In recent times, an alarming narrative has emerged within the Malaysian blogosphere, suggesting a historical event that appears to be a misinterpretation or perhaps a deliberate misinformation campaign. The claim revolves around a so called Malay prince named Manabharana from Srivijaya, purportedly attacking and conquering the Chola kingdom. This misleading story has gained traction and is spreading like wildfire across various social media platforms. The need to address and rectify such inaccuracies is crucial not only for the sake of historical accuracy but also for fostering a responsible and informed online community. To delve into the matter, it is essential to clarify that historical records reveal the existence of multiple individuals named Manabharana throughout history. However, a nuanced understanding reveals that all these figures were Tamils (Damila) hailing from the Pandya kingdom, with references to their exploits documented in Tamil inscriptions and Sri Lankan chronicles...
Part
2:
Tamil
Military
Castes
by
D.
P.
Sivaram
[courtesy:
Lanka
Guardian,
May
15,
1992,
pp.17-19;
prepared
by
Sachi
Sri
Kantha,
for
the
electronic
record]
Thus,
towards
the
latter
part
of
the
19th
century,
there
were
large,
disgruntled
groups
with
a
military
past
in
the
Bengal,
Bombay
and
Madras
Presidencies.
They
felt
that
the
vast
field
of
opportunities
opened
by
the
expanding
Indian
army
was
being
unfairly
denied
to
them.
This
grievance
was
further
exacerbated
by
views
of
the
British
military
leadership
which
relegated
them
to
a
non-martial
status
as
races
that
were
not
fit
to
bear
arms;
in
whom
fighting
qualities
had
declined.
The
reaction
of
these
groups
was
marked
by
a
compulsion
to
emphasise
the
martial
credentials
of
their
cultures.
Opposition
to
British
rule
which
emerged
among
classes
affected
by
the
shift
in
recruitment
toward
the
‘martial
races’
of
North
western
India
took
shape
into
an
ideology
that
asserted
a
national
spirit
which
exalted
military
virtues
and
ideals
as
the
cure
for
the
ills
of
Indian
society
under
the
British
yoke.
Bal
Gangadhar
Tilak
who
emerged
as
a
spokesman
for
the
disfranchised
military
groups
became
the
ideologue
of
this
nationalist
Indian
militarism.
Stephen
Cohen
has
attempted
to
define
Indian
militarism
in
terms
of
Indian
attitudes
towards
the
British-Indian
military
structure
and
recruitment.
"There
are
two
fundamentally
different
sets
of
Indian
attitudes
towards
the
British-Indian
military
structure,
both
of
which
may
legitimately
be
labelled
Indian
militarism:
modern
militarism
and
traditional
militarism…emerged
in
Bengal
and
western
India
and
spread
to
other
regions.
Modern
militarism
stressed
the
value
of
the
military
as
a
national
universal
solvent;
as
an
expression
of
the
national
will
and
demanded
equalitarian
recruitment.
‘Traditional
militarism’
resulted
from
regional
traditions
and
the
recruiting
practices
of
the
British.
It
was
confined
to
those
castes
and
classes
which
exercised
the
use
of
arms
as
matter
of
birth
right
and
was
unevenly
distributed
throughout
India…"(14)
At
the
turn
of
the
[20th]
century
there
were
two
groups
in
the
Tamil
region
which
had
a
decidedly
militarist
and
anti-British
outlook.
(a)
the
adherents
of
modern
Indian
militarism
–
the
terrorists
–
and
their
sympathizers.
(b)
the
disfranchised
traditional
military
castes.
The
dispersion
of
modern
Indian
militarism’s
basic
tenet
–
that
the
revival
of
India’s
‘heroic
age’
and
its
war-like
traditions
and
valus
was
necessary
for
national
emancipation
–
invested
the
heroic
past
and
martial
cultures
of
the
disfranchized
traditional
Tamil
military
castes
with
a
nationalist
significance
and
cogence.
Modern
Tamil
militarism
–
the
political
idea
that
military
virtues
and
ideals
‘rooted
in
Tamil
martial
traditions’
is
essential
for
national
resurgence
and
emancipation
–
was
enunciated
at
this
specific
conjuncture
in
the
school
of
Tamil
renaissance
established
by
Pandithurai
Thevar
–
a
noble
belonging
to
the
sethupathy
clan
of
the
dominant
traditional
Tamil
military
caste
–
the
Maravar.
