From Ramanuja to Periyar: Re-integrating Brahmins into Dravidian narrative

[V.Balasubramani]

Share:

Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn WhatsApp Email Share Link

From Ramanuja to Periyar: Re-integrating Brahmins into Dravidian narrative

By Rohit Vishwanath

For nearly a hundred years, advocates of Dravidianism often deceived the people of Tamil Nadu into believing that they knew higher truths than the vedantins - or students of Vedanta. They aggrandised power at the cost of cleaving society in the name of countering Brahminism. But they are now close to conceding the truth. On 5 April this year, The Hindu reported on Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s attempts to appropriate Saint Ramanuja (or Ramanujacharya), a patron saint who is revered by the Vaishnavite Iyengar Brahmin community. (The Iyer Brahmins, more numerous in number, are smarthas who do not differentiate much between Shaivism and Vaishnavism). Ramanuja broke caste barriers, Karunanidhi acknowledged.

In the old Tamil world, Brahmins were the society’s store-keepers of knowledge. They were the equivalent of today's researchers and teachers. The only difference was they did not work - as conventionally defined then - to earn a living. They sustained themselves by either begging for alms or making ends meet with whatever dakshina they received. It enabled them to seek higher levels of truth. Their understanding of the truth influenced the sciences, arts, politics and all other aspects of the society of that age. Ramanujacharya was a product of this system

Although Brahmins deserved criticism and condemnation for perpetuating caste discrimination, the Dravidian movement managed to alienate them completely. It is a pity that post-independence Tamil Nadu failed to accommodate Brahmins in its Dravidian narrative. The Dravidian parties succeeded in wiping out their indigenously evolved knowledge systems entirely - without documenting them. Today's Dravidian leaders owe an explanation to society for having erased the collective memory of an entire community and driving them out of their homelands to seek their fortunes outside Tamil Nadu. In many ways, the atrocities suffered by Tam-brahms - a short-form for Tamil Brahmins - are similar to those inflicted on the Kashmiri Pandits. Except there was no violence of the kind seen in Kashmir. It happened through sheer ideological discrimination.


Read more at: From Ramanuja to Periyar: Re-integrating Brahmins into Dravidian narrative - Firstpost

Also at: http://www.in.com/news/current-affairs/from-ramanuja-to-periyar-reintegrating-brahmins-into-dravidian-narrative-53146926-in-1.html

 

[CHANDRU1849]

The above article lacks reality.

First, what was the change Ramanuja brought in the Hindu fold, in general, and Vaishnavism, in particular. Actually, it is nothing. Did Ramanuja advocate equality to Hindu NBs, in all spheres, and if so, are Hindu NBs receiving equality, especially in Vaishnavite Temples, in performing pooja etc. Unfortunately, it is not so.

Some vested interests in the B community try to create a situation whereby they want to project Ramanuja as a social reformer and, in the process, try to alienate Sankara Mutts and Smarthas.

Science and Religion are totally different subjects. Some of the successful scientists from Tamil Bs, especially from Iyer community, are non-believers.

The actual reformation takes place only in Christianity and Islam - Protestant Christianity and Shia Muslim.