Asserting one's identity and being an ass

Critiques on two articles
1) Rajeev Srinivasan, the doyen of Hindu assertion in the Internet media, writes the following (Linky)

As the title of the article suggests, Rajeev starts with the Higgs Boson, and then goes on to claim that

I believe the most astounding achievement of a single human mind in all of history was that of Panini, 2,500 years ago.

Not to speak of apples and oranges (how constructing languages and explaining the world by means of scientific theories are acts of similitude), the claim that Sanskrit is uber alles has been one of the common themes of the new-age vocal Hindu elite. For such a claim to be considered, first, we need to cross the basic stumbling block of how a dead (yes, dead and essentially confined to temples and liturgical acts) language spoken by fewer people than a district in India (in contrast to many many other living, thriving and adapting languages) has a claim to being supreme over all languages not just in India, but over the world. Once that bridge is crossed, if Panini has a claim to Sanskrit, there are similar people with respect to other languages: Tholkappiyar for Tamil, Nannayya for Telugu, etc. Where does the madness of attributing astonishing achievements to one person/language in a country with many people/languages end? Third, a claim to supremacy of Sanskrit over the regional languages is not a new phenomenon -- every generation sees such revival acts. In the early twentieth century, many Brahmin stalwarts of the Madras Presidency claimed Sanskrit to be a deva-bhasha and accorded an inferior status, both socially and philosophically, to Tamil -- all the while speaking in glib English to their British overlords. Such monumental stupidity of presuming Tamil to be an asura-bhasha or a naraka-bhasha added fuel to the fire of non-Brahminical Tamil self-assertion witnessed by the likes of the Justice Party and the Dravida Kazhagam.

Underlying both the JP/DK and the new-age vocal Hindu elite is a common thread: one of self-assertion made possible by both a perceived as well as a semi-real victimist mindset engendered by an all-denying and powerful club of opposite elites. These contrasting polarities in this socio-politico-economic game have further common threads despite their mutual loathing and opprobrium: i) they are elites with a deep sense of awareness on what is "good" for the rank and file, ii) they want the game to continue so that the process can polarize sufficient people to their camp and hence need "The Other" to manufacture sympathy and empathy independent of acts of omission or commission, and hence, iii) without disagreement, discord and Dystopia, such disagreements and discords will be manufactured anyway. And finally, iv) the game shall never end as the game is not about self-assertion, but a far-reaching goal that transcends society, rule-of-law, and day-to-day living.

Rajeev further adds:

A certain Cartesian vanity afflicts Western science -- the idea that by digging ever deeper it is possible to understand reality completely. There are two reasons to doubt this: One is the famous Uncertainty Principle of Heisenberg. The other is the observed tendency in nature of aggregation, where in a complex system, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (think of an ant colony).

This is as bizarre as it can get. On the rhetorical level, is Werner Heisenberg the product of Oriental wisdom or a product of the same Western science? On a more deeper level, what is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to physics is Godel's Incompleteness Theorem(s) to arithmetic. And Godel neither dropped out of the Kerala School of math nor claimed any legacy from Aryabhatta with the point being, Indians (and Hindus specifically) have enough good reasons to feel proud of their legacy/culture/heritage that there is no further reason to grind an axe at the achievements of other civilizations and make a comical farce of our own rational capabilities. Knowing the measuredness/moderations of identity, consciousness, and labeling is what distinguishes a more refined path to self-assertion than retracing the ills of the past perpetrated by so many groups, sub-groups and clans. The new-age vocal Hindu elite could learn to moderate their self-assertion for constructive purposes, and learn not to assert their identity for the heck of asserting. Or as Tilak might have phrased it:

Assert when it is your bloody right, not when it is not needed...

Rajeev contends eventually:

I don't think the 'God particle' is going to render philosophy or God itself immaterial.

Yes, that is right. In this matter, P. V. Indiresan writes (Linky)

There is a basic difference between faith and scientific spirit. Faith applies to what we do not know but believe in. In contrast, scientific spirit does assume a few hypotheses like, for instance, for the electromagnetic theory to be true but only till experiments prove them false. One single experiment is enough for a scientist to give up his theories.

As some other wise person commented,

Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of any religion/faith-based system, and Rejection without proof is the fundamental approach to modern science.

