Sharmalan Thevar

Since the 1950s, the Dravidian politicians have been promoting the eradication of surnames among Tamils. They claim that this will eradicate caste and eventually eradicate caste discrimination.  However, after half a century, it seems like the whole idea backfired on the Tamil society. According to the census conducted in 2011, 20% of Tamils are Dalits. Usually, people from the Dalit castes do not use surnames.  However, the remaining 80% of Tamils have surnames. These surnames are mainly titular surnames used by everyone in a particular clan. Some surnames are paternal family names. To understand this, we have to look at how castes are distributed in Tamil Nadu. Unknown to many people, castes are not based on occupation alone. It is actually regional.  In one of my previous posts, I explained about the landscapes in the Tamil land and the different tribes that inhabit it. The modern day Tamil castes descended from those tribes that occupied different parts of ...

Part 11: The Legend of Cheran Senguttuvan by D.P. Sivaram [courtesy: Lanka Guardian , November 15, 1992, pp.15-16; prepared by Sachi Sri Kantha, for the electronic record] "The lines of a song in today’s ceremony touched my heart. The lines refer to the Tamil flag which fluttered on the Himalayas. Although this may be a thing of the past, history can be re-established. Today this country is at war because the youth of this area were denied opportunities in education and culture…Our youth have not only done well in education but have shown that they have the self respect to achieve their aims through armed struggle. If nothing is done towards finding a settlement to the crisis in the north-east, the history related in the lines of that song will be reasserted." - Joseph Pararajasingham, MP for Batticaloa, speaking at a school function on 26.9[Sept]’92 (reported in the Virakesari of 1.10[Oct].’92 The song referred to by the member of parliament is from...

Part 10: Warrior Sons and Mothers by D.P. Sivaram [courtesy: Lanka Guardian , November 1, 1992, pp.17-18 and 20; prepared by Sachi Sri Kantha, for the electronic record] The Madurai Thamil Sangam was established by Pandithurai Thevar in 1901 with the assistance of his cousin Bhaskara Sethupathy, who was the Raja of Ramnad at that time. The institution and its journal – the Senthamil – played an important role in what could be termed the Tamil renaissance in the first two decades of the twentieth century among the Tamils of south India and Sri Lanka. Its importance also lies in the fact that it created a class of Tamil pundits through a well organized and prestigious system of examinations at a time when strong objections were being raised against creating a Chair for Tamil, in the University of Madras. Pandithurai Thevar The pundits qualified by the Madurai Thamil Sangam in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka have also been instrumental in shaping the vocabulary of Tami...

Part 9: Bharathy and the Legitimation of Militarism by D.P. Sivaram [courtesy: Lanka Guardian , October 1, 1992, pp.6-8; prepared by Sachi Sri Kantha, for the electronic record] One of the main figures of the Indian revolutionary movement in Tamilnadu at the turn of the [20 th ] century was Maha Kavi Subramaniya Bharathy. One of its sympathisers was the Tamil scholar M.Raghava Aiyangar, who was the court pundit of the Maravar kings of Ramnad. Subramaniya Bharathy has been one of the most powerful influences in Tamilian cultural and political life in the twentieth century. The fundamental idea of modern Tamil militarism – that the Tamils were a martial race and that the rejuvenation of their martial traditions is necessary for national liberation, was enunciated by these two Brahmins in the first decade of the twentieth century. This idea has informed Tamil scholarship as well as the narratives of militant Tamil nationalism since then. It has been reproduced in many f...