No political revolution can be brought about without preceding or clubbing it with cultural revolution.
Culture does not signify as a way of external, social and physical life of the people as is generally understood. It also involves intellectual development, advancement of the people by mental and physical training, education, refinement and enlightenment. It also means growth of bacteria, fungi etc. in a prepared medium. But in the matter of political revolution we are concerned with the growth of the people’s mind in a particular medium for a political revolution.
MUSLIM RULE
If we look at history, we see that political authority, be it of a nation like Rome or Persia, which ruled upon others or of the rulers and dynasties within a country itself, is short-lived and temporary. But the culture of a people, even after losing political authority, continues and lasts.
Both the Muslim and British rulers of India lost their political authority, but the mental, physical and social culture that they introduced and developed in India not only continues but is growing stronger and deeper in spite of many odds.
FRENCH REVOLUTION
Taking examples from recent history, we see that the peoples of different colonies in North America, before the United States was formed, were generally of European and more particularly of English origin and culture. But having settled in new virgin lands with different potentials, the children of the immigrants, developed a mental culture different from those of Europeans and rebelled and became independent as the USA. The similarity of religion, language, customs and manners was not touched, but a different mind, intellectual capacity, refinement and enlightenment was inculcated by their leaders before and during their struggle for independence, which later put them on the highest standard of life.
Had they not done so, they would have stagnated just like the peoples of South American States. Again the physical and social life of the English and the French peoples was more or less similar but the English were mentally conservative and proud of their ancestors. The French revolted against all conservatism, and their thinkers. and leaders educated the masses in the ideals of equality and liberty and gave a different mental culture which was totally opposed to the autocratic culture of their monarchs and aristocrats and the culture of the common man was made the model of social, physical and moral culture. The result was the French Revolution which in turn revolutionised the world. Here also mental and cultural revolution preceded political revolution.
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The communist revolution of Russia was also preceded by a mental and cultural revolution quite different from the bureaucratic culture of the Czars, with special stress on the denial of the rights and privileges attached to property. The result was a big revolution not only in Russia, but elsewhere too. Every aspect of human life, everywhere in the world was affected. Art, architecture, music, painting, law, dress, thinking, sense of appreciation and criticism of everything was affected every where. The impact of the Russian revolution on the whole world was the greatest in comparison with other revolutions, because it was preceded and accompanied by the longest period of intense cultural revolution.
GANDHI’S COUNTER REVOLUTION
The revolutions in the USA, France and Russia had a simultaneous impact on India. Because of the large size and varieties of different mental, physical and social cultures, different religions yielded to different influences. Some adopted the cultural values of the US, some of France and some of Russia. These different cultural values would have resulted in the break up of India, if the strong British bureaucratic culture had not been there.
The coming together of progressive writers in the early years of this century, more particularly of Urdu writers, was felt to be the most potential factor. It aimed at bringing about a different culture where humanism would dominate religions which would result in the destruction of exploitative social, caste and class culture. If this movement had succeeded with its catchy slogan, “Art and Literature for the sake of life” as against “art for the sake of art and literature for the sake of literature”, there would have been a tremendous cultural revolution in North India resulting in a great political revolution also.
But that did not happen because Gandhi, supported by British conservative culture, came on the scene as a greater counter- cultural revolutionary who successfully used cultural revolution to meet his political ends. Gandhi used physical and social culture as a prelude to mental culture for the purpose of his political counter-revolution.
BARRISTER BECOMES BEGGAR
His adoption of dhoti, exhibition of tuft on a bare shaven head, cross-thread dangling on the chest, carrying of lathi in hand and wooden sandals were superb weapons of physical culture and starting of institutions like khadi, charka, Gandhi cap, Ram Dhun, ashram living, Ram Rajya slogans were most successful weapons of mass cultural revolution. And he succeeded more with these weapons of physical and sociocultural revolution than other things -by making a barrister wear the dress of a Hindu beggar.
JINNAH’S ISLAMIC REVOLUTION
The value of cultural revolution as a prelude and conjunct of political revolution was not ignored by Jinnah also, though his community had better and more effective weapons for political revolution. Jinnah, though a highly westernised ultra fashionable person, resorted to physical and social cultural revolution by wearing salwar and sherwani, fur cap and even posing himself before photographers in an imperial dress with a royal sword in his hand. On the social culture side, he also introduced new institutions like Jinnah cap, Allahu Akbar and “Islam Zindabad” slogans, green flag with white crescent and star, green banners and buntings. Islamic songs and public paramilitary parades of the youths to counter the gandhian cultural revolution.
Though the mother tongue of both Gandhi and Jinnah was Gujarati and both were proud of it, both opted for pro-Hindu and pro-Urdu stances to counter each other’s cultural revolution. While Gandhi sent Hindi women teachers from Gujarat on Birla’s funds to start Hindi patashalas in far off Bihar, Jinnah started speaking in Urdu from public platforms, even though he had no love for Urdu in his early days. He was once advised to speak in Urdu. He had retorted: “I do speak in Urdu. I speak in Urdu to my cook”.
Both Gandhi and Jinnah succeeded in their political goals by standing against each other through the opposing cultural revolutions, which went together with their political movements.