While modern science is not in the clear for discarding/not respecting wisdom from the bygone era which have not been experimentally proven (like say the efficacy of curcumin/turmeric), what the pursuit for the class of Higgs boson can show is that there are equally competent theories based on fewer and fewer axioms that are more plausible than a fantastical one axiom viewpoint that "there is a god" to explain everyday occurrences and happenstances.

2) The second article is from Sadanand Menon (Linky)

It is important today to understand how in Dara’s rustic physicality the “legend” of the body and the “legend” of the nation intersected. In fact, the hard corporeal affinity between pumped up muscles and pumped up nationhood is too real to be ignored and could be any semiologist’s delight.

In contrast to Rajeev's article, this one belongs to the opposite side of having to piss on the self-assertionists' jamboree such as those on nationality, identity assertion tasks, etc. Hiding behind this need to piss is an undeniable truism: every community, country, sub-group/group has asserted itself at one point in time or the other. If they have not, they will do so in the not-so-distant future. There are absolutely no exceptions to this rule: be it the US, be it India, be it Hindus, be it the various caste-affinities, be it Europe, be it the whites in the US, be it African-americans, be it the chinese, be it Muslims, be it Tamils, be it Bengalis, you name it. Such an identity assertion process makes certain "Others" victims, some just lie on the shortest path to hell while some participate in a zero-sum game. The fact that some "Others" become victims in the process does not in itself make identity assertion a castigable proposition. To do so, only masks the problem. The problem is not the assertion of identity, but a clear lack of moderation in the process and knowing when an identity has to be asserted.

All this makes Sadanand Menon's point a bit condescending and a bit contrarian. But neatly hidden beneath this need to piss is this whine:

One of the key superheroes of Hindu mythology who conquered time and straddles multiple yugas is Pavanputra Hanuman and it is neither fortuitous nor arbitrary that in the highly problematic television serial of Ramanand Sagar’s “Ramayana,” the coveted role of the immortal, invincible simian-god eventually went to none other than our own epitome of desi akhara invincibility — Dara Singh.
...
It is hardly a surprise that, into the nineties, Dara Singh emerged as one of the most influential power-brokers in the political circles of the Capital, disbursing patronage and privilege in equal measure, rubbing shoulders with the communal and the corrupt and even cornering (via the Bharatiya Janata Party) a Rajya Sabha seat between 2003 to 2009.

What was/is so problematic about the tele-serial Ramayana? Is it a problem of Ramanand Sagar's that some Hindus took to extremes in the process of this self-assertion? It is the problem of the judicial system that such Hindus were not put to the test, but then in a country of long judicial delays and often arbitrary judicial enforcement, the central problem lies elsewhere. To ask the Hindus to not assert their identity so that some Hindus could become extremist (even in a suggestive sense as it is in this article) has been how the opposite party has behaved since 1947. What this demand for non-assertion does is evoke militant assertion, and in some sense, both parties now have a purpose to sustain their own futures.

Or is being political a crime? If so, many "icons" from varied fields such as Jayapradha, Sachin Tendulkar, Dilip Tirkey, Hema Malini, etc., have rubbed shoulders with the crass and the crazy in the Parliament House. Some have even taken the patronage of equally crass and incompetent parties with no moral grand-standing that is believable. Dara Singh is neither the first in this list, nor is he unique in having a bad rap on his knuckles. From all indications, Dara Singh's Rajya Sabha presence was uneventful as will (most likely) be the case of one SRT.

It was a further endorsement of Dara’s prowess that he was also such a “patriot”; that post-Partition, he became the symbol of Indian (Hindu) virility, unlike the equally legendary Gama who chose to relocate himself in Pakistan and self-destructed his image. Dara became a national aspiration as well as a national treasure. The body of Dara Singh became the body of the nation.

