posted by Mukilan Murugasan
To discard what is unwanted, and to retain what is needed, is what reform means.
Social reform cannot stand apart from politics, nor can politics stand apart from social reform. Politics exists only for human society. Every political activity is only for social good. Constitutional law and defence are made only for society and in accordance with social good.
Tentative and superficial changes here and there, in the same name of social reform, will not bear fruit. The present social set-up should be destroyed as its very base, and a new social order, free from caste and class, should be created.
Whomsoever I love and hate, my principle is the same. That is, the educated, the rich and the administrators should not suck the blood of the poor.
The proper task of social reform is to remove poverty from society and to ensure that people do not sell their conscience
Thursday 20 May 2010
Periyar on Science
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
Look at the enormous change in our life today. Our comforts in daily life have vastly improved. Formerly, we had only the bullock cart. Now we have such modern comforts as the locomotive, the motorcar and aeroplane. We struck flints to make a fire, but now, the pressing of a button makes a thousand electric lights burn. Our people understanding, despite so much change in life, remains just as it was a thousand years ago!.
Even those, who some time ago believed all the stories about God, that is who believed that divine power exist, have now come to be so ashamed of their own belief, that hiding their ignorance, they are now struggling heard to prove those stories as scientifically true.
He, who first created fire with the help of flints, was the “Edition” of those days. Thereafter, we advanced step by step and we now have fire through electricity. Thus, change is natural and inevitable, and no can one stop it.
A big change should come about in our country on the food front. We must certainly discover a chemical product as substitute for rice. We first used steam power, with the help of fire, to drive an engine. Now we are using kerosene, crude oil, petrol, electricity for power. In a like manner, the human engine, without being driven by huge intake of food, can be activated by and made to subsist on some fine source of energy, similar to electricity.
Hereafter, even human birth will be rare. Similarly death rate also will decrease. Man can easily live for a hundred years on an average. No one will have more than two children. There will be no correlation between sexual relationship and child-birth.
Look at the enormous change in our life today. Our comforts in daily life have vastly improved. Formerly, we had only the bullock cart. Now we have such modern comforts as the locomotive, the motorcar and aeroplane. We struck flints to make a fire, but now, the pressing of a button makes a thousand electric lights burn. Our people understanding, despite so much change in life, remains just as it was a thousand years ago!.
Even those, who some time ago believed all the stories about God, that is who believed that divine power exist, have now come to be so ashamed of their own belief, that hiding their ignorance, they are now struggling heard to prove those stories as scientifically true.
He, who first created fire with the help of flints, was the “Edition” of those days. Thereafter, we advanced step by step and we now have fire through electricity. Thus, change is natural and inevitable, and no can one stop it.
A big change should come about in our country on the food front. We must certainly discover a chemical product as substitute for rice. We first used steam power, with the help of fire, to drive an engine. Now we are using kerosene, crude oil, petrol, electricity for power. In a like manner, the human engine, without being driven by huge intake of food, can be activated by and made to subsist on some fine source of energy, similar to electricity.
Hereafter, even human birth will be rare. Similarly death rate also will decrease. Man can easily live for a hundred years on an average. No one will have more than two children. There will be no correlation between sexual relationship and child-birth.
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Islam is the Antidote!
An analysis of Periyar's views on IslamBy: KHAN YASIR
E.V. Ramaswamy alias Periyar was a Dravidian social reformer and politician from India, who founded the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. Introducing him, G. Aloysius wrote that he “was an uncompromising iconoclast, a consistent rationalist and an untiring socio-cultural reformer of the previous century”. On religion, Periyar is considered the Voltaire of South India. Because, like Voltaire, he opposed religion virulently; as in his views the so-called men of religion have exploited religion to exploit common, ingenuous and ignorant masses. He has been a harsh critic of the Aryan influenced Hinduism in Tamil Nadu and spoke appreciatively about faiths of Buddhism, Christianity and especially Islam. He has proposed Islam as the most viable alternative to Brahminical Hinduism.
AN ATHEIST OR NOT?
Periyar has been considered to be a prophet of atheism especially for the downtrodden in South India. But this image of him as being a ‘prophet of atheism’ is far from the truth. To quote G. Aloysius, “While he (Periyar) was alive and active, many stood to lose in several ways because of his nearly three quarters of a century long campaign against the oppressive native religio-cultural practices in general, but the most vicious social irrationality of the Indian society that is the system and spirit of caste in particular, projected him as a rabid atheist of the mould of the 19th century west. This they did in order to de-legitimise him with the masses, who it was generally presumed were “inclined towards things godly and religious” – after all Periyar himself vigorously negated the charges of atheism or any intentions of propagating godlessness. He was a vocal rebel of Hindu society whose voice reverberated with all strength and determination against Brahminical Hinduism.
But in his personal views he was more akin to atheism. He was an atheist or he was not? Readers must have been perplexed by now. At the end of the day he was a believer in no religion in his personal capacity and in this respect he was technically an atheist (only ‘technically’ because in common parlance the word atheist is not only used for a person who does not believe in God but also for those people who hate God or who are anti-God). But “he (Periyar) was not out to preach to the public what he believed or practised in his personal life, that is atheism”.
“Periyar’s target,” elaborates Aloysius, “was specific and contextual – the deleterious and disastrous effect that the dominant ‘religion’ of his day was having on the social life of the people”. He was not opposed to religion as such but only to “such” religions, in his own words, “Intoxication from such religion is more ruinous than that of liquor. Liquor destroys only him who drinks it, but religion destroys him who merely thinks it” (emphasis added). The definition of “such” religion is a religion that promotes caste distinctions, that is opposed to rational enquiry; that is opposed to fraternity; that is opposed to equality.
Since his childhood Periyar saw the atrocities on people belonging to lower castes. His studies concluded that if one has to come out of the shackles of caste, he has to accept Islam. His speeches, writings and sincere pleas to the people to embrace Islam are enough a proof that he was sincere in his appeals and was not mere ‘threatening’ the religious authorities as is commonly believed.
It was because of this alleged discrepancy in his thoughts (regarding religion and atheism) and even propaganda by his opponents that his movement for religious reform – or conversion – to put it more blatantly – did not produce the impact it was otherwise bound to generate. He was particularly hauled over the coals when he put forward his controversial proposal of conversion to Islam as the antidote to the despicable status of Shudras.
But before proceeding further and analysing his views on Islam, one thing should be made clear that his angle and outlook – as he was personally a nastik (atheist) and not a believer in Islam – too was materialistic. To him Islam was no divine-truth, criterion-of-right-and-wrong, a code of conduct decreed by Almighty God. It was only a religion of a powerful community with self respect, a religion that preaches equality and fraternity. In fact it could be safely said that like many other scholars and thinkers of his era, he was interested in “seen” rather than “unseen” of Islam. And truly, be it a scholar or commoner outside the pale of Islam, one could see only the “seen” of Islam; and it is this “seen” generally, which leads to the belief in the “unseen” – if only a conducive environment is provided in which a person is able to apply his rationality without being affected by biases and prejudices.
PERIYAR ON ISLAM
In a speech delivered at Erode (his hometown) in 1929 he said, “It is only superstition to believe that on account of religion that if a Hindu consumes cow’s meat, it is sin and if a Mohammaden does, it is no sin; both the beliefs have no meaning. All religions of the world are raised on superstition... I am pleased, not on the basis of sin or virtue or heaven or hell.” In the same speech he went on making his point that he is pleased because a few of adi-dravidians converted from the Hindu religion and truly “they are liberated” from what he called “an animal state of idiocy and uncivilisation”.
At the end of his lecture he concluded, “Therefore until the Hindu society achieves true equality and unity there is no way out for untouchables other than becoming Muslims in crowd”.
In a speech delivered at Trichirapalli 1947, he was more perspicuous in his ideas and suggestions. The solutions like bringing Shudras to the mainstream and ‘inculcating’ in them self respect etc. by different day dreaming Hindu reformers was in general scoffed at by him as ‘sleep-inducing & soporific drugs’ that could reduce pain for the time being but the core problem will nevertheless persist. The problem, “has only one remedy and that remedy is Islam” – he declared unequivocally.
He commented rightly and thereby threw a light upon the tragic plight of Indian Muslims that have made (especially in that era) their religion a ‘closed commodity’ a hereditary religion like Judaism. Periyar demolishes this by arguing that Muslims of India are not proprietors of Islam. Muslims are in India, Egypt, Abyssinia, Japan, Germany, etc. And for all of them there is no God but one and that too without form.
He said, “What is common to all; fraternity, equal rights and discipline and all the rest depends upon the traditions of the different countries.” In the same speech he made a controversial and absolutely untrue remark – either to please and sooth masses or due to lack of understanding of Islam that, “if you in the dravidanadu become Islamic, then that Islam would be what we determine it to be….” Both the sentences read together could be considered a plea of a doctor who wants his patient to take the medicine anyhow, even by declaring that it tastes like a vanilla ice-cream.
In response to the flooding letters and people for an argument over his speeches in Trichy, he wrote a piece in which he succinctly analysed – WHY ONLY ISLAM?
First he took a leaf out of prevalent environment of hatred of Hindus towards Islam (take note of the fact that those were the days of two-nation theory, communalism and partition, when, as opposed to Muslim communalism, two nation-theory and other factors, the saffron brigade was successful in rallying the Hindu masses behind it.) He raised some of the most pertinent questions.
Some of his pungent sentences are quoted as below. “The reason behind the hatred of the Hindus toward the Muslims today is their hatred of Islam itself. Because Islam is contrary to the Aryan religion (Hinduism), the Hindus (the Aryans) hate Islam. It is contrary because Islam demolishes the very foundation of the Hindu religion. For the Aryan religion, which is also called Hindu religion, there are so many gods having also as many forms. And among the people there are several caste discriminations. The caste has been devised according to circumstances of birth. The people are divided into higher and lower castes such as Brahmin, Shudra and Panchaman (Pariah). It is in accordance with this principle that we have become members of low caste.
“In Islam, on the other hand, there is no Brahmin (high caste) or Shudra (low caste) or Panchama (least caste). In other words, Islam is founded on the principle of one god and one caste, that is, one family and one divinity. It could also be said that such a principle belongs to and needed for the Dravidians. The so-called Hindu (Aryan) religion is based on many gods and many castes, which are also created by the gods. Through this arrangement of many gods – many castes, the Aryans (the Brahmins) get good benefits and privileges.
“The Dravidians, on the other hand, find only ruin, degradation and obstacle to human rights. It is for this reason the Islamic principle is very odious to Brahmins. For the Dravidians, on the contrary, Islam is opportune for the removal of degradation and achievement of welfare. Therefore the Brahmins, the Aryans are constrained to hate Islam”.
What about Christianity? One could think that it also (principally) does not believe in caste and inequalities. But ground realities – of which Periyar was very much aware – were telling a different story. Periyar also appreciated Christianity a great deal in comparison to the Aryan religion. Nevertheless he also acknowledged, “If people leave Hinduism, they should follow some other religion. What religion should be recommended to people? Christianity was more like the Brahmin religion, so I recommended Islam to people. Because, in Christianity there are untouchable Christians, Nadar Christians, Vellala Christians and so on. So even in Christianity there are differences followed based on Varnashrama Dharma; so, in India, it is Hindu Christianity! If the Depressed Classes embraced Islam, they would get social equality in a very short period.”
He accused the Brahminical order that was bent upon perpetuating caste distinctions in Indian society and said that they had made “us all enemies of Islam by projecting it as devilish, satanic and monstrous”. He rightly asks, “Which reform or good effort that we want to undertake and Islam prevents?”
The opposition to his ‘rebellious’ and ‘blasphemous’ thoughts did not halt and answering an uncivilised letter full of abuses and scurrilous words, Periyar is forced to ask, “Why at the mention of Islam, agitate like a bull that has seen red?” he argued that he is advising only those people to embrace Islam who hate Shudra-tag and believe that Dravidian society should have self respect and human feeling”. He challenges, “If there is any alternative method, please go and demonstrate.” The failure of all attempts – that include the attempts of Gandhi (to bring Shudras to the mainstream of Hinduism) and of Ambedkar (mass conversion to Buddhism) – has vindicated Periyar. Periyar was sure on his conclusion that Islam is the ultimate solution for all the evils of a caste-ridden society. An agitated Periyar also said, “The Hindus forever blame Muslims and spread the poisonous propaganda that many Hindus were forcefully converted to Islam? Am I forcing you?”
He was a great fan of the Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) and once said in a lecture, “There are enough ideas ... of Muhammad Nabi, which are acceptable and could be supported and held up as ideas even by people like us who do not see any divine nature in him and also by those reformists who belong to other religions”.
WHY HE REMAINED AN ATHEIST?
If his views are as above mentioned then why he himself did not embrace Islam? The question is perplexing, twisting and is often exploited by his opponents to cast doubts on the sincerity of his views and efforts. What’s the truth, only God knows but one most cogent explanation, according to my studies, is as follows: It has been already said that his opponents unleashed a fierce propaganda-crusade against him to de-legitimise his views in the masses by regarding him as an atheist. In such scenario if at all he would have become a Muslim, his opponents would have got a priceless weapon with which they could have demolished all his movements and sincere efforts for the development of the Shudras. At least in my view this is what Periyar would have thought and his fear of losing all his hard earned reputation and influence in one go, he restrained from proclaiming faith in God in open. And Indian realities are vocal for the veracity of this exegesis. People have listened to him because he was ‘one of them’; the moment he would have become a Muslim he would have become ‘the other’ and the empathy with which he was able to call out ‘his’ people would have been lost instantly. And his dream of uplifting his people would also have been shattered that very moment. This was the logic that unfortunately appealed to him. After all uplifting his people was his foremost concern.
Though, this is a tragedy that such a great reformer, due to harsh realities of his society, could not proclaim his belief in a faith which according to him was the ultimate solution to the owes of his people and community. Now it is our responsibility to change this harsh reality. To reach out to ‘his’ people with ‘his’ message that no great man in future would pay the price of the ignorance of his people, bury the truth that he discovered into the deepest of the heart, and die with a believing heart but a fearing mind and an unbelieving tongue.
E.V. Ramaswamy alias Periyar was a Dravidian social reformer and politician from India, who founded the Self-Respect Movement and Dravidar Kazhagam. Introducing him, G. Aloysius wrote that he “was an uncompromising iconoclast, a consistent rationalist and an untiring socio-cultural reformer of the previous century”. On religion, Periyar is considered the Voltaire of South India. Because, like Voltaire, he opposed religion virulently; as in his views the so-called men of religion have exploited religion to exploit common, ingenuous and ignorant masses. He has been a harsh critic of the Aryan influenced Hinduism in Tamil Nadu and spoke appreciatively about faiths of Buddhism, Christianity and especially Islam. He has proposed Islam as the most viable alternative to Brahminical Hinduism.
AN ATHEIST OR NOT?
Periyar has been considered to be a prophet of atheism especially for the downtrodden in South India. But this image of him as being a ‘prophet of atheism’ is far from the truth. To quote G. Aloysius, “While he (Periyar) was alive and active, many stood to lose in several ways because of his nearly three quarters of a century long campaign against the oppressive native religio-cultural practices in general, but the most vicious social irrationality of the Indian society that is the system and spirit of caste in particular, projected him as a rabid atheist of the mould of the 19th century west. This they did in order to de-legitimise him with the masses, who it was generally presumed were “inclined towards things godly and religious” – after all Periyar himself vigorously negated the charges of atheism or any intentions of propagating godlessness. He was a vocal rebel of Hindu society whose voice reverberated with all strength and determination against Brahminical Hinduism.
But in his personal views he was more akin to atheism. He was an atheist or he was not? Readers must have been perplexed by now. At the end of the day he was a believer in no religion in his personal capacity and in this respect he was technically an atheist (only ‘technically’ because in common parlance the word atheist is not only used for a person who does not believe in God but also for those people who hate God or who are anti-God). But “he (Periyar) was not out to preach to the public what he believed or practised in his personal life, that is atheism”.
“Periyar’s target,” elaborates Aloysius, “was specific and contextual – the deleterious and disastrous effect that the dominant ‘religion’ of his day was having on the social life of the people”. He was not opposed to religion as such but only to “such” religions, in his own words, “Intoxication from such religion is more ruinous than that of liquor. Liquor destroys only him who drinks it, but religion destroys him who merely thinks it” (emphasis added). The definition of “such” religion is a religion that promotes caste distinctions, that is opposed to rational enquiry; that is opposed to fraternity; that is opposed to equality.
Since his childhood Periyar saw the atrocities on people belonging to lower castes. His studies concluded that if one has to come out of the shackles of caste, he has to accept Islam. His speeches, writings and sincere pleas to the people to embrace Islam are enough a proof that he was sincere in his appeals and was not mere ‘threatening’ the religious authorities as is commonly believed.
It was because of this alleged discrepancy in his thoughts (regarding religion and atheism) and even propaganda by his opponents that his movement for religious reform – or conversion – to put it more blatantly – did not produce the impact it was otherwise bound to generate. He was particularly hauled over the coals when he put forward his controversial proposal of conversion to Islam as the antidote to the despicable status of Shudras.
But before proceeding further and analysing his views on Islam, one thing should be made clear that his angle and outlook – as he was personally a nastik (atheist) and not a believer in Islam – too was materialistic. To him Islam was no divine-truth, criterion-of-right-and-wrong, a code of conduct decreed by Almighty God. It was only a religion of a powerful community with self respect, a religion that preaches equality and fraternity. In fact it could be safely said that like many other scholars and thinkers of his era, he was interested in “seen” rather than “unseen” of Islam. And truly, be it a scholar or commoner outside the pale of Islam, one could see only the “seen” of Islam; and it is this “seen” generally, which leads to the belief in the “unseen” – if only a conducive environment is provided in which a person is able to apply his rationality without being affected by biases and prejudices.
PERIYAR ON ISLAM
In a speech delivered at Erode (his hometown) in 1929 he said, “It is only superstition to believe that on account of religion that if a Hindu consumes cow’s meat, it is sin and if a Mohammaden does, it is no sin; both the beliefs have no meaning. All religions of the world are raised on superstition... I am pleased, not on the basis of sin or virtue or heaven or hell.” In the same speech he went on making his point that he is pleased because a few of adi-dravidians converted from the Hindu religion and truly “they are liberated” from what he called “an animal state of idiocy and uncivilisation”.
At the end of his lecture he concluded, “Therefore until the Hindu society achieves true equality and unity there is no way out for untouchables other than becoming Muslims in crowd”.
In a speech delivered at Trichirapalli 1947, he was more perspicuous in his ideas and suggestions. The solutions like bringing Shudras to the mainstream and ‘inculcating’ in them self respect etc. by different day dreaming Hindu reformers was in general scoffed at by him as ‘sleep-inducing & soporific drugs’ that could reduce pain for the time being but the core problem will nevertheless persist. The problem, “has only one remedy and that remedy is Islam” – he declared unequivocally.
He commented rightly and thereby threw a light upon the tragic plight of Indian Muslims that have made (especially in that era) their religion a ‘closed commodity’ a hereditary religion like Judaism. Periyar demolishes this by arguing that Muslims of India are not proprietors of Islam. Muslims are in India, Egypt, Abyssinia, Japan, Germany, etc. And for all of them there is no God but one and that too without form.
He said, “What is common to all; fraternity, equal rights and discipline and all the rest depends upon the traditions of the different countries.” In the same speech he made a controversial and absolutely untrue remark – either to please and sooth masses or due to lack of understanding of Islam that, “if you in the dravidanadu become Islamic, then that Islam would be what we determine it to be….” Both the sentences read together could be considered a plea of a doctor who wants his patient to take the medicine anyhow, even by declaring that it tastes like a vanilla ice-cream.
In response to the flooding letters and people for an argument over his speeches in Trichy, he wrote a piece in which he succinctly analysed – WHY ONLY ISLAM?
First he took a leaf out of prevalent environment of hatred of Hindus towards Islam (take note of the fact that those were the days of two-nation theory, communalism and partition, when, as opposed to Muslim communalism, two nation-theory and other factors, the saffron brigade was successful in rallying the Hindu masses behind it.) He raised some of the most pertinent questions.
Some of his pungent sentences are quoted as below. “The reason behind the hatred of the Hindus toward the Muslims today is their hatred of Islam itself. Because Islam is contrary to the Aryan religion (Hinduism), the Hindus (the Aryans) hate Islam. It is contrary because Islam demolishes the very foundation of the Hindu religion. For the Aryan religion, which is also called Hindu religion, there are so many gods having also as many forms. And among the people there are several caste discriminations. The caste has been devised according to circumstances of birth. The people are divided into higher and lower castes such as Brahmin, Shudra and Panchaman (Pariah). It is in accordance with this principle that we have become members of low caste.
“In Islam, on the other hand, there is no Brahmin (high caste) or Shudra (low caste) or Panchama (least caste). In other words, Islam is founded on the principle of one god and one caste, that is, one family and one divinity. It could also be said that such a principle belongs to and needed for the Dravidians. The so-called Hindu (Aryan) religion is based on many gods and many castes, which are also created by the gods. Through this arrangement of many gods – many castes, the Aryans (the Brahmins) get good benefits and privileges.
