents like Jeeva, Muthusamy Vallaththaracu, etc WITHOUT EDITING , and replied to them. I plan to follow that practice by publishing the criticisms to this draft along with my replies, - later in the form of a book.

Also, visit: 'How E.V.R’s anti-Tamil and C.N.A’s pro-Tamil created a new kind of language drug, killing innumerable youth from the poor Tamils, Tamil & Tamil Music?'; http://tamilsdirection.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-e.html