Such claims belie facts on the ground. The first Indian Olympic medal winner, Kashabha Jadhav, essentially died in penury. And yes, he won a bronze in wrestling. The State Government of Maharashtra celebrated him when he was dead by awarding the Shiv Chhatrapati Award in 1993 (he died in 1984!!) while the Union Government bestowed an Arjuna Award in 2001. When Sushil Kumar won the bronze in 2008, the subsequent year saw a fistfight on whether three people (Abhinav Bindra had already been awarded in 2001, Mary Kom, Jitendra Kumar and Sushil Kumar) could be conferred the more princely sum-bestowing Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna in a single year. Sadly, if Dara Singh was the doyen of Hindu (!) virility in the nation's imagination, why exactly were other "less virile" exponents such as Milkha Singh (!), Vijay "Merchant", P. K. Banerjee, etc., also celebrated? While Manoj Kumar or Sivaji Ganesan's patriotic movies got attention, why did movies on such themes as social change, family dramas, crime, religion-based mythological dramas, etc. also get the attention of people?

Dara inhabited this male world of ambition and achievement that summarily dismissed the existence of the “other.” The “other” in this paradigm is “weakness” and has no right to exist.

As mentioned earlier, it is a short step from being worried about the ills of self-assertion to prescribing a dose of non-assertion. Such gives-and-takes are what makes the two sides so noxious. And rightfully, as one of my algebra teachers used to say

A (Jacobson) radical on the left is the same as a radical on the right.

And I can safely add, "and both are equally garrulous."

Chennai Illai, Madras: Tales from the City

A chapter titled, '"Madras Manade" -- How Chennai remained with Tamil Nadu" by A.R. Venkatachalapathy in a volume edited by him titled, "Chennai Not Madras: Perspectives on the City"

Chennai is now well-entrenched as the capital of the modern state of Tamil Nadu. Not only is it the administrative headquarters but it has also evolved over a century and a half since at least the mid-19th century as the social, political, and cultural capital of the Tamil country. Despite its cosmopolitan nature and a significant minority population, no Tamil could possibly imagine that Chennai could be anything but Tamil. But for some years in the mid-20th century the pre-eminent place of Madras as the Tamil capital came to be challenged by Telugu politicians. "Madras Manade" ("Madras is Ours") captures this controversy in an alliterative Telugu slogan.

Though Telugu speakers, at about 15 per cent of the population compared to about 70 per cent of Tamil speakers, constituted a clear minority in the city of Madras, for a variety of historical reasons they had high visibility. Proximity to Telugu regions, the dominance of the Telugu elite in the early history of Madras, their prominence in early nationalist politics where some of them founded organizations such as the Madras Native Association, and their preponderance in trade and business gave, at least to some, an illusion of Madras as a Telugu city. This was further accentuated by the disproportionate power Telugu speakers wielded in an electoral world where enfranchisement was based on property holding and direct taxation. With the gradual rise of Indian nationalist politics, at the threshold of its mass phase, legitimate demands were voiced for a separate province of Andhra for Telugu speakers. It is said that such demands were articulated as early as 1913. The Andhra Maha Sabha was a major voice in the articulation. By 1920, with its Nagpur session, the Indian National Congress had reorganized itself on linguistic lines and the newly-formed Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee demanded that the city of Madras come under its jurisdiction. Similar claims were made on Madras when a separate Andhra University was formed in 1926. Though such demands were articulated through the subsequent two decades, the issue came to a head only as Indian independence became imminent. The Telugu demand for Madras unfortunately got tied to the formation of a separate Andhra state and consequently became a running sore for over half a decade.

In June 1948 the Constituent Assembly of India appointed a commission headed by S.K.Dar, with Panna Lal and Jagat Narayan Lal as members, to examine the formation of the new provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra. Interestingly no mention was made of Tamil Nadu as it was erroneously assumed that the Madras Presidency was representative of Tamils. In the event the Dar commission recommended reorganization not on "linguistic consideration but rather upon administrative convenience." This was a view that was close to Jawaharlal Nehru's heart despite the many assurances the Congress had made over the years, and especially during the 1937 elections, on linguistic reorganization of provinces.

The Congress in turn, in its Jaipur session (December 1948), appointed a Linguistic Provinces Committee with Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Pattabhi Sitarammaya (hence commonly known as the JVP Committee after their initials). The committee, which presented its report in April 1949, more or less accepted the Dar Commission's views by recommending the postponement of linguistic reorganization by a few years. But Andhra was an exception. "In some ways," the JVP Committee observed, "the demand for an Andhra Province has a larger measure of consent behind it than other similar demands," and added ominously, "Yet there is a controversy about certain areas as well as about the city of Madras." While the JVP Committee argued that Greater Bombay should not be part of any linguistic province, it placed Madras on a different footing despite its apparent analogous nature:

to a large extent what we have said about Bombay city applies to Madras. At the same time there is a difference in that it is a clear Tamil majority area. It seems impossible to restrict the aspirations of the majority to the confines of the city and as far as we can see its isolated existence would be a perpetual source of conflict between Andhra and Tamilnad.