“The Dravidians, on the other hand, find only ruin, degradation and obstacle to human rights. It is for this reason the Islamic principle is very odious to Brahmins. For the Dravidians, on the contrary, Islam is opportune for the removal of degradation and achievement of welfare. Therefore the Brahmins, the Aryans are constrained to hate Islam”.
What about Christianity? One could think that it also (principally) does not believe in caste and inequalities. But ground realities – of which Periyar was very much aware – were telling a different story. Periyar also appreciated Christianity a great deal in comparison to the Aryan religion. Nevertheless he also acknowledged, “If people leave Hinduism, they should follow some other religion. What religion should be recommended to people? Christianity was more like the Brahmin religion, so I recommended Islam to people. Because, in Christianity there are untouchable Christians, Nadar Christians, Vellala Christians and so on. So even in Christianity there are differences followed based on Varnashrama Dharma; so, in India, it is Hindu Christianity! If the Depressed Classes embraced Islam, they would get social equality in a very short period.”
He accused the Brahminical order that was bent upon perpetuating caste distinctions in Indian society and said that they had made “us all enemies of Islam by projecting it as devilish, satanic and monstrous”. He rightly asks, “Which reform or good effort that we want to undertake and Islam prevents?”
The opposition to his ‘rebellious’ and ‘blasphemous’ thoughts did not halt and answering an uncivilised letter full of abuses and scurrilous words, Periyar is forced to ask, “Why at the mention of Islam, agitate like a bull that has seen red?” he argued that he is advising only those people to embrace Islam who hate Shudra-tag and believe that Dravidian society should have self respect and human feeling”. He challenges, “If there is any alternative method, please go and demonstrate.” The failure of all attempts – that include the attempts of Gandhi (to bring Shudras to the mainstream of Hinduism) and of Ambedkar (mass conversion to Buddhism) – has vindicated Periyar. Periyar was sure on his conclusion that Islam is the ultimate solution for all the evils of a caste-ridden society. An agitated Periyar also said, “The Hindus forever blame Muslims and spread the poisonous propaganda that many Hindus were forcefully converted to Islam? Am I forcing you?”
He was a great fan of the Prophet (may Allah bless and greet him) and once said in a lecture, “There are enough ideas ... of Muhammad Nabi, which are acceptable and could be supported and held up as ideas even by people like us who do not see any divine nature in him and also by those reformists who belong to other religions”.
WHY HE REMAINED AN ATHEIST?
If his views are as above mentioned then why he himself did not embrace Islam? The question is perplexing, twisting and is often exploited by his opponents to cast doubts on the sincerity of his views and efforts. What’s the truth, only God knows but one most cogent explanation, according to my studies, is as follows: It has been already said that his opponents unleashed a fierce propaganda-crusade against him to de-legitimise his views in the masses by regarding him as an atheist. In such scenario if at all he would have become a Muslim, his opponents would have got a priceless weapon with which they could have demolished all his movements and sincere efforts for the development of the Shudras. At least in my view this is what Periyar would have thought and his fear of losing all his hard earned reputation and influence in one go, he restrained from proclaiming faith in God in open. And Indian realities are vocal for the veracity of this exegesis. People have listened to him because he was ‘one of them’; the moment he would have become a Muslim he would have become ‘the other’ and the empathy with which he was able to call out ‘his’ people would have been lost instantly. And his dream of uplifting his people would also have been shattered that very moment. This was the logic that unfortunately appealed to him. After all uplifting his people was his foremost concern.
Though, this is a tragedy that such a great reformer, due to harsh realities of his society, could not proclaim his belief in a faith which according to him was the ultimate solution to the owes of his people and community. Now it is our responsibility to change this harsh reality. To reach out to ‘his’ people with ‘his’ message that no great man in future would pay the price of the ignorance of his people, bury the truth that he discovered into the deepest of the heart, and die with a believing heart but a fearing mind and an unbelieving tongue.
Tamil people
From New World Encyclopedia
Total population:77,000,000
Regions with significant populations:
India: 61,527,000 (1996)[2]
Sri Lanka: 3,000,000 (1993)
Malaysia: 1,060,000 (1993)[2]
Singapore: 111,000 (1993) [2]
Languages: Tamil
Religions: Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism
Related ethnic groups: Dravidian people · Brahui people · Kannadigas · Malayalis · Tamils · Telugus · Tuluvas · Gonds
Tamil people, a Dravidian people from the Indian subcontinent, have a recorded history going back more than two millennia.[3] The oldest Tamil communities live in southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. A number of Tamil emigrant communities resided scattered around the world, especially in central Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Mauritius with more recent emigrants found in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Europe. An estimated 77 million Tamils live scattered around the world.
The art and architecture of the Tamil people encompass some of the greatest contributions of India to the art world. The music, the temple architecture and the stylized sculptures favored by the Tamil people remain live art forms, still learned and practiced. The classical language of Tamil, one of the oldest languages in India, has the oldest extant literature amongst other Dravidian languages.[4]
Unlike many ethnic groups, Tamils experienced governance by more than one political entity during most of their history. Tamilakam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, experienced political unity for only a brief period, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, under the Chola Dynasty. Enthnologists identity Tamil primarily by linguistic similarities, although in recent times the definition has been broadened to include emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil cultural traditions, even if they no longer regularly speak the language. Tamils ethnically, linguistically and culturally relate to the other Dravidian peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
History
Pre-historic period
The Great Temple at Thanjavur built by Rajaraja Chola IThe origins of the Tamil people, like those of the other Dravidian peoples, remain unknown, although genetic and archaeological evidence suggests a possible migration into India around 6000 B.C.E.[5] The megalithic urn burials, dating from around 1000 B.C.E. and onwards, which have been discovered at various locations in Tamil Nadu, notably in Adichanallur, provide the earliest clear evidence of the presence of the Tamil people in modern Tamil Nadu.[6][7] These burials conform to the descriptions of funerals in classical Tamil literature in a number of details, and appear to be concrete evidence of the existence of Tamils in southern India during that period.[8] In modern times, ancient Tamil literature like Sangam poetry and epics like Silapthigaaram have been interpreted as making references to a lost land known as Kumari Kandam.[9]
Classical period
From around the third century B.C.E. onwards, three royal dynasties—the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas—rose to dominate the ancient Tamil country.[7] Each of those dynasties had its own realm within the Tamil-speaking region. Classical literature and inscriptions also describe a number of Velirs, or minor chieftains, who collectively ruled over large parts of central Tamil Nadu.[10] Wars between the kings and the chieftains were frequent, as were conflicts with ancient Sri Lanka.[11][12] Those wars appear to have been fought to assert hegemony and demand tribute, rather than to subjugate and annex those territories. The kings and chieftains served as patrons of the arts, and a significant volume of literature exists from that period.[10] The literature shows that many of the cultural Tamil practices date back to the classical period.[10]
Agriculture played a vital role during this period, evidence suggesting that they built irrigation networks as early as second century C.E.[13] Internal and external trade flourished, and evidence exists of significant contact with Ancient Rome.[14] Large quantities of Roman coins and signs of the presence of Roman traders have been discovered at Karur and Arikamedu.[14] Evidence exists suggesting that Pandya kings sent at least two embassies to the Roman Emperor Augustus.[15] Potsherds with Tamil writing have been found in excavations on the Red Sea, suggesting the presence of Tamil merchants there.[16] An anonymous first century traveler's account written in Greek, Periplus Maris Erytraei, describes the ports of the Pandya and Chera kingdoms and their commercial activity in great detail. Periplus also indicates that the ancient Tamils exported chiefly pepper, malabathrum, pearls, ivory, silk, spikenard, diamonds, sapphires, and tortoiseshell.[17]
The classical period ended around the fourth century C.E. with invasions by the Kalabhra, referred to as the kalappirar in Tamil literature and inscriptions,[18] described as evil kings and barbarians coming from lands to the north of the Tamil country.[19] That period, commonly referred to as the Dark Age of the Tamil country, ended with the rise of the Pallava dynasty.[18][20][21]
Imperial and post-imperial periods
Detail from a temple in Chidambaram, south of Chennai. Tamil kings were patrons of the arts, and built many ornate temples.Although the Pallava records trace to the second century C.E., they arose to prominence as an imperial dynasty in the sixth century.[22] Evidence suggests that the dynasty had been non-Tamil in origin, although they rapidly adopted the local culture and the Tamil language. The Pallavas sought to model themselves after great northern dynasties such as the Mauryas and Guptas.[23] They therefore transformed the institution of the kingship into an imperial one, and sought to bring vast amounts of territory under their direct rule. The Pallavas, initially Buddhists, later converted to Hinduism. They encouraged the Bhakti movement, which had risen to counter the growing influence of Jainism and Buddhism.[24] The Pallavas pioneered the building of large, ornate temples in stone which formed the basis of the Dravidian temple architecture.
The resurgent Cholas overthrew the Pallava dynasty in the ninth century.[22] The Cholas become dominant in the tenth century and established an empire covering most of southern India and Sri Lanka.[22], 345. The empire had strong trading links with China and Southeast Asia.[25][26] The Cholas' navy conquered the South Asian kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Sumatra and continued as far as Thailand and Burma.[22]Chola power declined in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the Pandya dynasty enjoyed a brief period of resurgence thereafter during the rule of Sundara Pandya.[22] Repeated Muslim invasions from the fifteenth century onwards placed a huge strain on the empire's resources, the dynasty coming to an end in the sixteenth century.[27]
The western Tamil lands became increasingly politically distinct from the rest of the Tamil lands after the Chola and Pandya empires lost control over them in the thirteenth century. They developed their own distinct language and literature, which increasingly grew apart from Tamil, evolving into the modern Malayalam language by the fifteenth century.[28]
No major empires arose thereafter, and for a while a number of different local chiefs, such as the Nayaks of the modern Maharashtra ruled Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh regions. From the seventeenth century onwards, European powers began establishing settlements and trading outposts in the region. The British, French and Danish in the eighteenth century fought a number of battles for control of the region, and by the end of the eighteenth century most of Tamil Nadu came under British rule.
Tamils in Sri Lanka
The Nallur Kandaswamy temple in JaffnaLittle consensus exists on the history of the Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka prior to the Chola period. Some Sinhala historians argue that the Tamil had no organised presence in Sri Lanka until the invasions from southern India in the tenth century, whereas many Tamil historians contend that Tamils represent the original inhabitants of the island, called Araipadi and Elapadi. The historical evidence proves neither case.
The historical record does establish that the Tamil kingdoms of India engaged closely in Sri Lankan affairs from about the second century B.C.E.[11][12] Evidence exists of early Tamil traders in Anuradhapura. Tamil adventurers invaded the island as far back as 100 B.C.E.[29] Tamil wars against Sri Lanka culminated in the Chola annexation of the island in the tenth century, lasting until the latter half of the eleventh century.[30][31][32]
The re-establishment of the Polonnaruwa monarchy in the late eleventh century followed the decline of Chola power in Sri Lanka.[33] In 1215, the Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty established an independent Jaffna kingdom[34] in the Jaffna peninsula and parts of northern Sri Lanka. Alagakkonara, a man from a family of Malayali merchants who had become the chief minister of the Sinhalese king Parakramabahu V (1344–1359), halted the Arya Chakaravarthi expansion into the south.[35] Alagakkonara built a fortress at Kotte and held the Arya Chakravarthi army there while he defeated the invading fleet at Panadura, southwest of Kotte. A descendant of Alagakkonara (Tamil Alagakonar) later became King of the Sinhalese,[36] but the Ming admiral Zheng He deposed that line in 1409. The Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty ruled over large parts of northeast Sri Lanka until 1619, when the Portuguese conquered Sri Lanka. Then the Dutch took the coastal areas of the island, until in 1796 those became part of the British Empire.
Modern period
A colonial-era photograph of a Tamil couple.
British colonists consolidated the Tamil territory in southern India into the Madras Presidency before integrating the region into British India. Similarly, the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka joined with the other regions of the island in 1802 to form the Ceylon colony, Ceylon remaining in political union with India and Sri Lanka after their independence, in 1947 and 1948 respectively.
When India became independent in 1947, Madras Presidency became the Madras State, comprised of present-day Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra Pradesh, northern Kerala, and the southwest coast of Karnataka. The state subsequently split along linguistic lines. In 1953, the northern districts formed Andhra Pradesh. Under the States Reorganization Act in 1956, Madras State lost its western coastal districts, with the Bellary and South Kanara districts ceded to Mysore state. Kerala formed from the Malabar district and the former princely states of Travancore and Cochin. In 1968, Madras State became Tamil Nadu.
Initially, some Tamil demanded an independent Tamil state following the adoption of the federal system.[37] The Indian constitution granted significant autonomy to the states, and protests by Tamils in 1963 led to the government adopting a new policy called the "three language formula," which led to Tamils in India becoming increasingly satisfied with the federal arrangement, support for secession or independence today nearly disappearing.
In Sri Lanka, the unitary arrangement led to a growing belief among some Tamils of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. That resulted in a demand for federalism, which in the 1970s grew into a movement for an autonomous Tamil country. The situation deteriorated into civil war in the early 1980s. A ceasefire in effect since 2002 broke down in August 2006 amid shelling and bombing from both sides.
Geographic distribution
Indian Tamils
Most Indian Tamils live in the state of Tamil Nadu. They form the majority in the union territory of Pondicherry, a former French colony. Pondicherry comprises a subnational enclave situated within Tamil Nadu. Tamil communities exist in other parts of India, most emerging fairly recently, dating to the colonial and post-colonial periods, but some—particularly the Hebbar and Mandyam Tamils of southern Karnataka, the Tamils of Palakkad in Kerala, and the Tamils of Pune, Maharashtra—date back to at least the medieval period.
Sri Lankan Tamils
Two groups of Tamils live in Sri Lanka today. The first, known as the Sri Lankan Tamils, either descended from the Tamils of the old Jaffna kingdom or migrated to the East coast. The second, known as the Indian Tamils or Hill Country Tamils, descended from bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu in the nineteenth century to work in tea plantations.[38] Ceylon Tamils mostly live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital of Colombo, whereas hill-country Tamils largely live in the central highlands.[39] The Hill Country Tamils and Ceylon Tamils historically have seen themselves as separate communities. In 1949, the United National Party Government, including G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil Congress and of the Sri Lankan Tamils, stripped the Indian Tamils of their nationality, along with their right to vote. Prominent Tamil political leaders such as S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and his Tamil opposition party opposed that move.[40]
A Hill Country Tamil woman working on a tea plantation in upcountry Sri Lanka.
Under an agreement between the Sri Lankan and Indian governments in the 1960s, around 40 percent of Hill Country Tamils received Sri Lankan nationality, and many of the remainder repatriated to India. The ethnic conflict has led to the growth of a greater sense of common Tamil identity, and the two groups have become more supportive of each other.[41] By the 1990s most Indian Tamils had received Sri Lankan citizenship.[42]
A significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population lives in Sri Lanka. Unlike Tamil-speaking Muslims from India, they reject the ethnic Tamils identity, usually listed by the government as a separate ethnic group in official statistics.[43][44]
Tamil emigrant communities
Significant Tamil emigration began in the eighteenth century, when the British colonial government sent many poor Tamils as indentured labourers to far-off parts of the Empire, especially Malaya, South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius and the Caribbean. At about the same time, many Tamil businessmen also immigrated to other parts of the British Empire, particularly to Burma and East Africa.[45] Many Tamils still live in those countries, and the Tamil communities in Singapore, Reunion Island, Malaysia and South Africa have retained much of their culture and language. Many Malaysian children attend Tamil schools, and a significant portion of Tamil children in Mauritius and Reunion have been raised with Tamil as their first language. In Singapore, Tamil students learn Tamil as their second language in school, with English as the first. To preserve the Tamil language, the Singapore government has made it a national language despite Tamils comprising only about 10 percent of the population, and has also introduced compulsory instruction of the language for Tamils. Other Tamil communities, such as those in South Africa and Fiji, no longer speak Tamil as a first language, but still retain a strong Tamil identity, understanding the language, while most elders speak it as a first language.[46]
A large emigration also began in the 1980s, as Sri Lankan Tamils sought to escape the ethnic conflict. Those recent emigrants have most often fled to Australia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.[47] Today, Durban, South Africa has the largest concentration of Tamils outside southern Asia while Toronto, Canada has the second largest.[48]
Many young Tamil professionals from India have also immigrated to Europe and the United States in recent times in search of better opportunities. Those new immigrant communities have established cultural associations to protect and promote Tamil culture and language in their adopted homes.
Culture
Language and literature
An idol in Madurai representing the Tamil language as a goddess; The caption on the pedestal reads Tamil Annai ("Mother Tamil").Tamils have strong feelings towards the Tamil language, often venerated in literature as "Tamil̲an̲n̲ai," "the Tamil mother".[49] Historically, and contemporarily, Tamil language has been central to the Tamil identity. Like the other languages of South India, Tamil is a Dravidian language, unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India. The language has been far less influenced by Sanskrit than the other Dravidian languages, and preserves many features of Proto-Dravidian, though modern-day spoken Tamil in Tamil Nadu, freely uses loanwords from Sanskrit and English.[50] Tamil literature possesses considerable antiquity, the government of India recognising it as a classical language.
Classical Tamil literature, ranging from lyric poetry to works on poetics and ethical philosophy, has distinct differences from contemporary and later literature in other Indian languages, and represents the oldest body of secular literature in South Asia.[51] Notable works in classical Tamil literature include the Tirukkural, by Tiruvalluvar, the five great Tamil epics, and the works of Auvaiyar. The written language has changed little over the years, with the result that much of classical literature remains easily accessible to modern Tamils and continues to influence modern Tamil culture.
Modern Tamil possesses a diverse body of literature including: Indian Nationalism, in the works of Subramanya Bharathi; historical romanticism, by Kalki Krishnamurthy; radical and moderate social realism, by Pudhumaipithan and Jayakanthan; and feminism, by Malathi Maithri and Kutti Revathi. Sujatha, an author whose works range from romance novels to science fiction, stands as one of the most popular modern writers in Tamil. Sri Lankan Tamil writers have produced several works reflecting the civilian tragedy caused by decades of war. A diaspora literature has been emerging in Tamil.
The Tamil people use a number of regional dialects that vary among regions and communities. Tamil dialects mainly differentiate by the disparate phonological changes and sound shifts that have evolved from Old Tamil. Although most Tamil dialects differ insignificantly in their vocabulary, a few exceptions exist. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words seldom used in daily conversation in India, while using many other words slightly differently. The dialect of the Iyers of Palakkad, with a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam syntax, and has a distinct Malayalam accent. The Sankethi, Hebbar, and Mandyam dialects, the former spoken by groups of Tamil Iyers, and the latter two by Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in the eleventh century, retains many Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai infuses English words, creating Madras Bashai (Madras language).
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Tamil art take a religious form usually centering on Hinduism, although the religious element often only serves as a means of representing universal—and, occasionally, humanist—themes.[52]
Tanjore painting, originating in Thanjavur in the ninth century, represents the most important form of Tamil painting. The artist paints the image, using dyes, on cloth coated with zinc oxide, then decorates the painting with semi-precious stones as well as silver or gold thread.[53] Painting employed temple wall murals uses a style related in origin, but that exhibits significant differences in execution, most notably the murals on the Meenakshi temple, of Madurai.[54] Tamil art, in general, has earned a reputation for its stylistic elegance, rich colors, and attention to small details.
A gopuram of the Meenakshi temple in Madurai.Tamil sculpture ranges from elegant stone sculptures in temples, to bronze icons with exquisite details.[55]
Art historians consider the medieaval Chola bronzes one of India's greatest contributions to the world art.[56][57] Unlike most Western art, the material in Tamil sculpture does not influence the form taken by the sculpture; instead, the artist imposes his/her vision of the form on the material.[58] As a result, one often sees in stone sculptures flowing forms that usually reserved for metal.[59] As with painting, those sculptures show a fine eye for detail. The artist takes great care in sculpting the minute details of jewelery, worn by the subjects of the sculpture. The cave sculptures at Mamallapuram and the bronzes of the Chola period present remarkable examples of the technique. The depiction of Shiva as Nataraja, in a dance posture with one leg upraised, and a fiery circular halo surrounding his body represents a popular motif in the bronzes.
An inside view of a traditional Tamil houseTamil temples, often simply treated as sculptures on a grand scale, host high spires known as Gopura, consisting of a number of stepped levels, and the vimanam, which rises above the sanctum sanctorum. During the Chola period, the vimanams had more prominence, as seen in the Brihadīsvara temple of Thanjavur. During the Nayak period, the spires became progressively more elaborate and ornate, as exemplified by the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, while the vimanam became much smaller. From the thirteenth century onwards, the entrance gates to the temples, called gopurams in Tamil, also began to grow larger, and more elaborate. The temples at Chidambaram and Srirangam have particularly impressive gopurams, covered with sculptures and reliefs of various scenes and characters from Hindu mythology.
