After nine long years, things seem to be turning around. The abduction of the thespian Rajkumar by “Sandalwood Veerappan” is a nodal point in the anti-Tamil politics, which the Kannada zealots have been. meticulously peddling since the seventies of the last century. It is politics by other means, which has unfolded in the style of Veerappan.
It indeed marks the transformation of the said outlaw into a person who had chosen to pioneer the cause of Tamils’ national liberation.
BANGALORE’S FOUNDER A TAMILIAN
The States’ Reorganisation in 1956 led to the marginalisation of Tamils in the areas which were acceded to form the erstwhile Madras Presidency to the new-found Greater Mysore. The city of Bangalore, which itself was founded by a Tamil of Vanniyar caste, Kempe Gownden from Alur, near Kanchipuram, in 1537, was predominantly Tamil in its demographic composition. Kollegal, which was largely Tamil, was acceded to Greater Mysore, as Chittoor district was annexed to Andhra Pradesh and the huge Idukki district to Kerala.
Though asked whether they wanted the Kolar Gold Fields to go with the diminished Madras State when the States were being reorganised, the headless leaders among the KGF Tamils preferred to remain with the Greater Mysore. The plight of the KGF Tamils has its fountainhead here.
With the fond hopes of carving out a fair deal for themselves, the Tamils in Karnataka contributed their mite to build up the new state. Their share in turning Bangalore into a blooming modern city is quite big.
KANNADIGAS IN MINORITY
The Commission for Linguistic Minorities constituted after the States’ Reorganisation was meant also to take care of the Tamils in the traditionally Tamil areas which gradually became either colonised by the Kannadigas and Telugus or were unjustly acceded to the new-found State of Karnataka. The Dravidian and Indian pipe dreams of TN leaders blatantly betrayed the Tamils. It was merely ritualistic window-dressing for the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities to submit a drab and farcical annual report to the President of India on the question of protection of the linguistic minorities in Karnataka.
It was a commission that seldom lived up to our expectations. The whole exercise proved to be sham when the Kannada Chaluvali (agitation) Movement rose particularly in the capital city of Bangalore.
With Kolar, Bellary and Chitradurga districts having major chunks of Telugu population, KGF, Bangalore, Bhadravati and Kollegal being predominantly Tamil, Belgaum, Nippani, Bidar going largely Marathi-speaking, the district of North Kanara speaking Konkani, South Kanara district being the traditional homeland of Tuluvas, Kodagu being a land with its own language, history and culture, and the sizeable spread over of Urdu-speaking population, the actual Kannadiga population is just around 37% in the state.
SUPPRESSED FACT
This demographic anachronism made the minority Kannadigas to live with a hazy majority complex. It caused the Kannada psyche to go aggressively chauvinistic in its expression, rather than evolving into the linguistic national or nationality consciousness seeking the right of self-determination.
Other non-Kannadigas often raise a question: “Why Tamils alone are being targeted by the Kannadigas?” They have to understand, the historic backdrop of the anti-Tamil preoccupation of the Kannada Chaluvali movement. The districts of Kolar, Bangalore, Mysore, parts of Mandya and Tumkur formed the kingdom of Gangas. It was known as Old Mysore after the states were reorganised. Though the Ganganadu was often ruled by non- Tamils, the mainstay of its population remained Tamil, and they were called Thigilaru by the Kannadigas. Ganganadu was the traditional homeland of the Thigilar. This historical fact was sought to be suppressed by the large influx of the Telugu-speaking Reddys from the Ceded Districts of the former Madras Presidency for over a century. With the expansion of Bangalore as the capital of the New Karnataka and the formation of the Bangalore Development Authority, the naive and boorish Thigilars” virgin lands were taken over by the state. Reddy colonisers sought to usurp what was left out with them.
The Reddy colonisers in the Old Mysore region acquired aggressive overtones through their initiation into the Kannada Chaluvali ideology.