Therefore the decision of the Congress leadership was clear and unequivocal right from the beginning: "On the whole, therefore, we feel if an Andhra Province is to be formed its protagonists will have to abandon their claim to the city of Madras." But there precisely lay the problem. Inextricably linked with the demand for Madras, the declaration of Andhra province came to be delayed by a few more years. Further, it also occasioned unnecessary and tragic loss of lives and property and caused teething problems for the fledgling nation state.

Pressure began to mount as is clearly recounted in the voluminous Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. By September 1949 Nehru had received at least three deputations: one an Andhra deputation led by P. Ramamurti, another of the Tamil members of the Constituent Assembly, and a third of the Andhra Maha Sabha. Meeting these delegations only further convinced Nehru of his position articulated in the JVP Committee. In November the Congress Working Committee, following the JVP Committee's views, recommended to the Government of India that an Andhra state be formed but without Madras city.

As Nehru wrote shortly later to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, the Chief Minister of Madras Presidency, "it now appears that the way to the formation of the Andhra Province is not as easy or clear as we had thought it was." An eight-member Partition Committee had been formed in November 1949 and the Madras Cabinet had approved its report in January 1950, "based on a large measure of agreement." But this was mired in controversy, with T. Prakasam ("one leading member from Andhra" in the words of Nehru) signing a note of dissent that the apparatus of the new province should reside in Madras city until a new capital was ready, clearly a ploy to subvert the federal decision not to grant Madras to Andhra.

In the ensuing months the movement for Andhra hotted up. In the coastal districts and Rayalaseema, support was welling up for a separate Andhra province. Apart from numerous public meetings, one Swami Sitaram even undertook a fast portending perhaps the subsequent fast of Potti Sriramulu which ended tragically. Given Nehru's view that "Personally I am opposed to bringing in fasting as a method of finding a solution for political problems" and his categorical statement in Parliament that "Government will ... submit to facts and not fasts," the fast was broken only with the intervention of Vinoba Bhave. During the course of this fast it all once again boiled down to one issue: while the protesters demanded a separate Andhra state and the government was more than eager to grant it, the doubtful claim over Madras was what stalled the issue. In Parliament on September 14, 1951 the government said as much when N.G. Ranga, the prominent Andhra Congressman, made an intervention in the debate.

As the agitation for a separate Andhra got protracted, the fault lines within the Andhra Congress began to be more visible. It became obvious that the interests of Rayalaseema and the coastal districts of Andhra were not in tandem. (Here it should be mentioned that, even after the so-called police action in Hyderabad which ensured its integration in the Indian union, its amalgamation with the Telugu state of Andhra was scarcely discussed.) Given their close proximity and other material interests in the city of Madras, Rayalaseema and Nellore could not envisage an Andhra province without it. Further, their people were also apprehensive about due representation to them in the new province and therefore demanded a proportionate share in the new legislature and other government offices. This amounted to putting a spoke in the Andhra wheel. The elite of the coastal districts of Andhra had a far larger stake in the creation of a separate state than in a faraway city. As Nehru observed in a letter to Swami Sitaram on September 29, 1951, "On the Andhra side, there appear to be varying opinions. Some people say that they were prepared to give up the city of Madras wholly; others are not prepared to do so; yet others ... want to reserve consideration of this to a later stage." To this may be added the view that Madras city should become a Chief Commissioner's province, effectively under the control of the Central government.

