Dravidian Identity in Changing State and National Sphere;-
From mid 1980’s onward Dravidian movement and identity seems diluting with changing state and national politics. This dilution of Dravidian identity can be studied under following themes:-
Dravidian Identity and Issues of Tamils in Srilanka and LTTE:
The Dravidian movement and identity has always considered the Srilankan Tamil to be a part of their own culture and identity, therefore they always stood in support of the liberation struggles in the island nation of Srilanka. While the liberation struggle which was peaceful till early 1980’s, took violent shape with the formation of Liberation Tiger of Tamil Ealem, i.e., LTTE. While DMK were the sympathizers of the liberation struggle in the Srilanka as they projected common Dravidian Tamil identity, it was not able to arouse any mass following and support for the cause of Tamils in Srilanka. The precise reason for this was the failure of the Dravidian identity to bring people together, due to the circumstances prevailing in the state and as well as in national politics. In Tamil Nadu, it was the rule of AIADMK led by M.G. Ramachandran, who never had any Dravidian ideology and was very close with the congress at the centre. As he was smart to realize that when state is depended on the centre for money and other monetary helps, an anti-centre stance made no sense. With liberation movement getting violent in Srilanka, it was felt both by M.G. Ramachandran and the congress government at the centre that LTTE should be stopped from pursuing violent means.
It was only during the middle of the 1980’s that the DMK began to acquire relevance as an alternative to AIADMK. This was due to the worsening ethnic conflict in Srilank...
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...e of money. The statement which marked the decisive alienation of the women voters was a statement by M. Karunanidhi. On March 1991, at the inauguration of the national front campaign at Patna, he described Jayalalitha as the “political girlfriend of Rajiv Gandhi”. The statement was condemned by Jayalalitha and many women group in the state, which influenced the minds of the people and regardless of her Brahmin origin, so very contrary Dravidian identity, she was elected as the leader of entire Tamil people. The fact is not that DMK lost election to a Brahmin leader, but the point to emphasis is its complete routing in the election. AIADMK won 161 seats out of 164 seats contested and DMK just 2 seats, which again brings to notice that the myth of Dravidian common identity is diluting in the face of changing state and national politics and view points of the people.
Mohan, S. et al. (2001). “Baseline Report: Women and Political Representation in India.” International Women’s Rights Action Watch: Asia Pacific (IWRAW). Retrieved on December 17th, 2011 from < http://www.iwraw-ap.org/aboutus/pdf/FPwomen_and_pol_pax.pdf>.
In Nehru’s India, women were victims of a “passive revolution” that subtly advanced bourgeoisie men of higher castes under a guise of parliamentary democracy. Though women have presided over the Indian National Congress, served as a prime minister, and represent a large part of India’s la...
My father (appa) was born on November 26, 1960 in a hospital near Puloly. Around this time, tension started to grow between the Tamils and the Sinhalese, the major ethnic group of Sri Lanka. In 1956, eight years after independence, Solomon Bandaranaike, a Sinhalese nationalist, became the prime minister of Sri Lanka. He made the Sinhalese the national language of Sri Lanka and encouraged the government to support Buddhism, the religion of the Sinhalese.
The history of the conflict extends into colonial times, when Sri Lanka was a formal colony of Great Britain. Even then “politics were already split along rigid ethnic lines…”[2] Sri Lanka is populated by two ethnic groups, the Tamils and the Sinhalese. The Tamils constitute only 15% of the total population in Sri Lanka. But, according to Stuart Bell from National Post, the Sinhalese still feel as a “minority within the wider region”[3], because of Sri Lanka’s geographic position, only 30 kilometers off the coast of India’s Tamil Nadu. Another factor to be taken into consideration is that Sri Lanka is the only place in the world that the Sinhalese culture exists in. There is no question that the Sinhalese feel even more threatened because of that. Additional differences adding oil to the fire between the two groups are:
During the Cold War, many regional conflicts occurred and were noted as the significant battles which later led to decolonization. One of the regional conflicts were India and Pakistan fighting for their independence. In 1947, India was released under Great Britain’s control and gained its independence. However, the country was divided between Muslims and Hindus, which share different religions. Muslims wanted church and state to become unified while Hindus wanted a separation of these two establishments. Since these two ethnic groups disagreed, it was difficult to create a new government. Therefore, India was divided into two nations: India for the Hindus and Pakistan for the Muslims. Hindus and Muslims were racing to the border in order to get to their nation state which led to killing 500,000 people due to rioting. Although, Mohandas Gandhi, an Indian National Congressman, wanted to obtain peace between these two religions. Pakistan refused the H...