Tamil
militarism
then,
is
the
effect
of
inter-related
modern
and
traditional
components;
the
former
as
nationalist
renaissance
ideology,
the
latter
as
caste
culture.
Traditional
Tamil
militarism
in
the
Tamil
region
as
elsewhere
in
India
was
confined
to
a
group
of
castes
which
considered
"the
use
of
arms
as
matter
of
birth
and
right".
The
Maravar
were,
according
to
the
Madras
Presidency
census
report
for
1891
"a
fierce
and
turbulent
race
famous
for
their
military
prowess"
and
were
"chiefly
found
in
Madura
and
Tinnevely
where
they
occupy
the
tracts
bordering
in
the
coast
from
Cape
Comorin
to
the
northern
limits
of
the
Ramnad
Zemindari."(15)
The
Dutch
found
them
to
be
the
traditional
soldier
caste
of
Jaffna
and
availed
themselves
of
their
caste
services
as
such
(16)
–
one
of
the
earliest
instances
of
a
colonial
power
making
use
of
a
specific
military
caste
in
South
Asia.
Cohen
notes
two
categories
of
traditional
Indian
military
castes
with
different
grievances
at
the
turn
of
the
19th
century.
(a)
"members
of
classes
which
were
no
longer
recruited
or
recruited
in
small
numbers",
(b)
"those
classes
which
constituted
the
army
but
sought
even
greater
status
as
commissioned
officers."(17)
The
Maravar
and
their
grievances,
however
belong
to
a
third
category.
They
were
a
people
whom
the
British
attempted
to
totally
demilitarize
by
depriving
them
of
their
traditional
status
in
Tamil
society
through
social,
economic
and
penal
measures.
This
was
in
direct
contrast
to
the
social
and
economic
privileging
of
such
castes
and
classes
in
the
north,
during
the
same
period.
They
were
not
only
disfranchised
but
were
turned
into
and
classified
as
a
delinquent
mass
–
the
subject
of
a
disciplinary
and
penal
discourse
–
relegated
to
the
fringes
of
the
new
social
pact
which
was
being
established
in
the
Tamil
South
of
the
Madras
Presidency.
The
obliteration
of
their
traditions
and
memory
was
considered
essential
to
complete
the
process
of
demilitarization
and
pacification
of
the
Tamil
region.
The
martial
races
theory
of
recruitment
and
the
subsequent
martialization
of
the
north
futher
erased
their
martial
legacy
and
that
of
the
Tamil
South
from
the
military
ethnography
of
the
subcontinent.
David
Washbrook
argues
that
"the
subvention
and
protection
of
the
north
Indian
dominant
caste
communities,
and
the
martialization
of
their
culture,
were
but
two
of
the
many
ways
in
which
south
Asia
paid
the
price
of
liberal
Britain’s
prosperity
and
progress."(18)
On
the
otherhand
the
strategy
of
emasculating
and
destroying
the
hegemony
of
Tamil
military
caste
communities
and
the
demartialization
of
Tamil
culture
were
two
important
ways
in
which
the
Tamil
South
paid
the
price
of
India’s
development
as
a
nation.
The
legacy
of
these
strategies
in
the
north
and
south
of
the
subcontinent,
embodied
in
the
structure
of
the
modern
Indian
army,
is
central
to
the
emergence
of
modern
Tamil
militarism.
The
gains
of
this
demartialization
were
consolidated
by
favouring
and
encouraging
non-military
castes
in
Tamil
society
which
"contrasted
favourably
with
the
Maravar".(19)
The
more
important
of
these
were
the
Vellalas,
Nadars
and
Adi
Dravidas.
The
culture
and
values
of
the
"peace
loving"
(Madras
census,
1871)
Vellalas
who
had
"no
other
calling
than
the
cultivation
of
the
soil"
eminently
suited
the
aims
of
demartialization
and
suppression
of
the
traditional
military
castes.
In
this
the
British
were
following
local
precedents
which
had
been
based
on
the
principle
that
the
best
way
to
ensure
control
and
security
was
to
"have
none
there
but
cultivators"
(21).
Thus,
under
active
British
patronage
the
Vellala
caste
established
its
dominance,
and
its
culture
became
representative
and
hegemonic
in
Tamil
society.
The
Nadars
and
Adi
Dravidas
were
considered
amenable
to
conversion.
A
large
section
of
them
had
become
Anglicans.