If this was the political division within the Andhra government, the situation in Tamil Nadu was even more complex. While the Congress was deeply faction-ridden, and the other dominant force, the Dravidian movement (both the Dravida Kazhagam under Periyar E.V. Ramasamy and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under C.N. Annadurai), with their commitment to a Dravidian homeland consisting of the whole of southern India, did not divert adequate energy to the issue. The Communists on the other hand, emerging afresh from underground after being weakened by toeing the misconceived B.T. Ranadive line, reflecting the ground strength of their movement, preferred to be led by the Andhra section of the Communist Party. Ultimately it was left to the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam, headed by Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, a pressure group within the Congress, to counteract the Andhra demand. Apart from organizing meetings and conferences, the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam intervened effectively in the Madras Corporation by passing resolutions that thwarted Andhra designs on Chennai. (A particularly tactical move was the defeat of a motion brought forward in the corporation expressing sympathy for the death of Potti Sriramulu in December 1952, which was a moral blow to the Telugu demand.) An important all-party public meeting of Tamil leaders was organized in March 1953 by the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam where Periyar E.V.R., M. Bhaktavatsalam, S.S. Karaiyalar, Meenambal Sivaraj, and others spoke. In subsequent meetings widely respected Tamil cultural figures with no overt political connections also participated.

In this context, with the question of Madras and the interests of Rayalaseema acting as brakes, the struggle for a separate Andhra state went from strength to strength. The situation drove both the state and Central governments to exasperation. Once Nehru was even forced to write to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, "A reference in the Hindu says that your government is apparently waiting for us to do something about the Andhra province or for us to ask you about it. I do not quite know what is meant." By early 1952, Nehru was blaming T. Prakasam and his supporters alone for the stalemate in forming the Andhra province. In a press conference in New Delhi Nehru asserted, referring to Prakasam's dissent note to the partition committee's report where he had insisted that Madras city be the interim capital of the new Andhra province: "As a matter of fact, if Mr Prakasam had accepted that award three years ago, probably there would be an Andhra province now."

By this time however the first general elections of January 1952 had added more variables. The Congress failed to win a majority in the Madras Presidency, weakening the hand of K. Kamaraj, its leader, and paving the way for Rajaji to form a Congress government through a prescient form of horse-trading. On the other hand, T. Prakasam had himself lost his deposit in the North Madras constituency, exposing the weakness of his demand. He headed the United Front, a motley alliance dominated by the Communists, which opposed the Congress. Despite Rajaji's well-advertised view that the demand for linguistic provinces was a "tribal demand", he nevertheless supported the formation of an Andhra province but without conceding the city of Madras. (It was widely believed that Rajaji's support for the immediate creation of Andhra province would give him a reprieve from the relentless attack of the Communists whose legislators mostly came from Andhra.)

Various Andhra leaders such as Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and V.V. Giri put pressure on the Central government. Even the philosopher Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was not to be left out in this regard. All this only drove Nehru to exasperation. Nehru refused their demand for the appointment of a commission without general agreement: "Even reference to an arbitration means consent of parties." He also ruled out plebiscite, as it would not throw up a clear result. By July 1952 Nehru made it ever more clear that "there has been so much argument on this subject that no one can say anything new or worthwhile."

This, however, was to change with one as-yet-unknown Congressman's fast. In a letter to Rajaji, Nehru had observed that "some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra province .... I am totally unmoved by this and I propose to ignore it completely." But it was not to be. Potti Sriramulu epitomized the demand for Andhra. Actively egged on by T. Prakasam and Bulusu Sambamurthy, he began his fast at the latter's hime on October 19. 1952. Within days Nehru had to sit up and listen: "I do not know how long we can just go on postponing it. If we are clear that sometime or other we shall have to face it, it does little good to go on postponing this and waiting for a more favourable opportunity. The probability is that conditions will deteriorate."

T. Prakasam kept on the pressure by convening an all-Party convention in Madras on December 7, 1952, and dissolved it after calling for immediate formation of Andhra with Madras as capital. It was left to T. Nagi Reddy, the Communist leader, to reconvene the meeting and pass a resolution that left the question of Madras to a plebiscite.

Nehru hoped to seize this psychological moment to the advantage of the nation-state. He feared that otherwise there would be complete frustration. He even suggested the appointment of a one-man commission which was turned down by Rajaji as he feared that it would only help "to keep alive the claims which we wish to be abandoned."

The death of Potti Sriramulu on December 15, 1952 after 57 days of fasting led to violence in Andhra, especially in Nellore, and the looting of Vijayawada railway station. Genuine fears arose about the safety of Tamils in the Telugu districts. Despite Nehru's bold statement in Parliament that "we must not mix up various things because a riotous mob did something", the Government of India appointed in December 1952 a committee under K.N. Wanchoo.