As with Indian art in general, Tamil art traditionally resists portraiture or realism. Artists place primary emphasis on the representation of ideal prototypes, and on depicting the symbols associated with the theme of the artistic work. Small details, such as the direction a hand faces, the animals or trees portrayed, or the time of day depicted, convey critically subtle meanings.[60]
Performing arts
The traditional Tamil performing arts have ancient roots.[61] The royal courts and temples have been centers for the performing arts since the classical period, and possibly earlier. Descriptions of performances in classical Tamil literature and the Natya Shastra, a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, indicate a close relationship between the ancient and modern artforms. A performance in the Tamil tradition aims to bring out the rasa, the flavor, mood, or feeling, inherent in the text, its quality measured by the extent to which it induces the mood in the audience.
Tamil folk artists presenting a Villuppattu near Tirunelveli during a festival (panguni uththiram) at an Ayyanar temple.
Folk artists performing at a funeralTamil shares a classical musical tradition, called Carnatic music, with the rest of South India, primarily oriented towards vocal music, with instruments functioning either as accompaniments, or as imitations of the singer's role. Ancient Tamil music, stemming from the long traditions of classical literature and Cilappatikaram, played a major part in the evolution of Carnatic music.[62] Carnatic music organizes around the twin notions of melody types (rāgam), and cyclical rhythm types (thāḷam). Unlike the northern Hindustani music tradition, carnatic music has an almost exclusively religious quality. In sharp contrast with the restrained and intellectual nature of carnatic music, Tamil folk music tends toward the exuberant. Popular forms of Tamil folk music include the Villuppattu, a form of music performed with a bow, and the Naattupurapaattu, ballads that convey folklore and folk history.
Bharatanatyam represents the dominant classical dance among Tamils, performative rather than participative. The dance constitutes an exposition of the story contained in a song, usually performed by one performer on stage with an orchestra of drums, a drone, and one or more singers backstage. The dancers tell the story through a complicated combination of mudras (hand gestures), facial expressions, and body postures. Until recently, female dancers monopolized performances; recently several well-known male dancers have emerged on the scene.[61]
Karakattam constitutes the most notable of Tamil folk dances. The dancers perform the dance, in its religious form, in front of an image of the goddess Mariamma. The dancer bears, on his or her head, a brass pot filled with uncooked rice, decorated with flowers and surrounded by a bamboo frame, and tumbles and leaps to the rhythm of a song without spilling a grain. Dancers usually perform karakāṭṭamto to a special type of song known as temmanguppattu, or thevar pattu, a folk song in the mode of a lover speaking to his beloved, to the accompaniment of a nadaswaram and melam. Other Tamil folk dances include mayilattam, where the dancers tie a string of peacock feathers around their waists; oyilattam, danced in a circle while waving small pieces of cloth of various colors; poykkal kuthiraiyaattam, in which the dancers use dummy horses; manaattam, in which the dancers imitate the graceful leaping of deer; paraiyattam, a dance to the sound of rhythmical drumbeats; and thippanthattam, a dance involving playing with burning torches.[63] Four to eight women perform the kuravanci, taking the form of a type of dance-drama. A woman opens the drama by playing the part of a female soothsayer of a wandering kurava, tribe, who tells the story of a lady pining for her lover.
The therukoothu, a form of village theater or folk opera, literally means "street play." Traditionally performed in village squares, the dancers use the street setting and very simple props. The performances involve songs and dances, and the stories can be either religious or secular.[64] The performances have an informal air, performers often interacting with the audience, mocking them, or involving them in the dialogue. Therukkūthu has, in recent times, been very successfully adapted to convey social messages, such as abstinence and anti-caste criticism, as well as information about legal rights, and has spread to other parts of India.[65]
The village of Melatur, in Tamil Nadu, has a special type of performance, called the bhagavatamela, in honor of the local deity, performed once a year, and lasting all night. Tamil Nadu also has a well developed stage theater tradition, which has been heavily influenced by western theatre. A number of theatrical companies exist, with repertoires including absurdist, realist, and humorous plays.[66]
Both classical and folk performing arts survive in modern Tamil society. Tamil people in Tamil Nadu also have a passion for films. The Tamil film industry, commonly dubbed Kollywood, constitutes the second-largest film industry in India.[67] Tamil cinema has earned a reputation for both its technical accomplishments, and its artistic and entertainment value. The overwhelming majority of Tamil films contain song and dance sequences. Tamil film music, a popular genre in its own right, often liberally fuses elements of carnatic, Tamil folk, North Indian styles, hip-hop, and heavy metal. Famous music directors of the late twentieth century included M. S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraaja, and A. R. Rahman.
Religion
About 90 percent of the population of Tamil Nadu declare themselves Hindu. Christians and Muslims account for five percent each. Most of the Christians belong to the Roman Catholic Church. About one-third of the Muslim population speak Urdu and two-thirds speak Tamil. Tamil Jains number only a few thousand now.[68] Tamil Hinduism, like other regional varieties of Hinduism, has many peculiarities. Murugan, probably the same as Karthikeya, the son of Siva, but who may in origin have been a different deity, and has taken on a distinctly local character, stands as the most popular deity.[69] The worship of Amman, also called Mariamman, thought to have been derived from an ancient mother goddess, prevails among Hindus.[70] Many Tamils worship Kan̲n̲agi, the heroine of the Cilappatikār̲am, worshipped as Paṭṭin̲i, particularly in Sri Lanka.[71] Ayyavazhi has many followers in Tamil Nadu, mainly in the southern districts.[72] Many temples and devotees of Vishnu, Shiva, Ganapathi, and the other common Hindu deities exist.
Pongal, a harvest festival that occurs in mid-January, and Varudapirappu, the Tamil New Year, which occurs around mid-April, represent the most important Tamil festivals, celebrated by almost all Tamils regardless of religion. Tamils celebrate the Hindu festival Deepavali with fanfare; other local Hindu festivals include Thaipusam, Panguni Uttiram, and Adipperukku. While the Cauvery region celebrates Adiperukku with more pomp in than in other regions, the southern districts of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Thoothukudi predominantly celebrate the Ayyavazhi Festival, Ayya Vaikunda Avataram.[73]
Local deities Vandimalaisaami and Vandimalaichchiamman in EttayapuramIn rural Tamil Nadu, many local deities, called aiyyan̲ārs, villagers worship the spirits of local heroes whom they believe protect the village from harm. Their worship often centers around nadukkal, stones erected in memory of heroes who died in battle. Classical literature frequently mentions that form of worship, seemingly the surviving remnants of an ancient Tamil tradition.[74]
Saivism has a particularly strong following in the North. The Alvars and Nayanars, predominantly Tamils, played a key role in the renaissance of Bhakti tradition in South India. In the tenth century, the philosopher Ramanuja, who propagated the theory of Visishtadvaitam, brought many changes to worshiping practices, creating new regulations on temple worship, and accepted lower-caste Hindus as his prime disciples.[75]
Scholars believe Christianity came to Tamil Nadu with the arrival of Saint Thomas the apostle, with the number of Tamil Christians growing during the colonial period. Many Tamils adhere to the Catholic, Protestant, and Syrian Orthodox faiths. The majority of Tamil muslims pledge allegiance to either mainstream Sunni or the Sufi branch.
Cuisine
Tamil cuisine represents one of the oldest vegetarian culinary heritages in the world. Rice, the major staple food in most of Tamil, usually served steamed with about two to six accompanying items, typically including sambar, dry curry, rasam, kootu, and thayir (curd) or moru (whey or buttermilk).
Tiffin (light meals) usually include one or more of Pongal, Dosai, idli, Vadai along with sambar. Families often enjoy chutney as a breakfast or evening snack. Ghee (clarified butter called neyyi in Tamil, flavors the rice when eaten with dhal or sambar, but not with curds or buttermilk. Morkulambu, a dish often spiced with moru, popular among Tamil with steamed rice.
Each geographical area where Tamils live has developed its own distinct variant of the common dishes plus a few dishes distinctly native to itself. The Chettinad region, comprising of Karaikudi and adjoining areas, enjoys both traditional vegetarian dishes, like appam, uthappam, paal paniyaram, and non-vegetarian dishes, made primarily using chicken.
Martial arts
Tamil in Tamil Nadu and Kerala partice a variety of martial arts including Kuttu Varisai, Varma Kalai, Silambam Nillaikalakki, Maankombukkalai (Madhu) and Kalarippayattu. The weapons used include Silambam, Maankombukkalai, Yeratthai Mulangkol (double stick), Surul Pattai (spring sword), Val Vitchi (single sword), and Yeretthai Val (double sword).
The ancient Tamil art of unarmed bullfighting, popular amongst warriors in the classical period[76][77], has also survived in parts of Tamil Nadu, notably Alanganallur near Madurai, known as Jallikaṭṭu or mañcuviraṭṭu, with events held once a year around the time of the Pongal festival.
Institutions
The global spread of the Tamil diaspora has hindered the formation of formal pan-Tamil institutions. The most important national institutions for Tamils have been the governments of the states where they live, particularly the government of Tamil Nadu and the government of Sri Lanka, which have collaborated in developing technical and scientific terminology in Tamil and promoting its use since the 1950s.
The Self-respect movement (also called the Dravidian movement) has dominated politics in Tamil Nadu. Founded by E.V. Ramasami, popularly known as Periyar, to promote self-respect and rationalism, and to fight casteism and the oppression of the lowest castes, the Self-respect movement gained immense popularity. Every major political party in Tamil Nadu bases its ideology on the Self-respect Movement, and the national political parties play a very small role in Tamil politics.
The Tamil flag adopted by the World Tamil Confederation to represent Tamil people everywhere.In Sri Lanka, the federalist movements, led by the Federal Party (later the Tamil United Liberation Front), dominated Tamil politics until the early 1980s. In the 1980s, a violent military campaign conducted by several militant groups largely succeeded the political movement. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam emerged as the most important force amongst those groups in the 1990s, currently in negotiations for a final settlement with the government. The LTTE controls portions of Sri Lanka, and has attempted to establish its own government there, which it calls the government of Tamil Eelam. LTTE has been banned by the European Union on account of alleged terrorism. It has also been banned in India following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.[78][79]
In the 1960s, the government of Tamil Nadu held a World Tamil Conference, and have continued to meet periodically since then. In 1999, Tamil representatives established a World Tamil Confederation to protect and foster Tamil culture and further a sense of togetherness amongst Tamils in different countries. The Confederation has since adopted a Tamil flag and Tamil song[80] to act as trans-national symbols for the Tamil people; the words on the flag quote the opening line of a poem by the classical poet Kanian Poongundranaar, and means "Everyone is our kin; Everyplace is our home."
Total population:77,000,000
Regions with significant populations:
India: 61,527,000 (1996)[2]
Sri Lanka: 3,000,000 (1993)
Malaysia: 1,060,000 (1993)[2]
Singapore: 111,000 (1993) [2]
Languages: Tamil
Religions: Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism
Related ethnic groups: Dravidian people · Brahui people · Kannadigas · Malayalis · Tamils · Telugus · Tuluvas · Gonds
Tamil people, a Dravidian people from the Indian subcontinent, have a recorded history going back more than two millennia.[3] The oldest Tamil communities live in southern India and north-eastern Sri Lanka. A number of Tamil emigrant communities resided scattered around the world, especially in central Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Africa, Singapore, and Mauritius with more recent emigrants found in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Europe. An estimated 77 million Tamils live scattered around the world.
The art and architecture of the Tamil people encompass some of the greatest contributions of India to the art world. The music, the temple architecture and the stylized sculptures favored by the Tamil people remain live art forms, still learned and practiced. The classical language of Tamil, one of the oldest languages in India, has the oldest extant literature amongst other Dravidian languages.[4]
Unlike many ethnic groups, Tamils experienced governance by more than one political entity during most of their history. Tamilakam, the traditional name for the Tamil lands, experienced political unity for only a brief period, between the ninth and twelfth centuries, under the Chola Dynasty. Enthnologists identity Tamil primarily by linguistic similarities, although in recent times the definition has been broadened to include emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil cultural traditions, even if they no longer regularly speak the language. Tamils ethnically, linguistically and culturally relate to the other Dravidian peoples of the Indian subcontinent.
History
Pre-historic period
The Great Temple at Thanjavur built by Rajaraja Chola IThe origins of the Tamil people, like those of the other Dravidian peoples, remain unknown, although genetic and archaeological evidence suggests a possible migration into India around 6000 B.C.E.[5] The megalithic urn burials, dating from around 1000 B.C.E. and onwards, which have been discovered at various locations in Tamil Nadu, notably in Adichanallur, provide the earliest clear evidence of the presence of the Tamil people in modern Tamil Nadu.[6][7] These burials conform to the descriptions of funerals in classical Tamil literature in a number of details, and appear to be concrete evidence of the existence of Tamils in southern India during that period.[8] In modern times, ancient Tamil literature like Sangam poetry and epics like Silapthigaaram have been interpreted as making references to a lost land known as Kumari Kandam.[9]
Classical period
From around the third century B.C.E. onwards, three royal dynasties—the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas—rose to dominate the ancient Tamil country.[7] Each of those dynasties had its own realm within the Tamil-speaking region. Classical literature and inscriptions also describe a number of Velirs, or minor chieftains, who collectively ruled over large parts of central Tamil Nadu.[10] Wars between the kings and the chieftains were frequent, as were conflicts with ancient Sri Lanka.[11][12] Those wars appear to have been fought to assert hegemony and demand tribute, rather than to subjugate and annex those territories. The kings and chieftains served as patrons of the arts, and a significant volume of literature exists from that period.[10] The literature shows that many of the cultural Tamil practices date back to the classical period.[10]
Agriculture played a vital role during this period, evidence suggesting that they built irrigation networks as early as second century C.E.[13] Internal and external trade flourished, and evidence exists of significant contact with Ancient Rome.[14] Large quantities of Roman coins and signs of the presence of Roman traders have been discovered at Karur and Arikamedu.[14] Evidence exists suggesting that Pandya kings sent at least two embassies to the Roman Emperor Augustus.[15] Potsherds with Tamil writing have been found in excavations on the Red Sea, suggesting the presence of Tamil merchants there.[16] An anonymous first century traveler's account written in Greek, Periplus Maris Erytraei, describes the ports of the Pandya and Chera kingdoms and their commercial activity in great detail. Periplus also indicates that the ancient Tamils exported chiefly pepper, malabathrum, pearls, ivory, silk, spikenard, diamonds, sapphires, and tortoiseshell.[17]
The classical period ended around the fourth century C.E. with invasions by the Kalabhra, referred to as the kalappirar in Tamil literature and inscriptions,[18] described as evil kings and barbarians coming from lands to the north of the Tamil country.[19] That period, commonly referred to as the Dark Age of the Tamil country, ended with the rise of the Pallava dynasty.[18][20][21]
Imperial and post-imperial periods
Detail from a temple in Chidambaram, south of Chennai. Tamil kings were patrons of the arts, and built many ornate temples.Although the Pallava records trace to the second century C.E., they arose to prominence as an imperial dynasty in the sixth century.[22] Evidence suggests that the dynasty had been non-Tamil in origin, although they rapidly adopted the local culture and the Tamil language. The Pallavas sought to model themselves after great northern dynasties such as the Mauryas and Guptas.[23] They therefore transformed the institution of the kingship into an imperial one, and sought to bring vast amounts of territory under their direct rule. The Pallavas, initially Buddhists, later converted to Hinduism. They encouraged the Bhakti movement, which had risen to counter the growing influence of Jainism and Buddhism.[24] The Pallavas pioneered the building of large, ornate temples in stone which formed the basis of the Dravidian temple architecture.
The resurgent Cholas overthrew the Pallava dynasty in the ninth century.[22] The Cholas become dominant in the tenth century and established an empire covering most of southern India and Sri Lanka.[22], 345. The empire had strong trading links with China and Southeast Asia.[25][26] The Cholas' navy conquered the South Asian kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Sumatra and continued as far as Thailand and Burma.[22]Chola power declined in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and the Pandya dynasty enjoyed a brief period of resurgence thereafter during the rule of Sundara Pandya.[22] Repeated Muslim invasions from the fifteenth century onwards placed a huge strain on the empire's resources, the dynasty coming to an end in the sixteenth century.[27]
The western Tamil lands became increasingly politically distinct from the rest of the Tamil lands after the Chola and Pandya empires lost control over them in the thirteenth century. They developed their own distinct language and literature, which increasingly grew apart from Tamil, evolving into the modern Malayalam language by the fifteenth century.[28]
No major empires arose thereafter, and for a while a number of different local chiefs, such as the Nayaks of the modern Maharashtra ruled Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh regions. From the seventeenth century onwards, European powers began establishing settlements and trading outposts in the region. The British, French and Danish in the eighteenth century fought a number of battles for control of the region, and by the end of the eighteenth century most of Tamil Nadu came under British rule.
Tamils in Sri Lanka
The Nallur Kandaswamy temple in JaffnaLittle consensus exists on the history of the Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka prior to the Chola period. Some Sinhala historians argue that the Tamil had no organised presence in Sri Lanka until the invasions from southern India in the tenth century, whereas many Tamil historians contend that Tamils represent the original inhabitants of the island, called Araipadi and Elapadi. The historical evidence proves neither case.
The historical record does establish that the Tamil kingdoms of India engaged closely in Sri Lankan affairs from about the second century B.C.E.[11][12] Evidence exists of early Tamil traders in Anuradhapura. Tamil adventurers invaded the island as far back as 100 B.C.E.[29] Tamil wars against Sri Lanka culminated in the Chola annexation of the island in the tenth century, lasting until the latter half of the eleventh century.[30][31][32]
The re-establishment of the Polonnaruwa monarchy in the late eleventh century followed the decline of Chola power in Sri Lanka.[33] In 1215, the Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty established an independent Jaffna kingdom[34] in the Jaffna peninsula and parts of northern Sri Lanka. Alagakkonara, a man from a family of Malayali merchants who had become the chief minister of the Sinhalese king Parakramabahu V (1344–1359), halted the Arya Chakaravarthi expansion into the south.[35] Alagakkonara built a fortress at Kotte and held the Arya Chakravarthi army there while he defeated the invading fleet at Panadura, southwest of Kotte. A descendant of Alagakkonara (Tamil Alagakonar) later became King of the Sinhalese,[36] but the Ming admiral Zheng He deposed that line in 1409. The Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty ruled over large parts of northeast Sri Lanka until 1619, when the Portuguese conquered Sri Lanka. Then the Dutch took the coastal areas of the island, until in 1796 those became part of the British Empire.
Modern period
A colonial-era photograph of a Tamil couple.
British colonists consolidated the Tamil territory in southern India into the Madras Presidency before integrating the region into British India. Similarly, the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka joined with the other regions of the island in 1802 to form the Ceylon colony, Ceylon remaining in political union with India and Sri Lanka after their independence, in 1947 and 1948 respectively.
When India became independent in 1947, Madras Presidency became the Madras State, comprised of present-day Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra Pradesh, northern Kerala, and the southwest coast of Karnataka. The state subsequently split along linguistic lines. In 1953, the northern districts formed Andhra Pradesh. Under the States Reorganization Act in 1956, Madras State lost its western coastal districts, with the Bellary and South Kanara districts ceded to Mysore state. Kerala formed from the Malabar district and the former princely states of Travancore and Cochin. In 1968, Madras State became Tamil Nadu.
Initially, some Tamil demanded an independent Tamil state following the adoption of the federal system.[37] The Indian constitution granted significant autonomy to the states, and protests by Tamils in 1963 led to the government adopting a new policy called the "three language formula," which led to Tamils in India becoming increasingly satisfied with the federal arrangement, support for secession or independence today nearly disappearing.
In Sri Lanka, the unitary arrangement led to a growing belief among some Tamils of discrimination by the Sinhalese majority. That resulted in a demand for federalism, which in the 1970s grew into a movement for an autonomous Tamil country. The situation deteriorated into civil war in the early 1980s. A ceasefire in effect since 2002 broke down in August 2006 amid shelling and bombing from both sides.
Geographic distribution
Indian Tamils
Most Indian Tamils live in the state of Tamil Nadu. They form the majority in the union territory of Pondicherry, a former French colony. Pondicherry comprises a subnational enclave situated within Tamil Nadu. Tamil communities exist in other parts of India, most emerging fairly recently, dating to the colonial and post-colonial periods, but some—particularly the Hebbar and Mandyam Tamils of southern Karnataka, the Tamils of Palakkad in Kerala, and the Tamils of Pune, Maharashtra—date back to at least the medieval period.