According to Jonathan Culler, “the fundamental identity of characters emerges as the result of actions, of struggles with the world, but then this identity is posited as the basis, even the cause of those actions” (111). The same cause is mirrored in the works of Meena Kandasamy (b. 1984) who belongs to that category which has the past tendency to get subjugated and suppressed the most – Dalit and Female. Kandasamy regards her writing as a process of coming to terms with her identity: her “womanness, Tamilness and low/outcasteness” that she wears with pride (Sarangi, par. 1). Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak suggests, “I construct my definition as a woman not in terms of a woman’s putative essence but in terms of words currently in use. ‘Man’ is such a word in common usage. Not a word, but the word” (Lodge and Wood 495). And one can note surprisingly that Meena Kandasamy changed her given, official and a very poetic Tamil name, Ilavenil to her pet name Meena. The titles of her both volumes imply perception of social deprivation that accumulates in history as cycles of violence and coils of collective guilt.
Pickert, K. (2009, January 4). The Tamil Tigers. Time. Retrieved March 10, 2014, from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869501,00.html
We know the history of the post Nehruvian congress party. We know how it splintered and how its factions fought amongst themselves to claim legacy to THE Congress party. The Congress party had enviable hold...
It is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist. Growing up as a boy from the Parayar caste, in the milieu of Christian, Hindu and Muslim communities, K.A. Gunasekaran narrates the familiar tale of caste oppression and prejudice prevalent in the villages of Tamil Nadu. As the narrative unfolds, the reader is shown how the ‘low’ caste negotiates differently with the three religious communities. The deep pain of the Paraya surfaces through the risible anecdotes that ridicule the grievously unjust practices of the ‘upper’ castes. The book emphasizes the fact that Indian villages are doubly caste-conscious and cruel, and that Dalit emancipation rests in better education for the community. Gunasekaran writes in an earthy and colloquial style to capture the innocence, cruelty and drama of a South Indian
Of the themes which dominate the representative writings of the forth world literatures include the theme of resistance, rebellion, opposition, assertion, challenge, sacrifice, suffering and displacement. All these general ideas are interconnected with the common concept of ‘freedom’ and an aspiration for which is truly a driving force for the indigenous people. In this paper an attempt has been made to look into the theme of resistance and how it contributes to the development of the spirit of self-determinism as it is reflected and re-presented in the Fourth World literatures with special reference to dalits’ writings in India in order to appreciate and advance the common cause of freedom in the larger interest of Humanity.
Parsis form a dwindling community of fewer than 1,25,000 people worldwide, most of whom are concentrated around Bombay. (Vinodhini, 1) During the 7th century, they had fled Iran to avoid conversion to Islam. India had offered them a home free from religious persecution. Most of the small community rose to affluence by working as tradespeople. Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s first term (1971-1977), India remained their safe haven, but they were marginalized as nationalized banks seized their enormous share of the banking industry. During this time period, Gustad Noble from Such a Long Journey finds the Parsi cultural identity intensifying his community’s problems, adding to the already anxious and insecure mood of pre-war India. Nevertheless, it remained the community’s great source of pride, with their strong devotion to Zoroastrianism guiding them through arduous times.
Ilavarsan died on July 4. His body was found on a culvert adjoining the railway track in Dharmapuri(Tamil Nadu) with severe and fatal injuries that the police say were due to his being hit by a train as a result of a suicide bid. His relatives, however, insist that he was murdered. The first post-mortem concluded that he had committed suicide. The family then moved the high court seeking another post-mortem.Ilavarasan’s tragic end was the result of the most dangerous and flammable mixture in India -- caste and politics. Divya and Ilavarasan studied in Dharmapuri town and they lived in neighbouring villages -- he is from Natham and her from Sellankottai.
During the British colonial rule, the Tamils, who were the ethnic minority, were favored and given better positions in the government. However, after the country’s independence in 1948 the Sinhalese began to dominate the government, military, and all internal and external affairs. They removed the Tamils from the government positions they once occupied and made their religion (Buddhism) and language(Sinhala) the official language and religion of Sri Lanka. This ethnic tension between the Sinhalese and the Tamils led the Tamils to form a rebel group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and go to war with the government in
The causes of ethnic conflict cannot be generalised to fit all incidents, as the conflicts in Sri
There is a distinct difference between popular Indian nationalism, that is the nation believing in a state independent of Britain, and Indian nationalist movements, for example the Muslim League or the Hindu revivalist movement. These movements fought for independence but were far more religiously orientated and were fighting in their own interests. Although Indian nationalism initially found expression in the Mutiny of 1857, its deve...