Wanchoo's report, submitted in early February 1952, unequivocally favoured the creation of an Andhra state but equally clearly recommended that Madras should not be included. However he indicated that until a new capital was built the Andhra government could be temporarily (for about five years) lodged in Madras. Understandably Nehru was inclined to accept this recommendation but Rajaji stoutly opposed it on the grounds that the troubles would spread to other Tamil areas where a sizeable Andhra population lived. He even went to the extent of threatening to resign from the chief-ministership. This finally convinced Nehru and he agreed that this move would only result in "unseemly agitation, acrimonious controversies, and administrative conflicts" and would adversely affect the friendly atmosphere.

By 1952 the question of Andhra was pretty much settled, if ever it was in question. Despite the seeming controversy, the Andhra demand for Madras was a rather sectarian one raised by a group of Andhra leaders from the Rayalaseema region. What gave some impetus and nationwide visibility to the agitation was that it was linked to a very popular, genuine, and longstanding demand for a separate Telugu-speaking province of Andhra. But in fact the demand for Madras unnecessarily delayed the formation of this province. The relative quiet with which Tamil Nadu responded to the Telugu demand for Madras was rooted in the certainty that it was most obviously a Tamil city conceded by one and all.

The bitterness between Andhra and Tamil Nadu festered for some years after, with the controversy over the northern borders becoming the subject of further agitation and necessitating yet another commission. That however is a separate story.

SOURCES:
1) Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Volumes 10-22, Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1990-97.
2) Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, Puthiya Tamilagam Padaitha Varalaru, Poonkodi Pathippagam, Chennai, 1986.
3) T. Vasundhara and S. Gopalakrishnan, Sub-Nationalism: A Case Study of Modern India, New Era, Madras, 1996.

Dravidian Movements & Parties - late 19th and early 20th century

Continuing the study of the evolution of various Dravidian Parties, I collected the names of some prominent movements and parties that were launched in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The period 1890 through 1930 seem to have seen lot of activities among the non-Brahmins leaders. These leaders were not from the most backward castes but came from some pretty forward castes claiming to speak for the ALL non-brahmins. The much heralded or scorned Dravidar Kazhagam was yet to be formed.

The important take away are not the names, years and people who started these; but that there were plethora of sabhas, associations, leagues and parties bustling and fighting for recognition and for the causes of non-brahmins. Each party has its own history and complexity. And the Christian Missionaries and Indian National Congress were always around; just like the Brahmins of those days.

Founding Members of Justice Party

P.Theogaraya Chetty

Dr. C. Natesa Mudaliar

Dr. T.M.Nair

It is not uncommon that suddenly someone drop the words 'Anti-Hindi Agitation' and 'Dravidian Movement' in a conversation. Especially, if the conversation is about Tamilians. I personally prefer the word 'Tamilians' than the word 'Tamil'; just like I prefer 'Burma' over 'Myanmar', 'Madras' over 'Chennai'.

It is fascinating to read about these movements, the moments that gave rise to the movements and the humans behind these movements. I decided to document what I read into a series of blog posts, following the footsteps of a 23rd century scholar who said the following about blogging:

..., the reward for running a blog is not readership as that cannot sustain. It should be something else. For me, it is my database.

I will try my best to collect the information and regurgitate it here; I am not a scholar and if you expect a scholarly objective unbiased coherent chronological observation , I urge you to stop reading and look else where. This is for casual reading, but by no means a dishonest effort to rewrite history. This is after all a blog. Please keep that in mind. You are not reading a History text book written by KAN Sastri.

If you are allergic or sensitive to jati, varna, caste, ethnicity, race, color, creed, gender, lingual differences, Christian Missionaries, Islam, Hindutva, British, Dravidian, Aryans, politically incorrect words, capitalism, socialism, communism etc, stop reading immediately. Go watch a feel good movie on Netflix (no I do not own Netflix shares, I wish I did)

Without using the words 'Brahmins' and 'Non-Brahmins', the subject matter can not be blogged. So you need to be uber insensitive to these sensitive words too.

With a such big unnecessary introduction, let us see the 'Founding Fathers' and key personnel of the Justice Party of India. Wikipedia lists 21 parties with the words "Justice Party" in them. India, Indonesia and UK each had two of them.