Sri Lankan Tamils
Two groups of Tamils live in Sri Lanka today. The first, known as the Sri Lankan Tamils, either descended from the Tamils of the old Jaffna kingdom or migrated to the East coast. The second, known as the Indian Tamils or Hill Country Tamils, descended from bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu in the nineteenth century to work in tea plantations.[38] Ceylon Tamils mostly live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital of Colombo, whereas hill-country Tamils largely live in the central highlands.[39] The Hill Country Tamils and Ceylon Tamils historically have seen themselves as separate communities. In 1949, the United National Party Government, including G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil Congress and of the Sri Lankan Tamils, stripped the Indian Tamils of their nationality, along with their right to vote. Prominent Tamil political leaders such as S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and his Tamil opposition party opposed that move.[40]
A Hill Country Tamil woman working on a tea plantation in upcountry Sri Lanka.Under an agreement between the Sri Lankan and Indian governments in the 1960s, around 40 percent of Hill Country Tamils received Sri Lankan nationality, and many of the remainder repatriated to India. The ethnic conflict has led to the growth of a greater sense of common Tamil identity, and the two groups have become more supportive of each other.[41] By the 1990s most Indian Tamils had received Sri Lankan citizenship.[42]
A significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population lives in Sri Lanka. Unlike Tamil-speaking Muslims from India, they reject the ethnic Tamils identity, usually listed by the government as a separate ethnic group in official statistics.[43][44]
Tamil emigrant communities
Significant Tamil emigration began in the eighteenth century, when the British colonial government sent many poor Tamils as indentured labourers to far-off parts of the Empire, especially Malaya, South Africa, Fiji, Mauritius and the Caribbean. At about the same time, many Tamil businessmen also immigrated to other parts of the British Empire, particularly to Burma and East Africa.[45] Many Tamils still live in those countries, and the Tamil communities in Singapore, Reunion Island, Malaysia and South Africa have retained much of their culture and language. Many Malaysian children attend Tamil schools, and a significant portion of Tamil children in Mauritius and Reunion have been raised with Tamil as their first language. In Singapore, Tamil students learn Tamil as their second language in school, with English as the first. To preserve the Tamil language, the Singapore government has made it a national language despite Tamils comprising only about 10 percent of the population, and has also introduced compulsory instruction of the language for Tamils. Other Tamil communities, such as those in South Africa and Fiji, no longer speak Tamil as a first language, but still retain a strong Tamil identity, understanding the language, while most elders speak it as a first language.[46]
A large emigration also began in the 1980s, as Sri Lankan Tamils sought to escape the ethnic conflict. Those recent emigrants have most often fled to Australia, Europe, North America and Southeast Asia.[47] Today, Durban, South Africa has the largest concentration of Tamils outside southern Asia while Toronto, Canada has the second largest.[48]
Many young Tamil professionals from India have also immigrated to Europe and the United States in recent times in search of better opportunities. Those new immigrant communities have established cultural associations to protect and promote Tamil culture and language in their adopted homes.
Culture
Language and literature
An idol in Madurai representing the Tamil language as a goddess; The caption on the pedestal reads Tamil Annai ("Mother Tamil").Tamils have strong feelings towards the Tamil language, often venerated in literature as "Tamil̲an̲n̲ai," "the Tamil mother".[49] Historically, and contemporarily, Tamil language has been central to the Tamil identity. Like the other languages of South India, Tamil is a Dravidian language, unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India. The language has been far less influenced by Sanskrit than the other Dravidian languages, and preserves many features of Proto-Dravidian, though modern-day spoken Tamil in Tamil Nadu, freely uses loanwords from Sanskrit and English.[50] Tamil literature possesses considerable antiquity, the government of India recognising it as a classical language.
Classical Tamil literature, ranging from lyric poetry to works on poetics and ethical philosophy, has distinct differences from contemporary and later literature in other Indian languages, and represents the oldest body of secular literature in South Asia.[51] Notable works in classical Tamil literature include the Tirukkural, by Tiruvalluvar, the five great Tamil epics, and the works of Auvaiyar. The written language has changed little over the years, with the result that much of classical literature remains easily accessible to modern Tamils and continues to influence modern Tamil culture.
Modern Tamil possesses a diverse body of literature including: Indian Nationalism, in the works of Subramanya Bharathi; historical romanticism, by Kalki Krishnamurthy; radical and moderate social realism, by Pudhumaipithan and Jayakanthan; and feminism, by Malathi Maithri and Kutti Revathi. Sujatha, an author whose works range from romance novels to science fiction, stands as one of the most popular modern writers in Tamil. Sri Lankan Tamil writers have produced several works reflecting the civilian tragedy caused by decades of war. A diaspora literature has been emerging in Tamil.
The Tamil people use a number of regional dialects that vary among regions and communities. Tamil dialects mainly differentiate by the disparate phonological changes and sound shifts that have evolved from Old Tamil. Although most Tamil dialects differ insignificantly in their vocabulary, a few exceptions exist. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many words seldom used in daily conversation in India, while using many other words slightly differently. The dialect of the Iyers of Palakkad, with a large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by Malayalam syntax, and has a distinct Malayalam accent. The Sankethi, Hebbar, and Mandyam dialects, the former spoken by groups of Tamil Iyers, and the latter two by Vaishnavites who migrated to Karnataka in the eleventh century, retains many Vaishnavite religious and spiritual values. Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai infuses English words, creating Madras Bashai (Madras language).
Visual art and architecture
Most traditional Tamil art take a religious form usually centering on Hinduism, although the religious element often only serves as a means of representing universal—and, occasionally, humanist—themes.[52]
Tanjore painting, originating in Thanjavur in the ninth century, represents the most important form of Tamil painting. The artist paints the image, using dyes, on cloth coated with zinc oxide, then decorates the painting with semi-precious stones as well as silver or gold thread.[53] Painting employed temple wall murals uses a style related in origin, but that exhibits significant differences in execution, most notably the murals on the Meenakshi temple, of Madurai.[54] Tamil art, in general, has earned a reputation for its stylistic elegance, rich colors, and attention to small details.
A gopuram of the Meenakshi temple in Madurai.Tamil sculpture ranges from elegant stone sculptures in temples, to bronze icons with exquisite details.[55]
Art historians consider the medieaval Chola bronzes one of India's greatest contributions to the world art.[56][57] Unlike most Western art, the material in Tamil sculpture does not influence the form taken by the sculpture; instead, the artist imposes his/her vision of the form on the material.[58] As a result, one often sees in stone sculptures flowing forms that usually reserved for metal.[59] As with painting, those sculptures show a fine eye for detail. The artist takes great care in sculpting the minute details of jewelery, worn by the subjects of the sculpture. The cave sculptures at Mamallapuram and the bronzes of the Chola period present remarkable examples of the technique. The depiction of Shiva as Nataraja, in a dance posture with one leg upraised, and a fiery circular halo surrounding his body represents a popular motif in the bronzes.
An inside view of a traditional Tamil houseTamil temples, often simply treated as sculptures on a grand scale, host high spires known as Gopura, consisting of a number of stepped levels, and the vimanam, which rises above the sanctum sanctorum. During the Chola period, the vimanams had more prominence, as seen in the Brihadīsvara temple of Thanjavur. During the Nayak period, the spires became progressively more elaborate and ornate, as exemplified by the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, while the vimanam became much smaller. From the thirteenth century onwards, the entrance gates to the temples, called gopurams in Tamil, also began to grow larger, and more elaborate. The temples at Chidambaram and Srirangam have particularly impressive gopurams, covered with sculptures and reliefs of various scenes and characters from Hindu mythology.
As with Indian art in general, Tamil art traditionally resists portraiture or realism. Artists place primary emphasis on the representation of ideal prototypes, and on depicting the symbols associated with the theme of the artistic work. Small details, such as the direction a hand faces, the animals or trees portrayed, or the time of day depicted, convey critically subtle meanings.[60]
Performing arts
The traditional Tamil performing arts have ancient roots.[61] The royal courts and temples have been centers for the performing arts since the classical period, and possibly earlier. Descriptions of performances in classical Tamil literature and the Natya Shastra, a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, indicate a close relationship between the ancient and modern artforms. A performance in the Tamil tradition aims to bring out the rasa, the flavor, mood, or feeling, inherent in the text, its quality measured by the extent to which it induces the mood in the audience.
Tamil folk artists presenting a Villuppattu near Tirunelveli during a festival (panguni uththiram) at an Ayyanar temple.
Folk artists performing at a funeralTamil shares a classical musical tradition, called Carnatic music, with the rest of South India, primarily oriented towards vocal music, with instruments functioning either as accompaniments, or as imitations of the singer's role. Ancient Tamil music, stemming from the long traditions of classical literature and Cilappatikaram, played a major part in the evolution of Carnatic music.[62] Carnatic music organizes around the twin notions of melody types (rāgam), and cyclical rhythm types (thāḷam). Unlike the northern Hindustani music tradition, carnatic music has an almost exclusively religious quality. In sharp contrast with the restrained and intellectual nature of carnatic music, Tamil folk music tends toward the exuberant. Popular forms of Tamil folk music include the Villuppattu, a form of music performed with a bow, and the Naattupurapaattu, ballads that convey folklore and folk history.
Bharatanatyam represents the dominant classical dance among Tamils, performative rather than participative. The dance constitutes an exposition of the story contained in a song, usually performed by one performer on stage with an orchestra of drums, a drone, and one or more singers backstage. The dancers tell the story through a complicated combination of mudras (hand gestures), facial expressions, and body postures. Until recently, female dancers monopolized performances; recently several well-known male dancers have emerged on the scene.[61]
Karakattam constitutes the most notable of Tamil folk dances. The dancers perform the dance, in its religious form, in front of an image of the goddess Mariamma. The dancer bears, on his or her head, a brass pot filled with uncooked rice, decorated with flowers and surrounded by a bamboo frame, and tumbles and leaps to the rhythm of a song without spilling a grain. Dancers usually perform karakāṭṭamto to a special type of song known as temmanguppattu, or thevar pattu, a folk song in the mode of a lover speaking to his beloved, to the accompaniment of a nadaswaram and melam. Other Tamil folk dances include mayilattam, where the dancers tie a string of peacock feathers around their waists; oyilattam, danced in a circle while waving small pieces of cloth of various colors; poykkal kuthiraiyaattam, in which the dancers use dummy horses; manaattam, in which the dancers imitate the graceful leaping of deer; paraiyattam, a dance to the sound of rhythmical drumbeats; and thippanthattam, a dance involving playing with burning torches.[63] Four to eight women perform the kuravanci, taking the form of a type of dance-drama. A woman opens the drama by playing the part of a female soothsayer of a wandering kurava, tribe, who tells the story of a lady pining for her lover.
The therukoothu, a form of village theater or folk opera, literally means "street play." Traditionally performed in village squares, the dancers use the street setting and very simple props. The performances involve songs and dances, and the stories can be either religious or secular.[64] The performances have an informal air, performers often interacting with the audience, mocking them, or involving them in the dialogue. Therukkūthu has, in recent times, been very successfully adapted to convey social messages, such as abstinence and anti-caste criticism, as well as information about legal rights, and has spread to other parts of India.[65]
The village of Melatur, in Tamil Nadu, has a special type of performance, called the bhagavatamela, in honor of the local deity, performed once a year, and lasting all night. Tamil Nadu also has a well developed stage theater tradition, which has been heavily influenced by western theatre. A number of theatrical companies exist, with repertoires including absurdist, realist, and humorous plays.[66]
Both classical and folk performing arts survive in modern Tamil society. Tamil people in Tamil Nadu also have a passion for films. The Tamil film industry, commonly dubbed Kollywood, constitutes the second-largest film industry in India.[67] Tamil cinema has earned a reputation for both its technical accomplishments, and its artistic and entertainment value. The overwhelming majority of Tamil films contain song and dance sequences. Tamil film music, a popular genre in its own right, often liberally fuses elements of carnatic, Tamil folk, North Indian styles, hip-hop, and heavy metal. Famous music directors of the late twentieth century included M. S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraaja, and A. R. Rahman.
Religion
About 90 percent of the population of Tamil Nadu declare themselves Hindu. Christians and Muslims account for five percent each. Most of the Christians belong to the Roman Catholic Church. About one-third of the Muslim population speak Urdu and two-thirds speak Tamil. Tamil Jains number only a few thousand now.[68] Tamil Hinduism, like other regional varieties of Hinduism, has many peculiarities. Murugan, probably the same as Karthikeya, the son of Siva, but who may in origin have been a different deity, and has taken on a distinctly local character, stands as the most popular deity.[69] The worship of Amman, also called Mariamman, thought to have been derived from an ancient mother goddess, prevails among Hindus.[70] Many Tamils worship Kan̲n̲agi, the heroine of the Cilappatikār̲am, worshipped as Paṭṭin̲i, particularly in Sri Lanka.[71] Ayyavazhi has many followers in Tamil Nadu, mainly in the southern districts.[72] Many temples and devotees of Vishnu, Shiva, Ganapathi, and the other common Hindu deities exist.
Pongal, a harvest festival that occurs in mid-January, and Varudapirappu, the Tamil New Year, which occurs around mid-April, represent the most important Tamil festivals, celebrated by almost all Tamils regardless of religion. Tamils celebrate the Hindu festival Deepavali with fanfare; other local Hindu festivals include Thaipusam, Panguni Uttiram, and Adipperukku. While the Cauvery region celebrates Adiperukku with more pomp in than in other regions, the southern districts of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli, and Thoothukudi predominantly celebrate the Ayyavazhi Festival, Ayya Vaikunda Avataram.[73]
Local deities Vandimalaisaami and Vandimalaichchiamman in EttayapuramIn rural Tamil Nadu, many local deities, called aiyyan̲ārs, villagers worship the spirits of local heroes whom they believe protect the village from harm. Their worship often centers around nadukkal, stones erected in memory of heroes who died in battle. Classical literature frequently mentions that form of worship, seemingly the surviving remnants of an ancient Tamil tradition.[74]
Saivism has a particularly strong following in the North. The Alvars and Nayanars, predominantly Tamils, played a key role in the renaissance of Bhakti tradition in South India. In the tenth century, the philosopher Ramanuja, who propagated the theory of Visishtadvaitam, brought many changes to worshiping practices, creating new regulations on temple worship, and accepted lower-caste Hindus as his prime disciples.[75]
Scholars believe Christianity came to Tamil Nadu with the arrival of Saint Thomas the apostle, with the number of Tamil Christians growing during the colonial period. Many Tamils adhere to the Catholic, Protestant, and Syrian Orthodox faiths. The majority of Tamil muslims pledge allegiance to either mainstream Sunni or the Sufi branch.
Cuisine
Tamil cuisine represents one of the oldest vegetarian culinary heritages in the world. Rice, the major staple food in most of Tamil, usually served steamed with about two to six accompanying items, typically including sambar, dry curry, rasam, kootu, and thayir (curd) or moru (whey or buttermilk).
Tiffin (light meals) usually include one or more of Pongal, Dosai, idli, Vadai along with sambar. Families often enjoy chutney as a breakfast or evening snack. Ghee (clarified butter called neyyi in Tamil, flavors the rice when eaten with dhal or sambar, but not with curds or buttermilk. Morkulambu, a dish often spiced with moru, popular among Tamil with steamed rice.
Each geographical area where Tamils live has developed its own distinct variant of the common dishes plus a few dishes distinctly native to itself. The Chettinad region, comprising of Karaikudi and adjoining areas, enjoys both traditional vegetarian dishes, like appam, uthappam, paal paniyaram, and non-vegetarian dishes, made primarily using chicken.
Martial arts
Tamil in Tamil Nadu and Kerala partice a variety of martial arts including Kuttu Varisai, Varma Kalai, Silambam Nillaikalakki, Maankombukkalai (Madhu) and Kalarippayattu. The weapons used include Silambam, Maankombukkalai, Yeratthai Mulangkol (double stick), Surul Pattai (spring sword), Val Vitchi (single sword), and Yeretthai Val (double sword).
The ancient Tamil art of unarmed bullfighting, popular amongst warriors in the classical period[76][77], has also survived in parts of Tamil Nadu, notably Alanganallur near Madurai, known as Jallikaṭṭu or mañcuviraṭṭu, with events held once a year around the time of the Pongal festival.
Institutions
The global spread of the Tamil diaspora has hindered the formation of formal pan-Tamil institutions. The most important national institutions for Tamils have been the governments of the states where they live, particularly the government of Tamil Nadu and the government of Sri Lanka, which have collaborated in developing technical and scientific terminology in Tamil and promoting its use since the 1950s.
The Self-respect movement (also called the Dravidian movement) has dominated politics in Tamil Nadu. Founded by E.V. Ramasami, popularly known as Periyar, to promote self-respect and rationalism, and to fight casteism and the oppression of the lowest castes, the Self-respect movement gained immense popularity. Every major political party in Tamil Nadu bases its ideology on the Self-respect Movement, and the national political parties play a very small role in Tamil politics.
The Tamil flag adopted by the World Tamil Confederation to represent Tamil people everywhere.In Sri Lanka, the federalist movements, led by the Federal Party (later the Tamil United Liberation Front), dominated Tamil politics until the early 1980s. In the 1980s, a violent military campaign conducted by several militant groups largely succeeded the political movement. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam emerged as the most important force amongst those groups in the 1990s, currently in negotiations for a final settlement with the government. The LTTE controls portions of Sri Lanka, and has attempted to establish its own government there, which it calls the government of Tamil Eelam. LTTE has been banned by the European Union on account of alleged terrorism. It has also been banned in India following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.[78][79]
In the 1960s, the government of Tamil Nadu held a World Tamil Conference, and have continued to meet periodically since then. In 1999, Tamil representatives established a World Tamil Confederation to protect and foster Tamil culture and further a sense of togetherness amongst Tamils in different countries. The Confederation has since adopted a Tamil flag and Tamil song[80] to act as trans-national symbols for the Tamil people; the words on the flag quote the opening line of a poem by the classical poet Kanian Poongundranaar, and means "Everyone is our kin; Everyplace is our home."
Monday 17 May 2010
வெறும் கையில் விபூதி வரவழைப்பது எப்படி?
மந்திரமா? தந்திரமா?
Periyar Pinju
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
சாமியார்களின் கையால் விபூதி கொடுத்தால், நோய்கள் குணமாகும், தொழில் பெருகும், பணம் கொழிக்கும், மாணவர்கள் தேர்வில் தேர்ச்சி அடைய முடியும் என்று தவறாக நம்பி, சாமியார்களிடம் சென்று, தான் உழைத்துச் சேர்த்த செல்வங்களை இழக்கின்றனர், சாமியார்களால் விபூதி, சிறிய லிங்கம் போன்றவைதான் வரவழைக்க முடியும் இதற்கு மேலான பெரிய பொருட்களை வரவழைக்க முடியாது. விபூதி என்னும் சாம்பலை, சாமியார்கள் எப்படி வரவழைக்கிறார்கள் என்பதைப் பார்ப்போமா?
வடித்த சோற்றின் கஞ்சியை எடுத்து அதில் சிறிதளவு தண்ணீர் கலந்து அதனுடன் பக்திப் பரவசமூட்டும் வாசனை கலந்த விபூதியைச் சேர்த்துக் குழப்பி, பிசைந்து அக்கலவையை பட்டாணி போல சிறு சிறு உருண்டைகளாகச் செய்து வெயிலில் நன்றாகக் காய வைத்துக் கொள்வார்கள். பக்தர்கள் வரும்போது இந்த விபூதி உருண்டைகளை யாருக்கும் தெரியாதவாறு கையின் பெரு விரலுக்கும், ஆட்காட்டி விரலுக்கும் இடையில் வைத்துக் கொண்டு கை விரல்களைச் சேர்த்த நிலையில் பக்தர்களுக்கு ஆசி வழங்குவார்கள், கை விரல் இடுக்கில் விபூதி உருண்டைகள் இருப்பது பக்தர்களுக்குத் தெரியாது. பிறகு மந்திரம் போடுவது போல் நடித்து வாயை முணு முணுத்து விரலிடுக்கில் மறைத்து வைத்திருக்கும் விபூதி உருண்டையை, கையின் விரல்களை மூடித் திறப்பது போல சைகை செய்து விபூதி உருண்டைகளை விரலின் நுனியில் கொண்டு வந்து விரலால் நசுக்கிக் கம கம வாசனையுடன் வெளியாகும் சாம்பல் விபூதியைப் பக்தர்களிடம் கொடுப்பார்கள் இதை உண்மையென நம்பி பக்தியில் ஊறிய பக்தர்களும் பெரிய பெரிய தொழில் அதிபர்களும் குனிந்து இரண்டு கைகளாலும் பவ்யமாக சாம்பலை வாங்கிப் பூசிக் கொண்டு, தன் உழைப்பால் அறிவால், முயற்சியால், சம்பாதித்த பணத்தை சாமியார்களிடம் காணிக்கை என்ற பெயரில் கொடுத்துவிட்டு, கூனிக் குறுகிக் கும்பிட்டுவிட்டு வருகின்றனர்.
இவையெல்லாம் மக்களை ஏமாற்றும் தந்திரம்-தானே தவிர மந்திரமல்ல. அன்புக் குழந்தைகளே! உங்களின் பெற்றோர்களிடம் கூறி அவர்களையும், இந்தச் சமுதாயத்தையும் விழிப்படையச் செய்யுங்கள்.
வெங்கட. இராசா.ம.பொடையூர்
Periyar Pinju
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
சாமியார்களின் கையால் விபூதி கொடுத்தால், நோய்கள் குணமாகும், தொழில் பெருகும், பணம் கொழிக்கும், மாணவர்கள் தேர்வில் தேர்ச்சி அடைய முடியும் என்று தவறாக நம்பி, சாமியார்களிடம் சென்று, தான் உழைத்துச் சேர்த்த செல்வங்களை இழக்கின்றனர், சாமியார்களால் விபூதி, சிறிய லிங்கம் போன்றவைதான் வரவழைக்க முடியும் இதற்கு மேலான பெரிய பொருட்களை வரவழைக்க முடியாது. விபூதி என்னும் சாம்பலை, சாமியார்கள் எப்படி வரவழைக்கிறார்கள் என்பதைப் பார்ப்போமா?