The
recruitment
base
of
the
Indian
army
in
the
Madras
Presidency
was
constituted
strongly
in
favour
of
these
groups.
The
Dravidian
ideology
emerged
as
the
cultural
and
academic
basis
for
their
pro-British
politics,
led
by
the
newly
arisen
Vellala
elite.
The
nascent
Dravidian
movement
was
clearly
underpinned
by
the
concerns
of
British
administrators
and
Anglican
missionaries
(22)
in
consolidating
the
social,
economic
and
religious
gains
of
demartialization.
This
is
why
the
early
Dravidian
school
of
Tamil
studies
and
historiography
had
a
strong
political
compulsion
to
reject,
ignore
or
play
down
the
dominant
role
of
the
traditional
military
castes
in
Tamil
history
and
culture,
and
to
assert
that
Tamil
civilization
was
Vellala
civilization.
(Maraimalai
Atikal,
was
the
chief
proponent
of
this
view.)
Thus
in
the
early
decades
of
the
twentieth
century
we
find
two
contending
narratives
(23)
of
Tamil
national
identity
–
the
ideology
and
caste
culture
of
the
anti-British
and
"turbulent"
military
castes
and
the
ideology
and
caste
culture
of
the
pro-British
and
"peace
loving"
Vellala
elite
–
claiming
authentic
readings
of
the
Tamilian
past
and
present.
The
one
claiming
that
the
"pure
Tamils"
were
Vellalas.
The
other
claiming
that
all
Tamils
are
Maravar
and
that
the
Tamil
nation
was
distinguished
by
its
ancient
martial
heritage.
How
then
did
Tamil
militarism
which
originally
was
related
to
a
political
and
social
milieu
that
was
opposed
to
the
Dravidian
movement
become
its
dominant
feature
in
the
[nineteen]
fifties
and
sixties
to
the
levelof
strongly
impacting
on
the
Tamil
nationalist
movement
in
Sri
Lanka’s
north
and
east?
It
was
related
politically
to
changes
that
took
place
in
the
Dravidian
movement
and
the
changes
that
took
place
in
Maravar
–
Indian
National
Congres
relations
after
the
[19]30’s.
In
the
Dravidian
movement
the
change
was
connected
mainly
with,
(a)
the
rejection
of
the
pro-British
elitist
leadership
of
the
Justice
Party
in
1944.
(b)
the
radical
change
in
the
attitude
towards
British
rule
and
imperialism
in
1947048
which
gave
rise
to
sharp
differences
within
the
movement.
Relations
between
the
Indian
National
Congress
and
the
Maravar
began
to
deteriorate
when
the
moderate
Brahmin
leadership
of
the
Madras
Presidency
Congress
preferred
not
to
oppose
the
harsh
measures
of
the
British
against
the
Tamil
military
castes.
The
contradiction
became
sharp
when
Pasumpon
Muthuramalinga
Thevar
the
powerful
and
influential
Marava
leader,
joined
the
Indian
National
Army
under
Subash
Chandra
Bose
and
began
organizing
the
Forward
Bloc
against
the
Congress
in
the
Tamil
region.(24)
The
antagonism
climaxed
in
a
violent
caste
conflict
in
1957.
The
Congress
government
arrested
Muthuramalinga
Thevar
in
connection
with
the
riot.
The
DMK
which
had
very
little
influence
in
the
southern
districts
of
Tamil
Nadu
at
that
time
made
a
strategic
intervention
at
this
juncture
in
Maravar
affairs.
M.Karunanidhi,
the
only
DMK
candidate
to
be
elected
in
the
southern
parts
at
that
time,
was
chiefly
responsible
for
co-opting
the
Maravar
into
the
DMK;
and
for
making
the
culture
of
the
Tamil
military
castes
a
dominant
and
essential
component
of
Tamilian
national
identity.
For
many
years,
until
he
became
chief
minister,
Karunanidhi
wrote
under
the
pen-name
Maravan.
His
weekly
letter
to
party
cadres
was
known
as
Maravan
Madal
(25)
–
the
Maravan’s
epistle.
Tamil
militarism
thus
became
integral
to
the
Dravidian
movement.
The
secessionist
militancy
of
the
DMK
in
the
[nineteen]
fifties
and
early
[nineteen]
sixties
wad
dominated
by
the
vocabulary
of
Tamil
militarism.