Founded by the Telugu brahminical interests as a reaction to the virulent anti- Brahmin politics of the neighbouring TN, the chauvinist orientation of the Karnataka politics came as a boon to the land and power-hungry Reddy usurpers.
FILM-BASED TAMIL POLITICS
Modelled on the film-based “Dravidian politics”, which the Telugus and other non-Tamils in the Tamil country cultivated, the Chaluvali politics chose to nurse a similar film-based cult in the thespian Rajkumar, though he is of Tamil- Telugu parentage. Thus grew the genie. So, Tamils were meticulously targeted. Their right to learn their mother tongue was gradually and systematically marginalised. Job opportunities to them were almost brought to a naught. The Gokak Report and the anti-Tamil riots that followed in 1982 was its logical tide. But the Karnataka Tamils seldom resisted the anti-Tamil goblin, thinking that things will gradually settle to find reason.
The treacherous leadership of the Dravidian parties were the first cause for the meek submission of the Karnataka Tamils before the aggressive overtones and gestures of the Chaluvali politics. The reason was that the leadership of the Dravidian parties were invariably non-Tamil, though their cadres and sympathisers were Tamils.
Then came the interim order of the Cauvery Water Tribunal in 1991 and the well-planned state violence unleashed by the very Chief Minister of Karnataka, S. Bangarappa. His mute genocide took the toll of around 1,000 poor and wretched Tamils and caused an exodus of over 1.5 lakh Karnataka Tamils to TN. The loss to their property was worth hundreds of crores.
ENSLAVED TAMIL NATION
Karnataka Tamils under the grip of the Dravidian ideology stood stunned, benumbed and dismayed over the turn of events over the last three decades. They could not find a way out of the drifting sands. Events gradually led them to look into the Dravidian tale of Tamil- Kannada natal ties with mistrust and discover that it suits only the non- Tamils to yoke the Tamils in TN. They realised that TN has let them down. How could an enslaved nation redeem its kinsmen elsewhere?
They realised that the Dravidian ideology was chosen and nursed by a Malayali, T.M. Nair, and a virulently Telugu, Pitty Thyagaraja Chetty, of the former Justice Party, fostered by E.V. Ramasamy (a Kannadiga), C.N. Annadurai and M. Karunanidhi (both Telugus), M.G. Ramachandran (a Malayali) and Jayalalitha (a Kannada Brahmin on her mother’s side).
Tamils have thus lost their very linguistic Tamil national identity through the Dravidian trap. On the contrary, Kannada, Telugu and Malayali ethnic consciousness grew strong with the formation of the new states of AP, Karnataka and Kerala.
ALIEN INVASION
The alienation of Tamils in Karnataka has been indeed a blessing in disguise, as their intellect could rediscover the fallen Tamil from the debris of their history. Kannadigas have at last opened their eyes. What was the cause for the fragmentation of the Tamils into irreconcilable castes and the caste- based politics that taunt the Tamil country? What distorted the Tamils’ national consciousness? A search into these domains taught us that alien invasions alone were the actual and primary cause for the peoples’ oppression world over. If so, whose invasions led to the fall and enslavement of the Tamils? Were they the so called “Aryan” Invasions that came through the Khyber and Bolan passes as the European historiography had concocted? The probe began. Kannadigas indeed stand out as teachers to Tamils, by negative examples.
We find that most of the invasions on the Tamil country were from Karnataka. It began with the Kalabhra invasion around 250 AD and their pillage over the Tamil country for over three centuries. Then came the Chalukya, Hoysala, and Vijayanagara Nayaka invasions on the Tamil country. The Telugu Pallavas ruled over the Tamils after the Kalabhras.