வடித்த சோற்றின் கஞ்சியை எடுத்து அதில் சிறிதளவு தண்ணீர் கலந்து அதனுடன் பக்திப் பரவசமூட்டும் வாசனை கலந்த விபூதியைச் சேர்த்துக் குழப்பி, பிசைந்து அக்கலவையை பட்டாணி போல சிறு சிறு உருண்டைகளாகச் செய்து வெயிலில் நன்றாகக் காய வைத்துக் கொள்வார்கள். பக்தர்கள் வரும்போது இந்த விபூதி உருண்டைகளை யாருக்கும் தெரியாதவாறு கையின் பெரு விரலுக்கும், ஆட்காட்டி விரலுக்கும் இடையில் வைத்துக் கொண்டு கை விரல்களைச் சேர்த்த நிலையில் பக்தர்களுக்கு ஆசி வழங்குவார்கள், கை விரல் இடுக்கில் விபூதி உருண்டைகள் இருப்பது பக்தர்களுக்குத் தெரியாது. பிறகு மந்திரம் போடுவது போல் நடித்து வாயை முணு முணுத்து விரலிடுக்கில் மறைத்து வைத்திருக்கும் விபூதி உருண்டையை, கையின் விரல்களை மூடித் திறப்பது போல சைகை செய்து விபூதி உருண்டைகளை விரலின் நுனியில் கொண்டு வந்து விரலால் நசுக்கிக் கம கம வாசனையுடன் வெளியாகும் சாம்பல் விபூதியைப் பக்தர்களிடம் கொடுப்பார்கள் இதை உண்மையென நம்பி பக்தியில் ஊறிய பக்தர்களும் பெரிய பெரிய தொழில் அதிபர்களும் குனிந்து இரண்டு கைகளாலும் பவ்யமாக சாம்பலை வாங்கிப் பூசிக் கொண்டு, தன் உழைப்பால் அறிவால், முயற்சியால், சம்பாதித்த பணத்தை சாமியார்களிடம் காணிக்கை என்ற பெயரில் கொடுத்துவிட்டு, கூனிக் குறுகிக் கும்பிட்டுவிட்டு வருகின்றனர்.
இவையெல்லாம் மக்களை ஏமாற்றும் தந்திரம்-தானே தவிர மந்திரமல்ல. அன்புக் குழந்தைகளே! உங்களின் பெற்றோர்களிடம் கூறி அவர்களையும், இந்தச் சமுதாயத்தையும் விழிப்படையச் செய்யுங்கள்.
வெங்கட. இராசா.ம.பொடையூர்
Sunday 16 May 2010
நம்பிக்கையோடு உழைத்தால் வெற்றி நிச்சயம்
-தமிழக முதல்வர் கலைஞர்
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
சென்னை, மே 16_ இளைஞர்கள் நம்பிக்கை-யோடு உழைத்தால் வெற்றி நிச்சயம் என்று முதல்வர் கலைஞர் கூறினார். உலகத் தமிழ்ச் செம்மொழி மாநாட்டு மய்ய நோக்கப் பாடல் குறுந்தகடு வெளியீட்டு விழா சென்னை பல்-கலைக்கழகத்தில் சனிக்-கிழமை நடைபெற்றது. தமிழக முதல்வர் கலை-ஞர் குறுந்தகட்டை வெளியிட, அதை இசைக் கலைஞர் எல். சுப்பிர-மணியன் பெற்றுக் கொண்-டார். விழாவில் முதல்வர் கலைஞர் பேசிய-தாவது:
ரஹ்மானுடைய இசையை நான் எழுதிய வார்த்தைகளோடு குழைத்து நீங்களெல்லாம் பருகக் கூடிய அரிய வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்துள்ளது. நான் எழுதிய பாடல் தான். ஆனால், தமிழகத்-தினுடைய புலவர்கள், சங்க காலத்து பெரு-மக்கள், சங்க காலத்திற்-குப் பின்னர் வந்த கடைச் சங்க காலம், இடைச் சங்க காலம் எனப் பல்-வேறு கால கட்டங்களில் வாழ்ந்த கம்பர், காள-மேகம் ஆகியோர் காலம் வரையில் எழுதப்பட்ட கவிதைகளை, அறிவுரை-களை, கொள்கைகளை, பண்பாட்டினை, தமிழர்-களுடைய பழக்க வழக்கங்களை எல்லாம் ஒரு பாட்டில் அமைத்து, அதை எழுதுவது எவ்-வளவு பெரிய இடர்பாடு கொண்டது என்பதை நன்கு அறிவேன். பாடலை எழுதும் போது அருகில் இருந்தவர்கள், இந்தப் பாடல் வெற்றி-கரமான பாடலாக வர வேண்டும் என்று எதிர்-பார்த்தார்கள். இந்தப் பாடலை எழுதும்போது ஏற்பட்ட உணர்வை நான் மட்டுமே அறிவேன். எனது வாழ்நாளில் 10, 12 ஆண்டுகளைத் தவிர்த்து மீதியுள்ள ஆண்-டுகள் எல்லாம் தமிழ், தமிழ் என்றுதான் என் உதடுகள் உச்சரித்-திருக்கின்றன. அதனால் யார் ஒருவர் தமிழ் என்று சொன்னாலும் திரும்பிப் பார்ப்பேன், ஒன்றிக் கலந்திடுவேன், உணர்வு-களை மதிப்பேன், அதனை மதிக்கின்றவர்-கள் எங்கிருந்தாலும் அவர்களை வாழ்த்து-வேன். தரணிவாழ் கலை-ஞர்களின் இதயங்களில் குடிகொண்டிருக்கும் நம் வீட்டுப் பிள்ளை ஏ.ஆர்.-ரஹ்மானுக்கு கிடைத்த பெருமைதான் ஆஸ்கார் விருதுகள். ரஹ்மானை போன்ற இளைஞர்கள் எப்படி முன்னேறி-னார்கள் என்பதைச் சிந்-தித்துப் பார்க்க வேண்-டும். அப்படிச் செய்தால் ஒவ்வொரு இளைஞனும் முன்னேற முடியும் என்ற நம்பிக்கையைப் பெற முடியும். ஏனெனில், நம்பிக்கைதான் வாழ்வின் முதல் படி. அதில் கால் வைத்துவிட்டால் வெற்றி நிச்சயம்.
நம்பிக்கையோடு, நான் செலுத்திய உழைப்புதான் எனது முன்னேற்றத்-துக்குக் காரணம். அதே போல், ரஹ்மான் உலகப் புகழ் பெறுவதற்கு அவ-ரது நம்பிக்கை, இடை-விடாத முயற்சிதான். இது யாரோ ஒரு சிலருக்கு மட்டும் அல்ல. சமுதாயத்-தில் உள்ள எல்லா இளைஞர்களுக்கும் ஒரு உந்து சக்தியை ஏற்படுத்-தக் கூடியது. இந்த பாடல், பிறப்பொக்கும் எல்லா உயிர்க்கும் என்று தொடங்குகிறது. எல்லா உயிர்களும் பிறப்பால் ஒன்றுதான். பிறப்பு எல்லா உயிர்களுக்கும் ஒன்றேதான் என்பதுதான் அதற்கு பொருள். பிறந்த பின் என்ன என்பதுதான் இன்றைக்கு உள்ள பிரச்சினை. பிறந்த பின் எல்லோரும் ஒரே குலம், ஒரே இனம் என்ற உணர்-வைப் பெற வேண்டும். எல்லாரும் ஒரே இனம் என்ற முத்திரையுடன் வாழ வேண்டும் என்ற வகையில் இந்தப் பாடல் அமைந்திருக்கிறது. கோவை மாநாடே இந்தப் பாடலுடன்தான் ஆரம்பமாகும். இந்தப் பாடல் விளம்பரத்துக்கு பயன்படுத்தப்படும். நானே விளம்பரமாக இருந்து ஒவ்வொருவ-ரையும் மாநாட்டுக்கு அழைக்கின்றேன் என்-றார் முதல்வர் கலைஞர்.
அமைச்சர்கள் க. அன்பழகன், பரிதி இளம்-வழுதி, தலைமைச் செய-லர் கே.எஸ்.சிறீபதி, பாடகர் டி.எம்.சவுந்தர-ராஜன், சட்டப் பேரவை உறுப்பினர் பீட்டர் அல்போன்ஸ், திரைப்பட இயக்குநர் கவுதம் மேனன் உள்ளிட்டோர் விழாவில் பங்கேற்றனர்.
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
சென்னை, மே 16_ இளைஞர்கள் நம்பிக்கை-யோடு உழைத்தால் வெற்றி நிச்சயம் என்று முதல்வர் கலைஞர் கூறினார். உலகத் தமிழ்ச் செம்மொழி மாநாட்டு மய்ய நோக்கப் பாடல் குறுந்தகடு வெளியீட்டு விழா சென்னை பல்-கலைக்கழகத்தில் சனிக்-கிழமை நடைபெற்றது. தமிழக முதல்வர் கலை-ஞர் குறுந்தகட்டை வெளியிட, அதை இசைக் கலைஞர் எல். சுப்பிர-மணியன் பெற்றுக் கொண்-டார். விழாவில் முதல்வர் கலைஞர் பேசிய-தாவது:
ரஹ்மானுடைய இசையை நான் எழுதிய வார்த்தைகளோடு குழைத்து நீங்களெல்லாம் பருகக் கூடிய அரிய வாய்ப்பு கிடைத்துள்ளது. நான் எழுதிய பாடல் தான். ஆனால், தமிழகத்-தினுடைய புலவர்கள், சங்க காலத்து பெரு-மக்கள், சங்க காலத்திற்-குப் பின்னர் வந்த கடைச் சங்க காலம், இடைச் சங்க காலம் எனப் பல்-வேறு கால கட்டங்களில் வாழ்ந்த கம்பர், காள-மேகம் ஆகியோர் காலம் வரையில் எழுதப்பட்ட கவிதைகளை, அறிவுரை-களை, கொள்கைகளை, பண்பாட்டினை, தமிழர்-களுடைய பழக்க வழக்கங்களை எல்லாம் ஒரு பாட்டில் அமைத்து, அதை எழுதுவது எவ்-வளவு பெரிய இடர்பாடு கொண்டது என்பதை நன்கு அறிவேன். பாடலை எழுதும் போது அருகில் இருந்தவர்கள், இந்தப் பாடல் வெற்றி-கரமான பாடலாக வர வேண்டும் என்று எதிர்-பார்த்தார்கள். இந்தப் பாடலை எழுதும்போது ஏற்பட்ட உணர்வை நான் மட்டுமே அறிவேன். எனது வாழ்நாளில் 10, 12 ஆண்டுகளைத் தவிர்த்து மீதியுள்ள ஆண்-டுகள் எல்லாம் தமிழ், தமிழ் என்றுதான் என் உதடுகள் உச்சரித்-திருக்கின்றன. அதனால் யார் ஒருவர் தமிழ் என்று சொன்னாலும் திரும்பிப் பார்ப்பேன், ஒன்றிக் கலந்திடுவேன், உணர்வு-களை மதிப்பேன், அதனை மதிக்கின்றவர்-கள் எங்கிருந்தாலும் அவர்களை வாழ்த்து-வேன். தரணிவாழ் கலை-ஞர்களின் இதயங்களில் குடிகொண்டிருக்கும் நம் வீட்டுப் பிள்ளை ஏ.ஆர்.-ரஹ்மானுக்கு கிடைத்த பெருமைதான் ஆஸ்கார் விருதுகள். ரஹ்மானை போன்ற இளைஞர்கள் எப்படி முன்னேறி-னார்கள் என்பதைச் சிந்-தித்துப் பார்க்க வேண்-டும். அப்படிச் செய்தால் ஒவ்வொரு இளைஞனும் முன்னேற முடியும் என்ற நம்பிக்கையைப் பெற முடியும். ஏனெனில், நம்பிக்கைதான் வாழ்வின் முதல் படி. அதில் கால் வைத்துவிட்டால் வெற்றி நிச்சயம்.
நம்பிக்கையோடு, நான் செலுத்திய உழைப்புதான் எனது முன்னேற்றத்-துக்குக் காரணம். அதே போல், ரஹ்மான் உலகப் புகழ் பெறுவதற்கு அவ-ரது நம்பிக்கை, இடை-விடாத முயற்சிதான். இது யாரோ ஒரு சிலருக்கு மட்டும் அல்ல. சமுதாயத்-தில் உள்ள எல்லா இளைஞர்களுக்கும் ஒரு உந்து சக்தியை ஏற்படுத்-தக் கூடியது. இந்த பாடல், பிறப்பொக்கும் எல்லா உயிர்க்கும் என்று தொடங்குகிறது. எல்லா உயிர்களும் பிறப்பால் ஒன்றுதான். பிறப்பு எல்லா உயிர்களுக்கும் ஒன்றேதான் என்பதுதான் அதற்கு பொருள். பிறந்த பின் என்ன என்பதுதான் இன்றைக்கு உள்ள பிரச்சினை. பிறந்த பின் எல்லோரும் ஒரே குலம், ஒரே இனம் என்ற உணர்-வைப் பெற வேண்டும். எல்லாரும் ஒரே இனம் என்ற முத்திரையுடன் வாழ வேண்டும் என்ற வகையில் இந்தப் பாடல் அமைந்திருக்கிறது. கோவை மாநாடே இந்தப் பாடலுடன்தான் ஆரம்பமாகும். இந்தப் பாடல் விளம்பரத்துக்கு பயன்படுத்தப்படும். நானே விளம்பரமாக இருந்து ஒவ்வொருவ-ரையும் மாநாட்டுக்கு அழைக்கின்றேன் என்-றார் முதல்வர் கலைஞர்.
அமைச்சர்கள் க. அன்பழகன், பரிதி இளம்-வழுதி, தலைமைச் செய-லர் கே.எஸ்.சிறீபதி, பாடகர் டி.எம்.சவுந்தர-ராஜன், சட்டப் பேரவை உறுப்பினர் பீட்டர் அல்போன்ஸ், திரைப்பட இயக்குநர் கவுதம் மேனன் உள்ளிட்டோர் விழாவில் பங்கேற்றனர்.
Friday 14 May 2010
GODMEN ARE HAVING BAD STARS
The Modern Rationalist
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
I rarely visit temples. “We must visit a
temple on your birthday,” my wife
Kalyani had emphatically insisted during our last visit to Seattle in the US “to seek blessings on your birthday,” August 27, 2009, that marked my 70th summer.
Nithyananda Vedic Temple at
Seattle, US
The Nithyananda Vedic Temple, the very first time that I heard that name, at Redmond in Seattle, the Boeing city, was the nearest temple that my daughter-in-law Manjula identified. She and our youngest son Gaurang who live in Kirkland, drove us there a little after 6 p.m. in his Toyota Prius, along with our eldest son Gaurav who had joined us. Gaurang had taken delivery of the car a couple of days earlier. Gaurang says he is an atheist, Gaurav
visits temples on festivals, after checking out their menu for the day!
The tall Indian lady volunteer who greeted us as we walked in said it was one of the four vedic temples established by Paramahamsa Nithyananda, for “bringing vedic wisdom to life.” Learning that we were from Bangalore, she said she had just returned after a few weeks at the ashram at Bidadi near Bangalore.
The photograph of the youngish, smiling swami beamed on those who came in. His yellow headgear however looked oversized on his short physique. The building in whose ground floor flat the temple is housed is in the prime business district. A board “Nithyananda Vedic Centre” proclaimed the hallowed purpose of its activities at the entrance. The front sit-out was the reception, which led to a fairly large room.
A large hall doubled as the walk-through sanctum sanctorum. A fair, handsome man, the main priest, was performing and overseeing the rituals, assisted by younger volunteer trainees. The fragrance of burning incense, mangalarathi performed with lighted camphor on a flat brass handle, “thirtha,” “kumkum” and petals of flowers offered as prasad, and such other appurtenants, and devotees including some foreigners, gave the set-up the aura of a holy place worth the visit. The exit leads the visitor to a small room in which on a table small quantities of prasadam were placed in leaf cups. A board advised visitors “Minimum donation $ 1.00.”
Tried and tested path of ‘merchants of religion’ and
spiritual leaders
Several well-meaning volunteers, mostly women, were trying to enlist enrolment for the residential retreat the Swamiji was conducting during his visit from India, a few weeks hence. The donation of $ 6,000 included accommodation and food. It was clear as daylight that he was following the tried and tested path of other merchants of religion and spiritual “leaders”. His following was swelling to the extent that he was finding it impossible to respond to the emails seeking blessings or healing. In an advisory to his followers he asked those seeking blessings or healing to pray to Varadamoorthi between 7 and 7.20 p.m. every day. Gaurang entered his email id in the register kept for the purpose and we left thereafter.
Currency stolen from Swami found to be counterfeit notes
Some time after our return to India, I asked a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Mission, known for his wit and humour, if he had heard of Swami Nithyananda. “I have not only heard of him, but have also visited his ashram near Bidadi,” he replied. “He was not there when I visited, but the hospitality was good!” he chuckled. Then he expressed his anguish. “How they exploit gullible people…” This was a good three months before the video showing Nithyananda and a Tamil actress in action hit the TV channels. The video would have surely given him a much higher score than the earlier hit record he claims to have had on Youtube and Google! Besides his sexapades,a report talks of his expertise in counterfeiting, as some hapless fellow who stole the notes discovered!
Contrary to his promise,
Nithyananda vanished
Swami Nithyananda had emphatically stated that after the present Kumbh, he would come to the Bidadi Ashram on March 18, but has vanished. The police have filed seven charges including rape and unnatural sex, devotees and others wait.
Godmen are having bad “stars” these days, from the film world or from the sky!
Shiv Dwivedi running a sex den
Barely educated 39-year-old Shiv Dwivedi started in Delhi as a security guard and moved onto become a massage parlour employee. Caught more than once for running a sex racket and theft, he transformed himself as Ichhadhari Sant Swami Bhimanandji Maharaj Chitrakootwale. He is now cooling his heels behind bars. His ashram doubled as a sex den for high end clients! It is not correct to say that only such one-man missions are vulnerable to such abuse.
Contradictory stands adopted by
Udipi Shiroor Math
In the highly orthodox Madhwa citadel of orthodoxy, Swami Lakshmivara Theertha of Udipi’s Shiroor Math continues to wear the saffron, and was chosen again as Paryaya Swamiji for the third time, even after his alleged 15-year affair with a woman became public knowledge!
The Udupi based math did not permit another Swami, though he was elected as head of the paryaya a couple of years ago, to touch the idol of Krishna, because he had crossed the oceans! Before this, when Vidya Bhushana Swamiji realised that he had fallen in love with the daughter of a devotee, and decided to marry her, the Madhwa math rose in revolt against him. He quit the order and continues to command respect for his integrity. His bhajan programmes are packed and CDs sell like hot cakes.
Jain godmen vying with each other to create record in number of rape cases
Two Jaipur-based Jain munis were alleged to be comparing scores on who had raped more female devotees. When a devotee went to the police, the junior muni committed suicide. Another Jain muni elsewhere, known for raising a tiger on a vegetarian diet, allegedly routinely sexually abused two Jain sadhvis, making them pregnant repeatedly and forcing them to undergo abortion. The hue and cry that followed such reports was short-lived. Money power ensured that the disquiet was soon buried rather than the guilty muni being kicked out.
Woman witnessing sexual misdeed of a priest murdered
Then there is the murder of a Christian nun by a man and woman belonging to the clergy in Kerala, because she caught them having sex. All efforts were made to hush up the case until a no nonsense CBI officer again investigated the case some time ago.
Numerous stories of scandals do not come to light
For every shameful instance that comes to light, there are hundreds that do not. So why do people flock to godmen, or for that matter godwomen? I feel the spiritual solace they dish out is only a façade. The real reason is the hope entertained by “devotees” (at times themselves scoundrels) that their real or imaginary problems will be solved by getting on the right side of such people.
(Courtesy: The New Indian Expre ss
- 29-3-2010
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
I rarely visit temples. “We must visit a
temple on your birthday,” my wife
Kalyani had emphatically insisted during our last visit to Seattle in the US “to seek blessings on your birthday,” August 27, 2009, that marked my 70th summer.
Nithyananda Vedic Temple at
Seattle, US
The Nithyananda Vedic Temple, the very first time that I heard that name, at Redmond in Seattle, the Boeing city, was the nearest temple that my daughter-in-law Manjula identified. She and our youngest son Gaurang who live in Kirkland, drove us there a little after 6 p.m. in his Toyota Prius, along with our eldest son Gaurav who had joined us. Gaurang had taken delivery of the car a couple of days earlier. Gaurang says he is an atheist, Gaurav
visits temples on festivals, after checking out their menu for the day! The tall Indian lady volunteer who greeted us as we walked in said it was one of the four vedic temples established by Paramahamsa Nithyananda, for “bringing vedic wisdom to life.” Learning that we were from Bangalore, she said she had just returned after a few weeks at the ashram at Bidadi near Bangalore.