This
was
the
nadir
of
the
Dravidian
movement’s
impact
on
Sri
Lankan
Tamils.
DMK
branches
were
organized
in
many
parts
of
the
north,
east
and
the
hill
country.
It
was
during
this
period
that
ayoung
student
named
Kathamuthu
Sivanandan
from
Amirthakazhi,
a
small
village
near
the
Batticaloa
town
who
was
studying
in
Tamil
Nadu
took
part
in
the
militant
agitations
of
the
DMK.
Karunanidhi
described
him
as
"the
appropriate
weapon
for
Tamil
upheaval."(26).
The
student
who
was
later
known
as
Kasi
Anandan
wrote
for
a
fortnightly
called
Dhee
Mu
Ka
(DMK)
(27)
when
he
came
back
to
Sri
Lanka.
In
it
appeared
his
poem,
‘The
Maravar
clan’-
Maravar
kulam
(28):
"The
Tamil
army
is
a
Maravar
Army…
the
enraged
Tamils
are
a
Tiger
Army
(Pulippadai)…"
These
lines
of
the
poem
are
now
part
of
the
history
and
myths
of
the
Tamil
Tigers’
genesis.
Foot
Notes
(14)
Stephen
P.Cohen:
op.cit,
p.58.
(15)
Edgard
Thurstan,
K.Rangachari:
Castes
and
Tribes
of
South
India,
vol.V,
1909,
Govt.Press,
Madras,
pp.22-23.
(16)
The
Maravar’s
connections
with
Jaffna
will
be
examined
elsewhere
in
this
study,
especially
in
view
of
a
recent
attempt
by
a
Jaffna
historian
to
show
that
the
early
colonists
of
Jaffna
were
Maravar
and
that
the
rulers
of
Jaffna
belonged
to
the
Sethupathy
clan
of
that
caste.
He
has
claimed
that
Vadamaradchi
was
in
former
days
Vada
Maravar
Adchi
[the
domain
of
north
Maravar];
‘Yazh
Kudi-etram’,
K.Muthu
Kumaraswamippillai,
1982,
Chunnakam,
Jaffna.
(17)
S.P.
Cohen:
op.cit,
p.59.
(18)
David
Washbrook:
op.cit,
p.481.
(19)
A
phrase
used
by
the
British
to
describe
castes
which
were
found
suitable
for
the
new
order.
(20)
Edgard
Thurston:
op.cit,
pp.369-370,
VII.
(21)
The
Portuguese
had
applie
this
principle
to
establish
their
control
in
Jaffna.
Tikiri
Abeyasinghe:
Jaffna
under
the
Portuguese,
1986,
Colombo,
p.24.
(22)
The
father
of
the
Dravidian
ideology,
Robert
Caldwell
was
Bishop
of
Tinnevely,
the
seat
of
Marava
power.
(23)
For
the
idea
of
‘contending
narratives’
in
the
formation
of
national
identity
in
another
Indian
context,
the
Ayodhya
crisis,
see
Barbara
Stoller
Miller:
Presidential
Address,
Journal
of
Asian
Studies,
vol.50,
no.4,
Nov.1991.
(24)
The
Forward
Bloc
was
found
by
Subash
[Chandra
Bose].
I
am
grateful
to
Subash
Chandra
Bose
Thevar,
the
chief
subeditor
of
the
‘Virakesari’,
a
Maravar
himself,
for
drawing
my
attention
to
this
phase
of
Maravar
history
and
for
the
valuable
comments
and
material
on
the
subject,
when
I
began
this
study
in
1990.
(25)
This
was
also
the
name
a
main
DMK
party
paper,
in
the
[19]60s.
(26)
‘Uyir
Thamizhukku’,
Kasi
Anandan,
Fatima
Press,
Batticaloa;
Preface,
p.2,
3rd
edition,
[publication]
year
not
given.
(27)
Two
other
papers
called
‘DMK’
were
published
in
Sri
Lanka
during
this
period.
(28)
DMK
(fortnightly),
10.7
[i.e.,
July].1962,
Colombo,
editor
and
publisher
Vasantha
Appathurai.
Note:
I
am
greatly
indebted
to
Prof.K.Sivathamby
for
his
valuable
comments
on
Tamil
history
and
culture
and
for
drawing
my
attention
two
years
ago
to
the
role
of
the
southern
districts
of
Tamil
Nadu
in
Tamil
renaissance.
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