The demand for a separate Dravida Nadu has become a talking point exactly 55 years after the DMK dropped the idea in 1963. Though the idea was in the air for quiet sometime, especially after actor Kamal Haasan sought to theorise it before the run-up to the launch of his party, it was DMK working president M.K. Stalin who brought the issue to the fore when he responded to a question on the perceived momentum gaining in support of the demand.
Mr. Stalin subsequently argued that the neglect of the southern States by the BJP government at the Centre had actually fuelled the idea. To drive home the point, he quoted DMK founder C.N. Annadurai’s famous statement that “the reasons for creation of the Dravida Nadu continue to hold good.”
Interestingly, the concept of Dravida is a philological term introduced by Christian missionary Robert Caldwell, and according to his biographer Vincent Kumaradoss, the word gained currency following the publication of his Comparative Grammar in 1856.
Caldwell said he used the word Dravidian instead of the narrower term “Tamulian”, which has found its place in all works on the Indian languages, and argued that Dravidian languages were fundamentally different from Sanskrit and had a common origin.
The Dravida Nadu as a political idea was originally floated by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy who came out with the slogan “Tamil Nadu for Tamils” in 1938 in response to the plan to introduce compulsory learning of Hindi across India.
‘Outdated idea’
“The idea of Dravida Nadu is passé. It never gained traction. Among other things non-Tamils did not share the concerns of the Tamils and perhaps felt that they would be dominated by the Tamils in any such arrangement,” explained R. Kannan, the biographer of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai.
Today, the demand for more powers and autonomy are being articulated by the other southern States in the same way as it was articulated by the DMK as early as in the late sixties, he pointed out.
However, describing the Dravida Nadu as an “outdated idea”, Su. Venkatesan, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artistes Association, contended that Periyar had defined non-Brahmins as Dravidian.
“Today the Dravidian identity has transformed into nationalities based on languages. The BJP is launching all-out attack to erase the linguistic identity of various nationalities, there is a need to protect their rights and identity,” he said.