The photograph of the youngish, smiling swami beamed on those who came in. His yellow headgear however looked oversized on his short physique. The building in whose ground floor flat the temple is housed is in the prime business district. A board “Nithyananda Vedic Centre” proclaimed the hallowed purpose of its activities at the entrance. The front sit-out was the reception, which led to a fairly large room.
A large hall doubled as the walk-through sanctum sanctorum. A fair, handsome man, the main priest, was performing and overseeing the rituals, assisted by younger volunteer trainees. The fragrance of burning incense, mangalarathi performed with lighted camphor on a flat brass handle, “thirtha,” “kumkum” and petals of flowers offered as prasad, and such other appurtenants, and devotees including some foreigners, gave the set-up the aura of a holy place worth the visit. The exit leads the visitor to a small room in which on a table small quantities of prasadam were placed in leaf cups. A board advised visitors “Minimum donation $ 1.00.”
Tried and tested path of ‘merchants of religion’ and
spiritual leaders
Several well-meaning volunteers, mostly women, were trying to enlist enrolment for the residential retreat the Swamiji was conducting during his visit from India, a few weeks hence. The donation of $ 6,000 included accommodation and food. It was clear as daylight that he was following the tried and tested path of other merchants of religion and spiritual “leaders”. His following was swelling to the extent that he was finding it impossible to respond to the emails seeking blessings or healing. In an advisory to his followers he asked those seeking blessings or healing to pray to Varadamoorthi between 7 and 7.20 p.m. every day. Gaurang entered his email id in the register kept for the purpose and we left thereafter.
Currency stolen from Swami found to be counterfeit notes
Some time after our return to India, I asked a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Mission, known for his wit and humour, if he had heard of Swami Nithyananda. “I have not only heard of him, but have also visited his ashram near Bidadi,” he replied. “He was not there when I visited, but the hospitality was good!” he chuckled. Then he expressed his anguish. “How they exploit gullible people…” This was a good three months before the video showing Nithyananda and a Tamil actress in action hit the TV channels. The video would have surely given him a much higher score than the earlier hit record he claims to have had on Youtube and Google! Besides his sexapades,a report talks of his expertise in counterfeiting, as some hapless fellow who stole the notes discovered!
Contrary to his promise,
Nithyananda vanished
Swami Nithyananda had emphatically stated that after the present Kumbh, he would come to the Bidadi Ashram on March 18, but has vanished. The police have filed seven charges including rape and unnatural sex, devotees and others wait.
Godmen are having bad “stars” these days, from the film world or from the sky!
Shiv Dwivedi running a sex den
Barely educated 39-year-old Shiv Dwivedi started in Delhi as a security guard and moved onto become a massage parlour employee. Caught more than once for running a sex racket and theft, he transformed himself as Ichhadhari Sant Swami Bhimanandji Maharaj Chitrakootwale. He is now cooling his heels behind bars. His ashram doubled as a sex den for high end clients! It is not correct to say that only such one-man missions are vulnerable to such abuse.
Contradictory stands adopted by
Udipi Shiroor Math
In the highly orthodox Madhwa citadel of orthodoxy, Swami Lakshmivara Theertha of Udipi’s Shiroor Math continues to wear the saffron, and was chosen again as Paryaya Swamiji for the third time, even after his alleged 15-year affair with a woman became public knowledge!
The Udupi based math did not permit another Swami, though he was elected as head of the paryaya a couple of years ago, to touch the idol of Krishna, because he had crossed the oceans! Before this, when Vidya Bhushana Swamiji realised that he had fallen in love with the daughter of a devotee, and decided to marry her, the Madhwa math rose in revolt against him. He quit the order and continues to command respect for his integrity. His bhajan programmes are packed and CDs sell like hot cakes.
Jain godmen vying with each other to create record in number of rape cases
Two Jaipur-based Jain munis were alleged to be comparing scores on who had raped more female devotees. When a devotee went to the police, the junior muni committed suicide. Another Jain muni elsewhere, known for raising a tiger on a vegetarian diet, allegedly routinely sexually abused two Jain sadhvis, making them pregnant repeatedly and forcing them to undergo abortion. The hue and cry that followed such reports was short-lived. Money power ensured that the disquiet was soon buried rather than the guilty muni being kicked out.
Woman witnessing sexual misdeed of a priest murdered
Then there is the murder of a Christian nun by a man and woman belonging to the clergy in Kerala, because she caught them having sex. All efforts were made to hush up the case until a no nonsense CBI officer again investigated the case some time ago.
Numerous stories of scandals do not come to light
For every shameful instance that comes to light, there are hundreds that do not. So why do people flock to godmen, or for that matter godwomen? I feel the spiritual solace they dish out is only a façade. The real reason is the hope entertained by “devotees” (at times themselves scoundrels) that their real or imaginary problems will be solved by getting on the right side of such people.
(Courtesy: The New Indian Expre ss
- 29-3-2010
கடவுள் புரோக்கர்கள்
Unmai:May 1-15
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
ஏமாற்றிப்பிழைப்பதற்கு. எவ்வள-வோ வழிகள் உலகில் உண்டு.அது கால மாற்றத்திற்கேற்ப ஒவ்வொரு சீசனுக்கும் மாறுபடும். நாகரீகம் மற்றும் தொழில் நுட்ப வளர்ச்சி போன்ற காரணிகளால் ஏமாற்றுப்-பேர்வழிகளும் தங்களது உத்திகளை மாற்றிக்-கொள்வார்கள். ஆனால், ஆதிகாலம் தொட்டு ஒரு பொருளை முன்வைத்து ஒரு கும்பல் ஏய்த்துப்பிழைப்பது ஒன்று உண்டென்றால் அதுதான் கடவுளை வைத்துப் பிழைக்கும் சாமியார் வகையறாக்-கள்.
நிறுவனமயமாகப்பட்ட மதங்களில் இந்த சாமியார்கள் அதிகம். குறிப்பாக அர்த்த-முள்ள இந்து மதத்தில் சாமியார்-களை யாரும் கேள்வி-கேட்பது இல்லை. இதனாலேயே அவர்கள் தமது சுகபோக வாழ்வுக்கு எளிதாக சாமியார் வேடம் போடமுடிகிறது. பக்தர்கள் பலம்,அதிலும் அரசியல் மற்றும் அரசு நிருவாகத்தில் உள்ள அதிகாரிகள் ஆகிய பக்தர்கள் பலம் இந்த சாமியார்களுக்கு இருந்துவிட்டால் இவர்கள் மாட்டுவதில்லை. அறிவியல் வளார்ந்த இந்த காலக்-கட்டத்திலும் அதன் வசதிகளை எல்லாவிதத்திலும் பயன்-படுத்திக்கொண்டு மென்மேலும் தம்மை வளப்படுத்திக்-கொள்-கிறார்கள். ஆனால், அண்மையில் வளர்ந்துள்ள அறிவியல் தொழில்நுட்பம் இவர்களின் முகத்திரையைக் கிழித்து-விட்டது. இதில். இப்போது கடைசியாக மாட்டியவர் திருவண்ணாமலை ராஜசேகர் என்ற நித்யானந்தா.
இளம் வயதிலேயே சாமியார் வேடம் தரித்து ஒரு சில யோகாசன, தியான முறை-களைக் கற்றுக்கொண்டு அதனை மூலதன-மாக்கி மடம் அமைத்து கோடி கோடியாய் குவித்தவர் இந்த நித்யானந்தா. வெளியில் பிரம்மச்சரிய வேடமும், உள்ளே நடிகை-களுடன் கும்மாளமும் அடித்த இவரது ஆட்டத்தை ஒரு கேமரா படம்-பிடித்துவிட அது இந்திய துணைக்-கண்டத்-தையே உலுக்கிவிட்டது. ஆனால், இந்துத்து-வாக்கள் மட்டும் வாய்மூடியே இருந்தனர். அப்படி இருந்த-தோடு மட்டுமல்லாமல், அவரது சொத்துக்-களை காப்பாற்ற மறைமுக ஆலோ-சனைகளும் வழங்கியிருக்கிறார்கள். எப்படியும் சட்டத்தின் பிடியில் இருந்து தப்பவைத்-துவிடலாம் என்றுதான் அவர்கள் திட்டமிட்டு ஹரித்துவாருக்கு இந்த நித்தியானந்தாவை அனுப்-பிவைத்தார்கள். அது புண்ணிய-பூமியல்லவா? அங்கே கும்பமேளாவுக்காகக் குவிந்த காவி-களுடன் இந்த இளம் காவியும் இணைந்து மறைந்தும் திரிந்தது. வழக்கு கர்னாடகாவுக்கு மாற்றப்பட்டதுமே அது இந்த்துத்துவ பா.ஜ.க ஆளும் மாநில-மாதலால் நித்தியானந்தா எளிதாக தப்பிவிடுவார் என்றுதான் இதழ்க-ளெல்லாம் எழுதின. ஆயினும் முதலில் வெளியான பாலியல் முறைகேடு தவிர, நிதிமோசடி, கொலை-மிரட்டல், மத உணர்வை புண்படுத்துதல் போன்ற குற்றச்சாட்டுகள் இந்தியாவில் மட்டு-மல்லாமல், அமெரிக்காவில் உள்ள இவரது ஆசிரமம் தொடர்பாகவும் டக்ளஸ் மெக்கெல்லர் என்பவர் கலி-போர்னியா அட்டர்னி ஜெனரலிடம் புகார்கள் அளித்தது என குவிந்து கொண்-டேபோக வேறு-வழியில்லாமல் கர்நாடக காவல்துறை நித்யானந்தாவைத்தேடி இமாச்சலபிரதேசம் தேடி புறப்பட்டது. அங்கு உள்ள சோலன் மாவட்டம்,மாம்லிக் என்ற கிராமத்தில் கடந்த ஒன்றரை மாதமாக பதுங்கியிருந்த நித்யானந்தாவை காவலர்கள் ஏப்ரல் 21 அன்று கைது செய்தனர்.
இந்நிலையில், இவரது பிடதி ஆசிரமத்-திலும் சோதனையிடப்பட்டு அங்கிருந்து ஏராள-மான ஆவணங்களும் ,வீடியோ சி.டி.-க்களும் கைப்பற்றப்பட்டுள்ளன. பெங்களூரு கொண்டுவரப்பட்டுள்ள நித்யானந்தா நீதிமன்றத்தின் முன் நிறுத்தப்-பட்டு போலிஸ் காவலில் விசாரிக்கப்பட்டு வருகிறார். இந்த இந்து மத சாமியாரின் நிலை இப்படி இருக்க இன்னொருபுறம் கிறித்துவ சாமியார்களான பாதிரியார்கள் மீதும் குற்றச்சாட்டுகள் எழுந்துள்ளன.
அய்ந்து வருடங்களாக ஆழ்ந்து தூங்கிக் கொண்டிருந்த பிரச்சினை, அமெரிக்காவை அதிர வைத்துக்கொண்டிருக்கிறது. அதிர வைத்த சர்ச்சைகளின் நாயகன் தமிழக பாதிரியார் ஜோசப் பழனிவேல் ஜெயபால். அமெரிக்காவில் உள்ள மினிசோட்டா நகரில் கிராக்ஸ்டன் தேவாலயத்தில் மூன்று வருட கான்ட்ராக்டில் (2004இல்) ஊழியம் செய்யச் சென்றவரே இந்த பாதிரியார்.
பெண்களிடம் இரக்கம் காட்டுவதுபோல் காட்டி, பின்பு சாதுரியமாக, அந்தப் பெண்களின் மகள்களைத் தன் வலையில் சிக்க வைத்திருக்கிறார். சில பாதிரியார்கள் எச்சரிக்கை செய்தபோது, அதனைக் கண்டு-கொள்ள வில்லையாம் ஜெயபால். 14,15 வயது பெண்களுடன் நெருக்கமாக இருந்ததாகவும், இரு பெண்களுடன் உல்லாசமாகச் சுற்றியதா-கவும் பேராய ஊழியர்களால் குற்றம் சாட்டப்-பட்டுள்ளாராம்.
பாதிக்கப்பட்ட குழந்தைகளின் வீடுகளுக்கு விஷயம் தெரிந்து, பிரச்சினையாகியுள்ளது. அக் குழந்தைகளின் பெற்றோர் அமெரிக்க பேராயர் விக்டர் பால்கேயிடம் புகார் கொடுத்-தனராம். இந்நிலையில், ஜெயபால் தனது தாயாருக்கு உடல்நலம் சரியில்லை என்ற காரணம் கூறி, இந்தியாவுக்குத் திரும்பி-விட்டாராம் (2005இல்). ஆரம்பநிலை விசாரணை-யின் போதே ஜெயபாலை உடனடி-யாக திருச்சபையில் இருந்து நீக்குங்கள் என்று விக்டர் பால்கே தமிழக பேராயருக்கு அனுப்பியிருந்த கடிதத்தில் குறிப்பிட்டிருந்-தார்.
உதகை பேராயர் அந்தோணிசாமியோ, ஜெயபாலுக்கு, தக்க அறிவுரை கூறப்-பட்டுள்ளது. இனிமேல் யார் வம்புக்கும் போக-மாட்டார் என்று பதில் கடிதம் எழுதி அனுப்பினாராம். இதனால் கொதித்துப்-போன விக்டர் பால்கே, ரோம் மாநகரில் உள்ள வாடிகன் தலைமை-யகத்திற்கே கடிதம் ஒன்றினை அனுப்பி-னா. அக்கடிதத்தில், ஜெயபால் ஒரு பெண் பித்தர்; தேவாலயப் பணிகளுக்கே தகுதியற்றவர்; ஆசைக்கு இணங்காவிட்டால் உன் குடும்-பத்தையே அழித்துவிடுவேன்; நான் சொல்வ-தைச் செய்யாவிட்டால் தெய்வகுத்தம் என்றெல்லாம் சொல்லி பாதிக்கப்பட்ட பெண்ணை மிரட்டியதாகவும் விவரித்-துள்ளார்.
அமெரிக்க சட்டப்படி, மைனர் சிறுமியை பலாத்காரம் செய்தால் 35 வருட கடுங்காவல் தண்டனை உண்டு. தமிழகத்திலுள்ள கத்தோலிக்க திருச்சபையினர் உதவி செய்யத் தயங்கிய நிலையில், தாங்களாகவே முயற்சி-செய்து ஜெயபால் இருக்குமிடத்தைக் கண்டறிந்துள்ளது அமெரிக்க காவல்துறை. ஜெயபாலை நாடு கடத்தக் கோரி வாஷிங்டனிலுள்ள இந்திய தூதரகம், டெல்லியில் உள்ள அமெரிக்க தூதரகம், இந்திய வெளியுறவுத்துறை என்று எல்லோரும் ஒருமித்த குரல் கொடுக்க, தமிழகத்திலுள்ள பேராயர்களும் இதற்கு ஒப்புதல் அளித்-துள்ளார்கள்.
இப்படியொரு சூழ்நிலையில், -ஜயபால் தன் விவகாரத்தில் எல்லாம் வெறும் புகார்-களாகத்தானே இருக்கு. நான் தப்பு செய்திருந்-தால், அதற்கான ஆதாரங்களை அடிப்-படையாக வைத்து எஃப்.ஐ.ஆர், சம்மன் போன்ற விஷயங்கள் தயாராகி அவை-யெல்லாம் நம்ம நாட்டுக்கு வரட்டுமே. கோர்ட் சொல்லும்வரை நாம் நிரபராதி-தானே! என்று சாதாரணமாகக் கூறியுள்-ளாராம்!
மேலும் வேண்டுமென்றே பொய்ப்புகார்-களை எழுப்பி, தன் பெயரைக் கெடுப்பதாகக் கூறியதோடு இது பச்சை பிளாக்மெயில் என்றும் சொல்லியுள்ளாராம். ஜெயபாலுக்கு அடைக்கலம் கொடுத்திருப்பதாகக் கூறப்படும் ஊட்டி ஆயர் அமல்ராஜ்க்கு, ஜெயபாலை விசாரணைக்காக அமெரிக்கா அனுப்பி-வைக்கும்-படி சென்னை பேராயர் சின்னப்பா உத்தரவிட்டுள்ளாராம்.
உட்கட்சிப் பூசல் என்பதைப் போல மத உட்பூசலே (ப்ராட்டஸ்டண்ட், கத்தோலிக்க சர்ச்சுகளுக்கு இடையேயுள்ள பிளவே) தன்மீது எழுந்துள்ள குற்றச்சாட்டுக்குக் காரணம் என்று விளக்கமும் அளித்-துள்ளார். இப்போது நித்யானந்தா கைதாகியிருக்-கிறார். இந்த ஜெயபாலின் கதி என்ன என்பது இன்னும் சில காலத்தில் தெரியவரலாம். மனித இன இயல்புக்கு மாறாக பிரம்மச்சரியம் என்பதை புனிதப்படுத்தி அதனை முன்வைத்து பிரச்சாரம் செய்து தமது மதத்திற்கு ஆள்பிடிக்-கின்றனர் மதவாதிகள். ஆனால், எதையும் மீறி மனித இயல்பு வெளிப்பட்டுவிடவே மதங்களின் புனிதக்-கட்டு-கள் உடைந்து விடுகின்றன.
கல்வியின் வாயிலாகவும், கடவுள்,மதம் தொடர்பான உண்மைகளை ஊடகங்களும் கற்பிக்கவேண்டும். சட்டமும், நீதியும் முறையாகச்-செயல்பட்டு தண்டிக்கவேண்டும். இல்லை-யென்றால் இந்த மோசடிப்-பேர்வழிகள் உருவாகிக்கொண்டுதான் இருப்பார்கள்.
டில்லியில் பெரியார் மய்யம் திறப்பு
Unmai:May 1-15
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
பெரியார் சுயமரியாதைப் பிரச்சார நிறுவனத்தின் சார்பில் மனித நேயக் கொள்கைகள், சமூக நீதி மற்றும் கிராமப்புற மேம்பாடு சமூக சேவை, கல்விப் பணி, பகுத்தறிவுப் பிரச்சாரம் ஆகியவற்றைச் செய்யும் பொருட்டும், தந்தை பெரியாரின் கொள்கைகளை உலகம் முழுவதும் பரப்பும் வகையிலும் இந்திய நாட்டின் தலைநகரான டில்லியின் புறநகர்ப் பகுதியில் பாம்நொலி என்ற இடத்தில் பெரியார் மய்யம் தமிழர் தலைவர் கி.வீரமணி அவர்களின் சீரிய முயற்சியால் உருவாக்கப்பட்டது.
இம்மய்யம் உருவாக திராவிடர் கழகத் தோழர்களின் உழைப்பு அபாரமானது. ஏறத்தாழ 2, 21/2 ஆண்டுகள் தமிழர்களிடம் சென்று நன்கொடை பெற்று இந்த மய்யம் உருவாகக் கடுமையாகக் உழைத்தனர். தமிழர்களின் கடும் உழைப்பாலும் அவர்களின் நிதியுடனும் கட்டப்பட்டது. தமிழர்கள் கொடுத்த நன்கொடையை வைத்து இம்மய்யத்தின் பெரும்பகுதிப் பணிகள் முடிக்கப்பட்டன. தங்கள் அடிமைத்-தளையான தாலியை அகற்றி பெரியார் மய்யத்திற்குக் கொடுத்த கழகக் குடும்பங்களும் உண்டு.
1998 இல் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்களால் அடிக்கல் நாட்டப்பட்டு 2000ஆம் ஆண்டு (அக்டோபர்) பன்னாட்டு நாத்திக அமைப்பான சர்வதேச மனித நேய மற்றும் அறநெறி மன்றத்தின் தலைவர் லெவி ஃபிராகல் அவர்களால் திறந்து வைக்கப்பட்டது. தில்லியின் முதலமைச்சர் ஷீலா தீக்ஷத், சந்திரஜித்யாதவ்,நி.ரி. மூப்பனார் இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் தேசிய பொதுச் செயலாளர் இராஜா, பகுஜன் சமாஜ் கட்சித் தலைவர் கன்சிராம், உ.பி. முதல்வர் மாயாவதி ஆகியோர் பங்கேற்றனர்.
இந்த நிகழ்ச்சியில் புது டில்லி முதலமைச்சர் ரூ 5 இலட்சத்தை பெரியார் மய்யத்திற்கு அளிப்பதாகக் கூறினார். இந் நிகழ்ச்சியில் ஏறத்தாழ 1,200 தோழர்கள் பங்கேற்றனர்.
இங்கு கணினிப் பயிற்சி உள்ளிட்ட ஏராளமான பயிற்சிகள் அளிக்கப்பட்டன. பெரியார் மய்யத்தில் இந்திரப்பிரஸ்த பல்கலைக்-கழகத்தின் எம்.சி.ஏ., எம்.பி.ஏ. வகுப்புகளுக்குப் படிப்பு மய்யம் அமைக்கப்பட்டது. சிறப்பான கணினி மய்யம் ஒன்றும் இயங்கியது. வான்படை, எல்லைப் பாதுகாப்புப்படை வீரர்களும், அருகில் உள்ள கிராமப்புற இளைஞர்களும் இவ்வகுப்பில் சேர்ந்துள்ளனர்.தேசிய திறந்த வெளிப் பள்ளி இப் பெரியார் மய்யத்தை தொழிற்கல்விக் கணினிப் பயிற்சிக்கெனவும் ஏற்றுக்கொண்டது. கட்டிடக் கலைபற்றி அகில உலகக் கருத்தரங்கு பெரிய பல்கலைக்கழகத்தோடு இணைந்து அண்மையில் பெரியர் மய்யம் சார்பில் நடத்தப்பட்டது.