DR. AMBEDKAR REVOLUTION
But Babasaheb Ambedkar could not do this for the reason that he could not get lieutenants to proceed on the lines of Gandhi and Jinnah. That apart, he had a big drawback. What was the cultural revolution he could bring about? He could only say: “I am not a Hindu” and “Untouchables are not Hindus”, in order to mentally prepare his followers. He could only opt to become a Budhist. But these were only of academic value and negative in approach. Of course, he did burn the Manusmriti and rejected temple entry and carried on the Mahad Talab agitation. But, these created only ripples in the ocean and did not cause revolution. These could be only a prelude to a change of mental culture of a few scholars but definitely not of physical and social culture of the masses. He has shown the way for later leaders, but they do not appear to know the value of cultural revolution,
PERIYAR REVOLUTION
But another star shined more than Gandhi and Jinnah manoeuvring both in bringing about a cultural revolution. And that was Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy of the Dravidian world. Though he started his career as a Congress politician, later formed his own Justice Party but after realising that he cannot do justice to the Dravidians through political party alone, started a great cultural revolutionary movement through his Dravida Kazagham. He used all means to advance this cultural revolution paper, journals, public meetings, demonstrations, dharnas, films, drama etc.
His most effective means was mobile tableaux staged on open lorry platforms in which he condemned and ridiculed the Aryan gods particularly Rama, whom he called as the greatest aggressor and enemy of the Dravidian culture. Ravana was projected as the greatest hero.
Instead of Ram Lila, Ravana Lila was conducted in which the effigy of Rama was burnt. His cultural revolution brought about a total change in all spheres of public life politics, economics, literature, journalism, religious beliefs etc. No aspect of public life could remain uninfluenced.
DRAVIDIAN LIVE BOMB
Every Dravidian became a live bomb for all anti-Dravidian forces and a cavalier of Dravidian cultural revolution. Dress, salutation (Tamils do not say namaste but vanakkam), food, music, dance, poetry, feelings passions and ambitions were all changed. Sanskrit words put into Tamil language by the Brahmins were removed. People even changed their Sanskrit and Aryan names and replaced them with Tamil/Dravidian names. Govindaraj became “Pesumalai-Arasu”, Saptagiri became “Yelumalai” Balasundaram became “Ealangovan”.
But, Periyar himself did not change his name. Upon being questioned, he replied “I am rightly named as Ramaswamy meaning Swamy of Rama, meaning master of Rama. I am Rama’s master and Rama is subservient to me”.
CUTTING BRAHMIN TUFT
The cultural revolution took aggressive forms too. Tufts of the Brahmins were cut off, their shirts tom and janiwaras (cross thread) cut in broad daylight. Hotels carrying Brahmin name boards were tarred. His advice:
“When you see a Brahmin and cobra, kill the Brahmin first and leave the snake”, became the catch word of the people.
Brahmins were not actually killed because Brahmins cannot be killed. Periyar further said: “If you touch the Brahmin’s feet, he will kick you, but if you hold his neck, he will fall on your feet. Therefore, catch him by the neck”
But the Brahmins saw something more harmful than killing, having become the target of hate of those very hated slaves the shudras and Untouchables. The word papan (Brahmin) became a word of ridicule. Brahmins accepted their defeat. Some left Tamil Nadu, the rest became subservient.
The cultural revolution was complete and the Dravidas were ready for political revolution and Periyar permitted his, lieutenant, Annadurai, to launch the political party Dravida Munnetra Kazagham – DMK.
The impact of this great cultural revolution is:
- Tamils are the most feared by the Brahmins and, therefore, the most hated.
- Tamils are the least consumers of non-Tamil goods. They have developed their own alternative products for all possible things.
- Uniform economic development was brought about in all districts and wealth uniformly distributed region wise
- If. Rs. 100 was sent out of TN, arrangements are made out to get Rs. 1,000 from outside. Rest of India is like a trading colony for Tamils.
- Non-Tamil IAS officers are replaced by TN Administrative Service personnel in key posts. 6. Beef and vegetable dishes are served on the same table in the same hotel.
- Tamils do not hate other people. They only love themselves. They do not hate the Aryans also so long as Aryans are subservient and keep off. But they are extremely cautious about Aryans. They are capable of using or throwing a Brahmin as and when they want, as they did with the Bangalore Papatti. They made her to take on BJP and destroy it.
- They repose more confidence in Madras High Court than the Supreme Court. When the Supreme Court ordered restriction of reservation to 50%, the TN legislature passed a resolution to put their law of 69% reservation in the 9th Schedule of the Constitution, and refused to obey the Supreme Court verdict.
- In one word, they are a “nation” unto itself. The Tamils, irrespective of caste, community or religions. became Tamil first, Tamil second and Tamil last. Wherever he is, he is a Tamil and is proud of it and not swayed by any lure or threat.
This great cultural revolution gave birth to the Tamil political movement and resulted in DMK, ADMK, PMK, MDMK, MMDMK, DM. Whatever the political party, it has got to be this MK or that MK. No outside party can think of peeping into TN excepting through a pinhole provided by this MK party or that MK party only to be used to dance to the Tamil tunes.
And the great Tamil cultural revolution has gone offshore to Sri Lanka, and this will go even beyond.
Periyar, had also planned for independent Dravida Nadu (Dravidastan) but very wisely gave it up, as the cultural revolution was not ripe enough in the forties (1947) and feared that attainment of political authority by immature, untrained and incompletely accomplished people would not last long.
All this is because, the great Tamil political activity was preceded by a great cultural revolution for half a century at the hands of Periyar E.V. Ramaswamy, who is respectfully called “Thandai Periyar” (the great father) by every Tamil.
Bahujans all over India have all the talents that the Tamils possess. What they require is a Periyar to bring about a cultural revolution on the lines of Periyar.
(Paper presented at the BSP seminar in Bangalore on Sept.9, 2000).