Then came the question of studying the history of those alien invaders. We find in the Sangam Tamil Classics frequent references to a semi-barbarian and ferocious stock of people who roamed around beyond the Venkadam (Thirupati) hills. They served as mercenaries to many of the ancient states, particularly the Mauryas. They were called Vadugar in Tamil classics. These Vadugar got split into Eastern Vadugar and Western Vadugar, as was the case with German barbarians breaking up into Eastern and Western Goths. The Eastern Vadugar gradually became Telugus. The Western Vadugar, who were called as Kosar in the Sangam literature, became the Kannadigas. The northern fraction of these Kosar were called Marattar, and they became the Marathis later. The northern segment of the Telugu Vadugar in Kalinga broke into Oddars or Oriyas. The first ever territory that the Kosar or the Kannada Vadugar occupied in the former Chera country was the Tulunadu, as the Tamil literary evidences tell. Then they came down to the present Mysore, then called as Erumainadu. It was thus called as it was conquered by a Vadugan called Erumai. He participated in the Thalaiyalankanam battle against Pandyan Nedunchezhiyan of the Sangam Age.
The successive invasions of these Vadugar barbarians and their overrunning the Chera, Chola and Pandya empires of the antiquity was the cause for the fall of the Tamils and their subjugation and classification into low class aborigines.
Brahminism, as an apartheid way of life, in fact, had its origin only in the Chera country (Kerala) through the legendary person in Parasurama. Whereas the Aryan concept had its root in the north, The British colonial intellect confused brahminism with Aryanism, and had imposed a false historiography by branding brahminism as an import from the north.
Though born down the extreme south in the Chera country, brahminism was carried into the Chola and Pandya countries only through the Kannada and Telugu (or the Vadugar) Brahmins. Manu Smriti, which was written in Karnataka, was adopted as the social code by the court of Pulakesi- II, the Chalukya monarch. The Chalukyan epigraphical eulogies of manavakula or Manava Dharma would show it. It was the Vadugar colonisers who imposed birth- based caste discriminations and untouchability on the Tamils in the Chola and Pandya States.
These findings helped the enlightened among the Karnataka Tamils to disown and discredit the Dravidian ideology and rediscover their Tamil identity. So, the beacon is now in the hands of the Karnataka Tamils.
RAJKUMAR NOT KANNADIGA
Veerappan’s initiation into the Tamil cause was during the 1991 anti- Tamil carnage in Karnataka. He was a witness to the Kannada chauvinist outrage on the Tamils, and was therefore drawn into the fray to defend the Tamils in the border district of Chamarajanagar. It had left a deep scar in his mind and had in fact was troubling him within. So he chose to avenge for the violent sufferings and humiliations which the Karnataka Tamils were subjected to in 1991.
The irony is that Veerappan is a Karnataka Tamil. He was born at Gopinaththam that falls within 10 kilometers west of river Palaru-a tributary of Cauvery that marks the border delineating Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Gopinaththam is right inside Karnataka after the Tamil-speaking Kollegal was annexed to it during the states’ reorganisation. Where as, the thespian Rajkumar’s father was from Singanallur which is next to the Coimbatore town on the Coimbatore-Sulur road. He is a Telugu-speaking Idiga. His mother was Lakshmiamma, a Tamil. More so, the term Idiga was a Telugu derivative of the name Eezhavar, which means those who were originally from Eelam or the island of Sri Lanka. Such a person became the icon of Kannada chauvinism in Karnataka.
The gloom of the Dravidian dupe fades out while the Tamils seek the right of self-determination. Karnataka Tamils stand out as the beacon light. The social environment that drove Veerappan into the forests as a sandalwood smuggler or poacher had lit in him the fiery fire of Tamil nationalism, as he had witnessed the state- sponsored anti-Tamil ethnic violence for ethnic cleansing. So, Veerappan has donned a new role.
The myth of Aryan-Dravidian dichotomy is going to suffer its fatal beatings in the process and, sure, the Tamils will stand up to seize the skies. The Tamil Nadu Tamils, who are stuck up in the marshes of nasty caste politics thrust on them by the Vadugar-Dravidian bluffs are going to be shaken and roused finally by the Karnataka Tamils. There is no escape from it. Karnataka Tamils will catalyse the Tamil awakening. It seems to be their history’s destiny.
Veerappan has identified the enemy. So, he blows the conch for the cause of Tamils’ liberation, and the restorations of their land and glory.