பள்ளிச் சிறுவர்களுக்கு முதல் வகுப்பில் தொடங்கி 12 ஆம் வகுப்பு வரையிலும் பல்வேறு பாடங்களில் குறைந்த கட்டணத்தில் நடத்தப்பட்டன.
உஷா நிறுவனத்தோடு இணைந்து கிராமப்-புறப் பெண்களுக்கும் பயிற்சி கொடுக்கப்பட்டது.
டில்லி அரசும், இந்திரப்பிரஸ்த பல்கலைக்-கழகமும் பெரியார் மய்யத்தின் அருகில் கணினிப் பயன்பாட்டை மிகுதிப்படுத்தவும் பயிற்சி கொடுக்கவும் முடிவு செய்தனர்.
அதோடு இல்லாமல் அடிக்கடி சமூக நீதி ஆர்வலர்கள் -கூடும் இடமாக பெரியார் மய்யம் ஆனது. கலந்துரையாடல்கள், கருத்தரங்குகள் தலைவர்களின் சந்திப்புகள் என்று சமூக நீதிக்கான களமாக உருவானதால், மிரண்டு போன பார்ப்பனர்கள் சதி செய்தனர். இந்த பெரியார் மய்யத்தின் பணிகளைக் கண்டு மிரண்ட அன்றைய பாரதீய ஜனதா கட்சியின் அரசாங்கம் 2001 ஆம் ஆண்டு அதை இடித்தது.
மாலை 5 மணிக்கு முறையான தடை ஆணையை உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் பெற்றும் அதிகாரிகள் சட்ட விரோதமாக இடித்தார்கள். பெரியார் மய்யம் இடிக்கப்பட்டதைக் கேட்டவுடன் தமிழர்கள் கொதித்தார்கள் சட்ட நடவடிக்கைகள் தமிழர்களின் நிதியுதவியுடனே எடுக்கப்பட்டன.
தமிழ்நாட்டின் அனைத்துக் கட்சித் தலைவர்-களும் கண்டித்தனர். முன்னாள் பிரதமர் சமூக நீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி. சிங் அவர்கள் தனது உடல் நிலையைப் பாராமல் வந்து சென்னையில் நடந்த கண்டனக் கூட்டத்தில் பங்கு கொண்டார். இந்தச் சம்பவம் நடந்தபின் சமூகநீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்கள் தலைமையில் ஒரு குழு அமைக்கப்பட்டு, அன்றைய பிரதமர் வாஜபேயி உள்ளிட்ட அனைவரையும் சந்தித்து நம் தரப்பு நியாயங்களை விளக்கியது.
அதன்பின் சமூக நீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்களின் சீரிய முயற்சியால் டில்லியின் முக்கியப் பகுதியான ஜசோலா என்ற பகுதியில் ஒரு ஏக்கர் நிலம் வாங்கப்பட்டு புதிய பெரியார் மய்யம் உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
இந்த மய்யம் நொய்டா தேசிய நெடுஞ்-சாலையை ஒட்டி 43,560 சதுர அடி பரப்பளவில் அழகிய கட்டிடமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இங்கு நூலகம், கணினி மய்யம், அய்.ஏ.எஸ், அய்.பி.எஸ் பயிற்சி மய்யம் போன்றவை அமைந்துள்ளன. பெரியார் மணியம்மை பல்கலைக்கழகத்தோடு இணைக்கப் பட்டுள்ள கணினிப் பயன்பாடு மற்றும் மேலாண்மை வகுப்புகள் நடை பெறுகின்றன. இங்கு பெரியார் கலாச்சாரக் குழுமம் (Periyar Cultural Centre) ஒன்றைச் செயல்படுத்தவும் திட்டமிடப்பட்டுள்ளது. இது உலகத் தமிழர்-கள், மனித நேயப் பற்றாளர்கள், சமூக நீதி ஆர்வலர்கள் ஆகியோரை இணைக்கும் மய்யமாகத் திகழும்.
இந்த மய்யம் 2010 மே-_2 அன்று திறக்கப்படவுள்ளது. தமிழ்நாட்டின் முதலமைச்சர் டாக்டர் கலைஞர் அவர்கள் திறந்து வைக்கிறார். இதில் தமிழர் தலைவர் கி.வீரமணி, மத்திய அமைச்சர்கள் டாக்டர் பரூக் அப்துல்லா, ஜி.கே.வாசன், விடுதலைச் சிறுத்தைகள் கட்சியின் தலைவர் தொல் திருமாவளவன் உள்ளிட்ட பலர் பங்கேற்-கின்றனர்.
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டில்லி பெரியார் மய்ய கட்டுமானப் பணிகள்
ஒரு சிறப்புக் கண்ணோட்டம்
1. அமைவிடம் : எண் 1 மற்றும் 2 (1&2), ஜஸோலா, புதுடில்லி நிலப்பரப்பு : ஒரு ஏக்கர்
2. கட்டடம் : அய்ந்து அடுக்குகள் கொண்டது (Five Storied building) கட்டுமானம் : 63,378 சதுர அடிகள் மதிப்பு : சுமார் ரூ.1000 லட்சங்கள்
3. கட்டட வடிவமைப்பு மற்றும் ஆக்கம்: பெரியார் ஆலோசனைக் குழுமம், பெரியார் மணியம்மை பல்கலைக் கழகம், வல்லம்-தஞ்சாவூர் மற்றும் அனுராக் அஸோசியேட்ஸ், புதுடில்லி.
4. கட்டடத்தின் சிறப்புத் தன்மைகள்:
தொடக்க காலப் பணிகள் தமிழர் தலைவர் டாக்டர் கி.வீரமணி, மேனாள் இந்தியப் பிரதமர் சமூகநீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் ஆகியோரால் ஏப்ரல் 2005இல் தொடங்கி வைக்கப்பட்டது. பசுமைக் கட்டடம் (Green building) சுற்றுச்சூழலை பாதுகாக்கும் நோக்கில் வழக்கமாக பயன்படுத்தப்படும் செங்கற்களுக்குப் பதிலாக, வலுவூட்டப்பட்ட பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் (Stabilised interlocking Blocks) மற்றும் ஆலைச்சாம்பல் கலந்த பிணைப்புக்கற்கள் (Fly Ash interlocking Blocks) கட்டடம் முழுமைக்கும் பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது. அடித்தளம் (Basement) உருவாக்க 7000 கனமீட்டர் அளவு மண் தோண்டப் பட்டுள்ளது. அந்த மண்ணையே பயன்படுத்தி 3.80 லட்ச எண்ணிக்கையிலான வலுவூட்டப்பட்ட பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் திட்ட இடத்திலேயே (Project Site) தயாரிக்கப்பட்டு பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது. மொத்தக் கட்டடத் தேவையைப் பூர்த்தி செய்ய மீதம் 2.26 லட்ச எண்ணிக்கையிலான ஆலைச்சாம்பல் கலந்த பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் நம் வளாகத்திலேயே தயாரிக்கப் பட்டு பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது.
கட்டடம் வழக்கமான முறையில் (Conventionally) உருவாக்கியிருக்கும் நிலையில் 19.90 லட்சம் செங்கற்கள் பயன்படுத்தியிருக்கக் கூடும். மாறாக 6.06 லட்சம் பிணைப்புக்கற்கள் (ஒரு பிணைப்புக்கல் = 3.25 செங்கற்கள்) கொண்டு கட்டடம் முழுமையும் உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதனால் 19.90 லட்சம் செங்கற்கள் பயன்படுத்தத் தேவையான 6.07 மெட்ரிக் டன் மர அளவு (Deforestation) தவிர்க்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
புத்தாக்க எரிசக்தி கலன்கள் (Renewable Energy Gadgets) கட்டட முழுமைக்கும் மின்சார சிக்கன விளக்குகள் பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளன. (LED ð™¹èœ- Ligh Emitting Diodes) கட்டடத்தில் பயன்படுத்தப்படும் சுடுநீர் தேவையை சூரிய கொதி கலன்கள் (Solar water heaters) மூலம் பெறும் வகையில் ஏற்பாடு செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளது.
கட்டடத்தில் உருவாகும் மக்கும் கழிவுகளை (Degradable waste) கழிவை மறுசுழற்சிக்கு உள்படுத்தும் கலன் (Bio-gas Plants) கொண்டு சுற்றுச் சூழலை பாதிக்கும் பசுமைக் குடில் வாயுக்களை, நம் தேவைக்கு உட்படுத்தப்பட்டு மாசற்ற நிலையை உருவாக்கப்பட்டுஉள்ளது.
கட்டடம், தற்காலத்தில் அச்சுறுத்தும் நில நடுக்கம் போன்ற பேரிடர்களிலிருந்து மீளும் வகையில் உள்ள தொழில்நுட்பத்துடன் ஒன்பது அடுக்குகள் கட்டும் அளவிற்கு வடிவமைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
பெரியார் மய்யக்கட்டடம், அதன் கட்டுமானப் பணிகளில் தமிழ்நாடு, ஆந்திரா, ஒரிஸ்ஸா, பீகார், மேற்கு வங்கம், உத்திரப்பிரதேசம், ராஜஸ்தான், ஹரியானா, புதுடில்லி ஆகிய மாநிலங்களிலிருந்து கட்டடக் கலைஞர்களைக் கொண்டு உருவாக்கப் பட்டிருப்பது வேறு எந்தக்கட்டடத்திற்கும் இல்லாத ஒரு தனிச்சிறப்பாகும்
posted by Mukilan Murugasan
பெரியார் சுயமரியாதைப் பிரச்சார நிறுவனத்தின் சார்பில் மனித நேயக் கொள்கைகள், சமூக நீதி மற்றும் கிராமப்புற மேம்பாடு சமூக சேவை, கல்விப் பணி, பகுத்தறிவுப் பிரச்சாரம் ஆகியவற்றைச் செய்யும் பொருட்டும், தந்தை பெரியாரின் கொள்கைகளை உலகம் முழுவதும் பரப்பும் வகையிலும் இந்திய நாட்டின் தலைநகரான டில்லியின் புறநகர்ப் பகுதியில் பாம்நொலி என்ற இடத்தில் பெரியார் மய்யம் தமிழர் தலைவர் கி.வீரமணி அவர்களின் சீரிய முயற்சியால் உருவாக்கப்பட்டது.
இம்மய்யம் உருவாக திராவிடர் கழகத் தோழர்களின் உழைப்பு அபாரமானது. ஏறத்தாழ 2, 21/2 ஆண்டுகள் தமிழர்களிடம் சென்று நன்கொடை பெற்று இந்த மய்யம் உருவாகக் கடுமையாகக் உழைத்தனர். தமிழர்களின் கடும் உழைப்பாலும் அவர்களின் நிதியுடனும் கட்டப்பட்டது. தமிழர்கள் கொடுத்த நன்கொடையை வைத்து இம்மய்யத்தின் பெரும்பகுதிப் பணிகள் முடிக்கப்பட்டன. தங்கள் அடிமைத்-தளையான தாலியை அகற்றி பெரியார் மய்யத்திற்குக் கொடுத்த கழகக் குடும்பங்களும் உண்டு.
1998 இல் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்களால் அடிக்கல் நாட்டப்பட்டு 2000ஆம் ஆண்டு (அக்டோபர்) பன்னாட்டு நாத்திக அமைப்பான சர்வதேச மனித நேய மற்றும் அறநெறி மன்றத்தின் தலைவர் லெவி ஃபிராகல் அவர்களால் திறந்து வைக்கப்பட்டது. தில்லியின் முதலமைச்சர் ஷீலா தீக்ஷத், சந்திரஜித்யாதவ்,நி.ரி. மூப்பனார் இந்திய கம்யூனிஸ்ட் தேசிய பொதுச் செயலாளர் இராஜா, பகுஜன் சமாஜ் கட்சித் தலைவர் கன்சிராம், உ.பி. முதல்வர் மாயாவதி ஆகியோர் பங்கேற்றனர்.
இந்த நிகழ்ச்சியில் புது டில்லி முதலமைச்சர் ரூ 5 இலட்சத்தை பெரியார் மய்யத்திற்கு அளிப்பதாகக் கூறினார். இந் நிகழ்ச்சியில் ஏறத்தாழ 1,200 தோழர்கள் பங்கேற்றனர்.
இங்கு கணினிப் பயிற்சி உள்ளிட்ட ஏராளமான பயிற்சிகள் அளிக்கப்பட்டன. பெரியார் மய்யத்தில் இந்திரப்பிரஸ்த பல்கலைக்-கழகத்தின் எம்.சி.ஏ., எம்.பி.ஏ. வகுப்புகளுக்குப் படிப்பு மய்யம் அமைக்கப்பட்டது. சிறப்பான கணினி மய்யம் ஒன்றும் இயங்கியது. வான்படை, எல்லைப் பாதுகாப்புப்படை வீரர்களும், அருகில் உள்ள கிராமப்புற இளைஞர்களும் இவ்வகுப்பில் சேர்ந்துள்ளனர்.தேசிய திறந்த வெளிப் பள்ளி இப் பெரியார் மய்யத்தை தொழிற்கல்விக் கணினிப் பயிற்சிக்கெனவும் ஏற்றுக்கொண்டது. கட்டிடக் கலைபற்றி அகில உலகக் கருத்தரங்கு பெரிய பல்கலைக்கழகத்தோடு இணைந்து அண்மையில் பெரியர் மய்யம் சார்பில் நடத்தப்பட்டது.
பள்ளிச் சிறுவர்களுக்கு முதல் வகுப்பில் தொடங்கி 12 ஆம் வகுப்பு வரையிலும் பல்வேறு பாடங்களில் குறைந்த கட்டணத்தில் நடத்தப்பட்டன.
உஷா நிறுவனத்தோடு இணைந்து கிராமப்-புறப் பெண்களுக்கும் பயிற்சி கொடுக்கப்பட்டது.
டில்லி அரசும், இந்திரப்பிரஸ்த பல்கலைக்-கழகமும் பெரியார் மய்யத்தின் அருகில் கணினிப் பயன்பாட்டை மிகுதிப்படுத்தவும் பயிற்சி கொடுக்கவும் முடிவு செய்தனர்.
அதோடு இல்லாமல் அடிக்கடி சமூக நீதி ஆர்வலர்கள் -கூடும் இடமாக பெரியார் மய்யம் ஆனது. கலந்துரையாடல்கள், கருத்தரங்குகள் தலைவர்களின் சந்திப்புகள் என்று சமூக நீதிக்கான களமாக உருவானதால், மிரண்டு போன பார்ப்பனர்கள் சதி செய்தனர். இந்த பெரியார் மய்யத்தின் பணிகளைக் கண்டு மிரண்ட அன்றைய பாரதீய ஜனதா கட்சியின் அரசாங்கம் 2001 ஆம் ஆண்டு அதை இடித்தது.
மாலை 5 மணிக்கு முறையான தடை ஆணையை உச்ச நீதிமன்றத்தில் பெற்றும் அதிகாரிகள் சட்ட விரோதமாக இடித்தார்கள். பெரியார் மய்யம் இடிக்கப்பட்டதைக் கேட்டவுடன் தமிழர்கள் கொதித்தார்கள் சட்ட நடவடிக்கைகள் தமிழர்களின் நிதியுதவியுடனே எடுக்கப்பட்டன.
தமிழ்நாட்டின் அனைத்துக் கட்சித் தலைவர்-களும் கண்டித்தனர். முன்னாள் பிரதமர் சமூக நீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி. சிங் அவர்கள் தனது உடல் நிலையைப் பாராமல் வந்து சென்னையில் நடந்த கண்டனக் கூட்டத்தில் பங்கு கொண்டார். இந்தச் சம்பவம் நடந்தபின் சமூகநீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்கள் தலைமையில் ஒரு குழு அமைக்கப்பட்டு, அன்றைய பிரதமர் வாஜபேயி உள்ளிட்ட அனைவரையும் சந்தித்து நம் தரப்பு நியாயங்களை விளக்கியது.
அதன்பின் சமூக நீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் அவர்களின் சீரிய முயற்சியால் டில்லியின் முக்கியப் பகுதியான ஜசோலா என்ற பகுதியில் ஒரு ஏக்கர் நிலம் வாங்கப்பட்டு புதிய பெரியார் மய்யம் உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
இந்த மய்யம் நொய்டா தேசிய நெடுஞ்-சாலையை ஒட்டி 43,560 சதுர அடி பரப்பளவில் அழகிய கட்டிடமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இங்கு நூலகம், கணினி மய்யம், அய்.ஏ.எஸ், அய்.பி.எஸ் பயிற்சி மய்யம் போன்றவை அமைந்துள்ளன. பெரியார் மணியம்மை பல்கலைக்கழகத்தோடு இணைக்கப் பட்டுள்ள கணினிப் பயன்பாடு மற்றும் மேலாண்மை வகுப்புகள் நடை பெறுகின்றன. இங்கு பெரியார் கலாச்சாரக் குழுமம் (Periyar Cultural Centre) ஒன்றைச் செயல்படுத்தவும் திட்டமிடப்பட்டுள்ளது. இது உலகத் தமிழர்-கள், மனித நேயப் பற்றாளர்கள், சமூக நீதி ஆர்வலர்கள் ஆகியோரை இணைக்கும் மய்யமாகத் திகழும்.
இந்த மய்யம் 2010 மே-_2 அன்று திறக்கப்படவுள்ளது. தமிழ்நாட்டின் முதலமைச்சர் டாக்டர் கலைஞர் அவர்கள் திறந்து வைக்கிறார். இதில் தமிழர் தலைவர் கி.வீரமணி, மத்திய அமைச்சர்கள் டாக்டர் பரூக் அப்துல்லா, ஜி.கே.வாசன், விடுதலைச் சிறுத்தைகள் கட்சியின் தலைவர் தொல் திருமாவளவன் உள்ளிட்ட பலர் பங்கேற்-கின்றனர்.
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டில்லி பெரியார் மய்ய கட்டுமானப் பணிகள்
ஒரு சிறப்புக் கண்ணோட்டம்
1. அமைவிடம் : எண் 1 மற்றும் 2 (1&2), ஜஸோலா, புதுடில்லி நிலப்பரப்பு : ஒரு ஏக்கர்
2. கட்டடம் : அய்ந்து அடுக்குகள் கொண்டது (Five Storied building) கட்டுமானம் : 63,378 சதுர அடிகள் மதிப்பு : சுமார் ரூ.1000 லட்சங்கள்
3. கட்டட வடிவமைப்பு மற்றும் ஆக்கம்: பெரியார் ஆலோசனைக் குழுமம், பெரியார் மணியம்மை பல்கலைக் கழகம், வல்லம்-தஞ்சாவூர் மற்றும் அனுராக் அஸோசியேட்ஸ், புதுடில்லி.
4. கட்டடத்தின் சிறப்புத் தன்மைகள்:
தொடக்க காலப் பணிகள் தமிழர் தலைவர் டாக்டர் கி.வீரமணி, மேனாள் இந்தியப் பிரதமர் சமூகநீதிக் காவலர் வி.பி.சிங் ஆகியோரால் ஏப்ரல் 2005இல் தொடங்கி வைக்கப்பட்டது. பசுமைக் கட்டடம் (Green building) சுற்றுச்சூழலை பாதுகாக்கும் நோக்கில் வழக்கமாக பயன்படுத்தப்படும் செங்கற்களுக்குப் பதிலாக, வலுவூட்டப்பட்ட பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் (Stabilised interlocking Blocks) மற்றும் ஆலைச்சாம்பல் கலந்த பிணைப்புக்கற்கள் (Fly Ash interlocking Blocks) கட்டடம் முழுமைக்கும் பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது. அடித்தளம் (Basement) உருவாக்க 7000 கனமீட்டர் அளவு மண் தோண்டப் பட்டுள்ளது. அந்த மண்ணையே பயன்படுத்தி 3.80 லட்ச எண்ணிக்கையிலான வலுவூட்டப்பட்ட பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் திட்ட இடத்திலேயே (Project Site) தயாரிக்கப்பட்டு பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது. மொத்தக் கட்டடத் தேவையைப் பூர்த்தி செய்ய மீதம் 2.26 லட்ச எண்ணிக்கையிலான ஆலைச்சாம்பல் கலந்த பிணைப்புக் கற்கள் நம் வளாகத்திலேயே தயாரிக்கப் பட்டு பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது.
