The Dravidian movement and Aryan illusions

The gubernatorial remarks on Aryan-Dravidian differences can only be described as a case of historical negationism.

The remarks made by Governor of Tamil Nadu R.N.Ravi on Aryan – Dravidian differences being geographical and not racial, last week, offered remarkable insights into the contemporary political state-of-affairs. In stark contrast to other Governors in non-BJP ruled states, R.N.Ravi has walked into the ideological thicket. The linkages of Tamil Nadu to the Dravidian political ideology are inalienable and the remarks made by R.N.Ravi must be viewed in this context. While such interventions by unelected Governors in non-BJP ruled states have become par for the course, it is imperative to look closely into the merits and veracity of the claims raised by R.N. Ravi for these go to defining the idea of India itself.      

The statements made by R.N. Ravi, initially at the Vellore Sepoy Mutiny commemoration and repeated at the Madurai Kamaraj University function, can only be described as historic negationism. In the past, various leaders have strongly contested the Aryan Migration theory and have attributed the emergence and evolution of the Aryan – Dravidian distinction to the British. By wading into this hotly contested ideological battle, R.N.Ravi has attempted to shake up the political discourse in Tamil Nadu. 

Linguistics and Race

What is notable, however, is that R.N. Ravi is not the first to make such claims. In fact, the second chief of Rashtriya Swayam Sevak, M.S. Golwalkar viewed the Aryan – Dravidian distinction as a territorial denomination in his book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’. By doing so, M.S.Golwalkar attempted to position Aryans as natives of Indian sub-continent in the ‘Out of India Theory’ which has now been widely discredited by academics. Nevertheless, the issues raised by M.S. Golwalkar and now, R.N. Ravi, are significant not for their academic calibre but because they go to defining the idea of India. The Indian sub-continent boasts a rich and diverse history involving multi-ethnic origins and this is established by in-depth scholarship on linguistics, mythology, folklore and anthropology, archaeology, geology, big-history and genetics . It is from these academic pursuits that the linguistic studies have established uniqueness of the Dravidian language family consisting of Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu, Tamil and so on. 

Robert Caldwell, in his seminal work ‘A Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian Family of Languages’ published in 1856, a year prior to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, has offered empirical evidence for the non-Sanskrit origins of Dravidian languages. The breakthrough in understanding linguistics was not an isolated event. It was accompanied by the emergence of Tamil Renaissance movement that led to enabling a culture of political consciousness founded upon rationalism and spurred by social justice. Ideologues such as Ayotheethasa Pandithar, Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai and M.S. Purnalingam Pillai as well as latter day ‘Justice Party’ leaders like Dr. T. M. Nair, Thiagaraya Chetty and Dr. Natesa Mudaliar championed the socio-political call for the emancipation of Non-Brahmins. As such, these circumstances collectively seeded the idea of what was to become the Dravidian Movement, that took shape formally on 20 November 1916 at the meeting called in Victoria Public Hall in then Madras City. 

In recent times, we have witnessed the hypothesis based on the study of linguistics and literature has started to receive material evidence from the discovery of Harappa and Mohenjadaro in early 1920s till today, in the ongoing Keezhadi excavations in Tamil Nadu.  With modern-day advancements in handling fragile biodegradable material from excavation sites and high-throughput genomic sequencing, we are moving closer to understanding how this Indian sub-continent was populated through waves of migration. These studies confirm the historical facts which have seeped into common understanding in Tamil Nadu over the course of the century-old Dravidian Movement. In 2018, the paper titled ‘The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia’, co-authored by 92 scientists from a range of disciplines, further confirmed the Aryan migration into the sub-continent between 2000 BCE and 1000 BCE. More published scientific work, following this paper, also confirmed that Harappans of the Indus Valley Civilization created agricultural revolution in the sub-continent and narrowed the period of Aryan migration to 2000 BCE and 1500 BCE. 

Aryan Illusion 

The recent scientific findings have conclusively debunked the Out of India Theory, which is part of the larger narrative suggesting that Dravidians and Aryans are ethnically similar but geographically divided. This has posed serious problems to the supporters of Golwalkar who have recently set out to discover the lost, mystic river of Saraswati and to repackage the Indus Valley Civilization as ‘Saraswati Civilization’ without paying regard to realms of research which suggests that the language of Harappans could have been Dravidian/Proto-Dravidian. As such, C.N. Annadurai (Anna), a stalwart of the Dravidian Movement and a former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had anticipated such baseless positioning in his book titled Arya Mayai (Aryan Illusion).  Anna, building on Periyar E.V. Ramasami’s teachings, structured a socio-political discourse against superstitions, false beliefs and fake histories. Subsequent Dravidian leaders including Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi supplemented their social policies with academic rigour, scientific temper and rational thinking, that later came to be the benchmark of Dravidian politics. Even when differences cropped up between the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, its leaders did not compromise on their steadfast beliefs to the core values of the Dravidian Movement and their opposition to caste-based social structures.

It is therefore not  surprising that Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has championed the cause of state interventions to root out inequalities and to create a fair ecosystem for everyone to thrive which he has called the ‘Dravidian Model’. It is also a fact that Chief Minister Stalin presented a book by the title Dravidian Model to Governor Ravi. This book, authored by economists Kalaiyarasan A and Vijayabaskar M, provides a detailed, empirical interpretation of the modern-day political economy of Tamil Nadu. During the remainder of Governor R. N. Ravi’s tenure in Tamil Nadu he may come across various such books that record evidence on how languages of India were shaped by waves of migration; and how streams of social movements took birth to speak emancipatory ideologies in different languages to make India a multi-source civilization. Any other theory that Governor R.N. Ravi may encounter needs to be viewed with suspicion in the face of overwhelming evidence supporting the migration of Indo-European speakers, who were called Aryans, to India almost 4000 years ago. 

Manuraj Shunmugasundaram

(Advocate practising at the Madras High Court and Spokesperson of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam)

Link to the Article: https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-dravidian-movement-and-aryan-illusions/article65672119.ece