So why start with Justice Party? Because, if one has to understand the 'Anti-Hindi Agitation' or 'Dravidian Movements', one has to understand the Caste and Politics of South India - especially Tamil Nadu. One has to understand the origins of DMK and AIADMK. Before understanding DMK, one needs to read the Self-Respect Movement and Periyar. Before reading about Self-Respect Movement one has to read about the Justice Party, before understanding the Justice Party....well I got tired and stopped at the Justice Party.

Without more ado, the founding fathers of Justice Party (JP) were:

1. T.M Nair
2. Theagaroya Chetty
   
3. C. Natesa Mudaliar
   

The Presidents of the party were:

1. Theagaroya Chetty
2. Raja of Panagal
3. P.Munuswamy Naidu
4. Raja of Bobbili
5. E.V.Ramasam
   
6. P.T.Rajan

Wikipedia says, the movement arose as a result of conferences and meetings in the Madras Presidency, in the late 19th and early 20th century, due to caste prejudices and disproportionate representation of brahmins in government jobs. See I told you we will be using the 'b' word.

Let us briefly look at each of the key members:

Taravath Madhavan Nair:
TMN was a doctor, his brother was a lawyer and his sister was a scholar. Doctor, Lawyer, Scholar, rhyme no? TMN was known in his circles as a physician, journalist, social reformer and politician. After completing his studies in India, he went to England and obtained lots of degrees in the medical field. Being a well read man, and coming from an educated family, he was prominent in politics and various clubs and societies. His sister was a Sanskrit and Malayalam scholar. His father was a lawyer in Calicut and became a Munsif later on. TMN studied Sanskrit in England while pursing his M.D. He returned to India and went on to hold several public office positions.

In those days, everybody was associated with Indian National Congress; and it so happens several of them became disenchanted with INC. How about a small detour and look at the evolution of INC. It won't take long, just a picture.



Moving on, TMN a surgeon on S.S.Madras during WWI. He campaigned for equal treatment of Indian Officers. In 1916, he lost elections. He was running for a position in Madras Corporation, and was beaten by Dewan Bahadur T. Rangachariar. The elections were darn important for TMN. He went on to lose two more elections to tamil brahmins. He accused tamil brahmins in INC to have caused him the elections. So we have a guy who was now pissed off at INC and brahmins - especially Tamil Brahmins. Though accused of being an Anglophile, he loved his Malayalam. He came from Nair family from Palghat ending up in Madras.

Pitti Theogaraya Chetty:
PTC, as I will call him, belonged a Telugu Chetty family from Madras. He was a lawyer, industrialist and a political leader. He went on to serve as the President of Corporation of Madras. He was one of the founding members of 'South India Chamber of Commerce'. Once PTC fought on behalf of the newspaper 'Indian Patriot' and its editor Karunakara Menon against, yes, T.M. Nair. PTC was actively involved in the various non-brahmin movements that were seeing the light of the day in that era.



C. Natesa Mudaliar:
CNM, for short, came from a Tamil Vellalar family. After passing out from Madras Medical College he began his medicine practice. However, he became involved in politics and social reform. He had once started a hostel for non-brahmin students in Madras Presidency, because he felt non-brahmin students did not get hostel accommodations in Madras. CNM was prominent in some of the non-brahmin movments in Madras Presidency those days.



Madras Presidency had several anti-brahmin movements, and there were several key people and leaders. TMN and PTC were two of the stalwarts, however they were at loggerheads. CNM was instrumental in bringing them together and in the eventual creation of South Indian Liberal Federation - popularly known as the Justice Party. The credit of creating the Justice Party goes to CNM by all accounts. If not for him, the disunited non-brahmin movements would not have become one.

Now that we have briefly looked at the background of three prominent people who went on to create the Justice Party. We need to look at some of the other non-brahmin movements and leaders in that era. Like the 'Federalist Papers' and 'Anti-Federalists Papers', there arose in the early 20th century a book called the 'Non-Brahmin letters' - a set of 21 letters written by prominent non-brahmin leaders urging non-brahmins to rise and shine. I have not laid my hands on that book or those letters, yet. I don't think it is available on the internet.

In the next post.....we will look at some of these leaders. Oh EVR, Annadurai and Karunanidhi are still long ways to go. And the European Christian Missionaries continued to work their charm. So hang on.