கட்டடம் வழக்கமான முறையில் (Conventionally) உருவாக்கியிருக்கும் நிலையில் 19.90 லட்சம் செங்கற்கள் பயன்படுத்தியிருக்கக் கூடும். மாறாக 6.06 லட்சம் பிணைப்புக்கற்கள் (ஒரு பிணைப்புக்கல் = 3.25 செங்கற்கள்) கொண்டு கட்டடம் முழுமையும் உருவாக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதனால் 19.90 லட்சம் செங்கற்கள் பயன்படுத்தத் தேவையான 6.07 மெட்ரிக் டன் மர அளவு (Deforestation) தவிர்க்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
புத்தாக்க எரிசக்தி கலன்கள் (Renewable Energy Gadgets) கட்டட முழுமைக்கும் மின்சார சிக்கன விளக்குகள் பயன்படுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளன. (LED ð™¹èœ- Ligh Emitting Diodes) கட்டடத்தில் பயன்படுத்தப்படும் சுடுநீர் தேவையை சூரிய கொதி கலன்கள் (Solar water heaters) மூலம் பெறும் வகையில் ஏற்பாடு செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளது.
கட்டடத்தில் உருவாகும் மக்கும் கழிவுகளை (Degradable waste) கழிவை மறுசுழற்சிக்கு உள்படுத்தும் கலன் (Bio-gas Plants) கொண்டு சுற்றுச் சூழலை பாதிக்கும் பசுமைக் குடில் வாயுக்களை, நம் தேவைக்கு உட்படுத்தப்பட்டு மாசற்ற நிலையை உருவாக்கப்பட்டுஉள்ளது.
கட்டடம், தற்காலத்தில் அச்சுறுத்தும் நில நடுக்கம் போன்ற பேரிடர்களிலிருந்து மீளும் வகையில் உள்ள தொழில்நுட்பத்துடன் ஒன்பது அடுக்குகள் கட்டும் அளவிற்கு வடிவமைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது.
பெரியார் மய்யக்கட்டடம், அதன் கட்டுமானப் பணிகளில் தமிழ்நாடு, ஆந்திரா, ஒரிஸ்ஸா, பீகார், மேற்கு வங்கம், உத்திரப்பிரதேசம், ராஜஸ்தான், ஹரியானா, புதுடில்லி ஆகிய மாநிலங்களிலிருந்து கட்டடக் கலைஞர்களைக் கொண்டு உருவாக்கப் பட்டிருப்பது வேறு எந்தக்கட்டடத்திற்கும் இல்லாத ஒரு தனிச்சிறப்பாகும்
Thursday 13 May 2010
பகுத்தறிவாளர் கழகத்தில் பார்ப்பானைச் சேர்க்காதீர் என்று கூறுவது ஏன்?
தந்தை பெரியார் அவர்கள் ஆற்றிய அறிவுரை வருமாறு:-
வெற்றி பெற்றவர்களைப் பாராட்டுவதோடு வெற்றி பெற ஓட்டளித்த வாக்காளர்
பெருமக்களையும் பாராட்ட வேண்டும். இத்தேர்தலில் பார்ப்பனர்களின் பெரும்
எதிர்ப்புக்கிடையே அவற்றை எல்லாம் இலட்சியம் செய்யாமல் ஓட்டளித்து
வெற்றிபெறச் செய்தது பாராட்டிற்குரியதாகும். இத்தேர்தலில் மட்டுமல்ல;
எல்லா தேர்தல்களிலுமே பார்ப்பனர்கள் நமக்கு எதிராகவே பாடுபட்டு
வந்திருக்கின்றனர். இந்த நாட்டில் பறையனாக, சூத்திரனாக இருப்பதைவிட
துலுக்கன் நாட்டில் வாழ்வதில் பெருமைப்படுகின்றேன். கிறிஸ்தவன் நாட்டில்
வாழ்வதில் பெருமைப்படுகிறேன்.
சுதந்திரநாடு என்றால் அங்கு பார்ப்பான், பறையன், சூத்திரன், மற்ற எந்த
ஜாதியுமே இருக்கக் கூடாது. மனிதன் தான் இருக்க வேண்டும். எப்படிக்
கடவுளும், மதமும், கோயிலும் நம்மை மடையர்களாக்கி இழிமக்களாக்கி
வைத்திருக்கிறதோ, அது போன்று தான் சுயராஜ்யம், சுதந்திரம், ஜனநாயகம்
என்பது நம்மை இழிவுபடுத்தி வைத்திருக்கிறது. இதனை நான் சாதாரணமாகச்
சொல்லவில்லை, 50 ஆண்டுகால அனுபவத்தைக் கொண்டே சொல்கிறேன். உங்களிடம்
மட்டும் சொல்லவில்லை. காந்தி, நேரு ஆகியவர்களிடமே சொல்லி இருக்கின்றேன்.
அவர்கள் உணர ஆரம்பித்தது மிக மிகப் பின்னாலேயே ஆகும்.
கடவுள், மதம், ஆத்மா, மோட்சம், நரகம், மறுபிறப்பு, பிதிர்லோகம் என்பவை
யாவும் மனிதனை மடையன் ஆக்குவதற்காகப் பார்ப்பானால் கற்பிக்கப்பட்டவையே
ஆகும். கடவுள் நம்பிக்கையுள்ள முஸ்லிம்கள் 50 கோடிக்கு
மேலிருக்கிறார்கள், அவர்கள் கடவுளுக்கு உருவமில்லை. அதேபோல் 100 கோடி
கிறிஸ்தவர்கள் இருக்கிறார்கள். அவர்கள் கடவுளுக்கும் உருவமில்லை; அவர்கள்
கடவுளை வணங்குவது நம்மைப்போல் காட்டுமிராண்டித்தனமாக அல்ல. மனத்தால்
நினைப்பதோடு சரி. நம்மைப் போல் பூசைபடையல்கள் செய்வது கிடையாது.
இந்த உலகில் சுமார் 20 கோடி மக்களாகிய இந்துக்கள் என்று சொல்லப்படுகிற
நம் மக்கள் தான் கடவுளுக்கு உருவம் செய்து அதற்கு 6 கால பூசை, திருமணம்,
திருவிழா என்று சொல்லி விழாக்கள் கொண்டாடி மக்களை மடையர்களாக்கிக்
கொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள்.
நமது கடவுள்கள், புராணங்கள், அவதாரங்கள் என்பவை யாவும் நம் மக்களைக்
கொல்வதற்காக ஏற்பாடு செய்யப்பட்டவையே ஆகும். நம் கடவுள் கதைகளும்,
பெருமைகளும் எத்தனை கோடி பேரைக் கொன்றது என்பதில் தானிருக்கிறது. கொன்றதை
விழாவாகக் கொண்டாடுகிறார்கள், கதா காலட்சேபம் செய்கிறார்கள். கடவுள்
அவதாரங்கள், அழித்தது எல்லாம் நம் மக்களையே என்பதற்குப் பலஆதாரங்கள்
இருக்கின்றன. பல அறிஞர்கள் ஆராய்ச்சி செய்து எழுதியுள்ளனர். நேருவே தன்
மகளுக்கு எழுதிய கடிதத்தில் இராமாயணம் என்பது தேவர்களுக்கும்,
அசுரர்களுக்கும் நடைபெற்ற போராட்டமே ஆகும் என எழுதி இருக்கிறார்.
கடவுள், மதம், ஜாதி, புராணம், ஆகிய இக்கற்பனைகள் அனைத்தும் பார்ப்பான்
மேல் ஜாதியாக இருப்பதற்கும், நாம் கீழ் ஜாதியாக இருப்பதற்கும்
கற்பிக்கப்பட்டவையே ஆகும். இதை எல்லாம் நாங்கள் ஒழிக்க வேண்டும் என்பது
திமிரினால் அல்ல. இவை தான் நம்மை இழி மக்களாக, சூத்திரர்களாக ஆக்கி
வைத்திருக்கின்றன. அதனால் தான் நம் இழிவைப் போக்க இவற்றை ஒழிக்க வேண்டும்
என்கின்றோம்.
இந்த நாட்டில் நாங்கள் ஒருவர் தான் பார்ப்பானைப் பார்ப்பான்
என்றழைக்கின்றோம். மற்றவன் பார்ப்பானைப் பிராமணன் என்று தான்
கூப்பிடுகின்றான்? ஒருவனைப் பிராமணன் என்றால் மற்றவன் யார்? சூத்திரன்
தானே! ஒரு பெண் இன்னொருத்தியைப் பார்த்து பதிவிரதை என்று சொன்னால் அவள்
யார்? பதிவிரதைத் தன்மையற்ற விபசாரி என்று தானே பொருள்.
நம் மந்திரிகள் கூட பார்ப்பானைப் பார்ப்பான் என்று சொல்லத்
தயங்குகின்றார்கள். மடாதிபதிகள் முதல் பார்ப்பான் என்று சொல்ல
தயங்குகிறார்கள்.
கடவுளை ஒழித்த கோயில்களை, இடித்த பார்ப்பனர்களை (கடவுள் பிரசாரகர்களை,
மதப் பிரசாரகர்களை) எல்லாம் வெட்டி வீழ்த்திய நாடுகள் பல இருக்கின்றன.
அந்நாடுகளில் எல்லா மனிதர்களும் சம அந்தஸ்துள்ளவர்களாக இருக்கிறார்கள்.
பணக்காரன் ஏழை என்கின்ற பேதமில்லை.
முதலாளி, தொழிலாளி என்கின்ற பேதமில்லை. அந்த நாட்டில் போலீஸ்
அய்.ஜி.க்குள்ள மதிப்பு சாதாரண கான்ஸ்டேபிளுக்கும் உண்டு. கலக்டெரும்,
பியூனும் ஒரே மதிப்புடையவர்கள் என்கின்ற மதிப்போடு வாழ்கின்றார்கள்.
எந்தப் பேதமும் அவர்களுக்கிடையில் இல்லை. இவ்வளவுக்கும் காரணம் அந்த
நாட்டில் கடவுள் இல்லாததாலேயே ஆகும்.
நம் நாட்டில் பேதங்களிருப்பதற்குக் காரணம் கடவுளேயாகும். இந்தப் பேதங்கள்
ஒழிய இன்று கடவுளைச் செருப்பால் அடிக்கின்றோம். இவற்றில் மாறவில்லை
என்றால் நாளைக்கு மனிதர்களையே கொல்ல நேரலாம். சமுதாய மாற்றம் என்றால்
கொலை, கொள்ளை, தீவைப்பு, நாசம் யாவும் நடந்து தான் தீரும்.
இன்று நாம் எல்லாம் சூத்திரர்களாக பறையன், சக்கிலிகளாக இருப்பதற்குக்
காரணம் கொலை. சித்திரவதை, கழுவேற்றல் முதலிய காரியங்களைச் செய்து தான்
ஆகும். இதிலிருந்து மாற நாமும் இக்காரியங்களைக் கையாள வேண்டியது தான்.
அறிவான காலமாக இருப்பதால் அடிப்படையிலிருந்து ஆரம்பித்து இருக்கிறோம்.
அதாவது கடவுளைச் செருப்பால் அடிப்பதிலிருந்து துவக்குகின்றோம். இது
வளர்ந்து நாளை அவர்கள் செய்த காரியத்தை நாமும் செய்யும் படி நேரலாம்.
இன்றைக்கு இருப்பதை விட மோசமான நிலை 2500 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு மேலிருந்து
அப்போது ஒரே ஒரு மனிதன் சித்தார்த்தன் என்பவன் தோன்றி, தற்போது நாம்
செய்வது போன்று அறிவுப் பிரசாரம் செய்த மக்கள் யாவரையும் மாற்றிவிட்டான்.
வேதங்களை எல்லாம் நெருப்பில் இட்டுக் கொளுத்தினான். அவன் கொள்கை நாடு
முழுவதும் பரவி மக்கள் எல்லாம் அவன் கொள்கையைப் பின்பற்ற ஆரம்பித்தனர்.
பார்ப்பனர்களை எல்லாம் கொலை செய்ய ஆரம்பித்தனர்.
இதைக் கண்டு பார்ப்பான் புத்த கொள்கையை ஏற்றவன் போல் நடித்து, அதில்
சேர்ந்து பிரசாரகனாகி புத்த மடங்களை எல்லாம் கொளுத்தினார்கள். பவுத்த
கொள்கைகளை ஏற்றவர்களை எல்லாம் நாசம் செய்து அக்கொள்கைகளைத் தடுத்து
விட்டனர். அதனால் தான் இன்றைக்குப் பார்ப்பானை பகுத்தறிவாளர் கழகத்தில்
சேர்க்கக் கூடாது என்று சொல்கிறேன். அவனைச் சேர்த்தால் புத்த இயக்கத்தில்
சேர்ந்து புத்த கொள்கையைப் பரவவிடாமல் தடுத்தது போல் தடுத்து விடுவான்.
எனவே நாம் ஜாக்கிரதையாக இருக்க வேண்டும். பார்ப்பானை நுழையவிடவே கூடாது.
பார்ப்பான் எந்த விதமான பாதகமும், அக்கிரமும் செய்வான். அதற்கு அவன்
சாஸ்திரத்தில் அவனுக்கு இடமிருக்கிறது. பார்ப்பான் தன் தருமத்தைக்
காப்பாற்றிக் கொள்ள எந்த விதமான அக்கிரமும் செய்யலாம், அது பாவமல்ல
என்பது சாஸ்திரமாகும். எனவே பார்ப்பான் நம்மை ஒழிக்க எந்தப் பலாத்காரமான
காரியத்திலும் ஈடுபடலாம். அதற்கு எல்லாம் நாம் தயாராகத்தான் இருக்க
வேண்டும். நம்மில் சிலர் உயிர் விட நேரலாம். அதைப்பற்றி எல்லாம்
கவலைப்படாமல் போராட வேண்டியதுதான்.
இப்போதைய காலம் மிகவும் பகுத்தறிவுக் காலம். உலகம் வேகமாக முன்னேறிக்
கொண்டு போகிறது. உலகில் நாம் ஒருவர் தான் இன்னமும் முட்டாள் தனமாக,
மூடநம்பிக்கைக்காரர்களாக இருக்கின்றோம். இதிலிருந்து நாம் விடுதலை பெற்று
மற்ற உலக மக்களைப் போன்று இழிவற்று, அறிவு பெற்று வாழ வேண்டும். இனி
நீங்கள் எந்தக் காரியத்தையும் நடுநிலையிலிருந்து சிந்திக்க வேண்டும்.
--------------------- 12.5.1971 அன்று அரூரில் ஈ.வெ.ரா. பெரியார்
அவர்கள் ஆற்றிய சொற்பொழிவு- `விடுதலை’, 22.5.1971
வெற்றி பெற்றவர்களைப் பாராட்டுவதோடு வெற்றி பெற ஓட்டளித்த வாக்காளர்
பெருமக்களையும் பாராட்ட வேண்டும். இத்தேர்தலில் பார்ப்பனர்களின் பெரும்
எதிர்ப்புக்கிடையே அவற்றை எல்லாம் இலட்சியம் செய்யாமல் ஓட்டளித்து
வெற்றிபெறச் செய்தது பாராட்டிற்குரியதாகும். இத்தேர்தலில் மட்டுமல்ல;
எல்லா தேர்தல்களிலுமே பார்ப்பனர்கள் நமக்கு எதிராகவே பாடுபட்டு
வந்திருக்கின்றனர். இந்த நாட்டில் பறையனாக, சூத்திரனாக இருப்பதைவிட
துலுக்கன் நாட்டில் வாழ்வதில் பெருமைப்படுகின்றேன். கிறிஸ்தவன் நாட்டில்
வாழ்வதில் பெருமைப்படுகிறேன்.
சுதந்திரநாடு என்றால் அங்கு பார்ப்பான், பறையன், சூத்திரன், மற்ற எந்த
ஜாதியுமே இருக்கக் கூடாது. மனிதன் தான் இருக்க வேண்டும். எப்படிக்
கடவுளும், மதமும், கோயிலும் நம்மை மடையர்களாக்கி இழிமக்களாக்கி
வைத்திருக்கிறதோ, அது போன்று தான் சுயராஜ்யம், சுதந்திரம், ஜனநாயகம்
என்பது நம்மை இழிவுபடுத்தி வைத்திருக்கிறது. இதனை நான் சாதாரணமாகச்
சொல்லவில்லை, 50 ஆண்டுகால அனுபவத்தைக் கொண்டே சொல்கிறேன். உங்களிடம்
மட்டும் சொல்லவில்லை. காந்தி, நேரு ஆகியவர்களிடமே சொல்லி இருக்கின்றேன்.
அவர்கள் உணர ஆரம்பித்தது மிக மிகப் பின்னாலேயே ஆகும்.
கடவுள், மதம், ஆத்மா, மோட்சம், நரகம், மறுபிறப்பு, பிதிர்லோகம் என்பவை
யாவும் மனிதனை மடையன் ஆக்குவதற்காகப் பார்ப்பானால் கற்பிக்கப்பட்டவையே
ஆகும். கடவுள் நம்பிக்கையுள்ள முஸ்லிம்கள் 50 கோடிக்கு
மேலிருக்கிறார்கள், அவர்கள் கடவுளுக்கு உருவமில்லை. அதேபோல் 100 கோடி
கிறிஸ்தவர்கள் இருக்கிறார்கள். அவர்கள் கடவுளுக்கும் உருவமில்லை; அவர்கள்
கடவுளை வணங்குவது நம்மைப்போல் காட்டுமிராண்டித்தனமாக அல்ல. மனத்தால்
நினைப்பதோடு சரி. நம்மைப் போல் பூசைபடையல்கள் செய்வது கிடையாது.
இந்த உலகில் சுமார் 20 கோடி மக்களாகிய இந்துக்கள் என்று சொல்லப்படுகிற
நம் மக்கள் தான் கடவுளுக்கு உருவம் செய்து அதற்கு 6 கால பூசை, திருமணம்,
திருவிழா என்று சொல்லி விழாக்கள் கொண்டாடி மக்களை மடையர்களாக்கிக்
கொண்டிருக்கிறார்கள்.
நமது கடவுள்கள், புராணங்கள், அவதாரங்கள் என்பவை யாவும் நம் மக்களைக்
கொல்வதற்காக ஏற்பாடு செய்யப்பட்டவையே ஆகும். நம் கடவுள் கதைகளும்,
பெருமைகளும் எத்தனை கோடி பேரைக் கொன்றது என்பதில் தானிருக்கிறது. கொன்றதை
விழாவாகக் கொண்டாடுகிறார்கள், கதா காலட்சேபம் செய்கிறார்கள். கடவுள்
அவதாரங்கள், அழித்தது எல்லாம் நம் மக்களையே என்பதற்குப் பலஆதாரங்கள்
இருக்கின்றன. பல அறிஞர்கள் ஆராய்ச்சி செய்து எழுதியுள்ளனர். நேருவே தன்
மகளுக்கு எழுதிய கடிதத்தில் இராமாயணம் என்பது தேவர்களுக்கும்,
அசுரர்களுக்கும் நடைபெற்ற போராட்டமே ஆகும் என எழுதி இருக்கிறார்.
கடவுள், மதம், ஜாதி, புராணம், ஆகிய இக்கற்பனைகள் அனைத்தும் பார்ப்பான்
மேல் ஜாதியாக இருப்பதற்கும், நாம் கீழ் ஜாதியாக இருப்பதற்கும்
கற்பிக்கப்பட்டவையே ஆகும். இதை எல்லாம் நாங்கள் ஒழிக்க வேண்டும் என்பது
திமிரினால் அல்ல. இவை தான் நம்மை இழி மக்களாக, சூத்திரர்களாக ஆக்கி
வைத்திருக்கின்றன. அதனால் தான் நம் இழிவைப் போக்க இவற்றை ஒழிக்க வேண்டும்
என்கின்றோம்.
இந்த நாட்டில் நாங்கள் ஒருவர் தான் பார்ப்பானைப் பார்ப்பான்
என்றழைக்கின்றோம். மற்றவன் பார்ப்பானைப் பிராமணன் என்று தான்
கூப்பிடுகின்றான்? ஒருவனைப் பிராமணன் என்றால் மற்றவன் யார்? சூத்திரன்
தானே! ஒரு பெண் இன்னொருத்தியைப் பார்த்து பதிவிரதை என்று சொன்னால் அவள்
யார்? பதிவிரதைத் தன்மையற்ற விபசாரி என்று தானே பொருள்.
நம் மந்திரிகள் கூட பார்ப்பானைப் பார்ப்பான் என்று சொல்லத்
தயங்குகின்றார்கள். மடாதிபதிகள் முதல் பார்ப்பான் என்று சொல்ல
தயங்குகிறார்கள்.
கடவுளை ஒழித்த கோயில்களை, இடித்த பார்ப்பனர்களை (கடவுள் பிரசாரகர்களை,
மதப் பிரசாரகர்களை) எல்லாம் வெட்டி வீழ்த்திய நாடுகள் பல இருக்கின்றன.
அந்நாடுகளில் எல்லா மனிதர்களும் சம அந்தஸ்துள்ளவர்களாக இருக்கிறார்கள்.
பணக்காரன் ஏழை என்கின்ற பேதமில்லை.
முதலாளி, தொழிலாளி என்கின்ற பேதமில்லை. அந்த நாட்டில் போலீஸ்
அய்.ஜி.க்குள்ள மதிப்பு சாதாரண கான்ஸ்டேபிளுக்கும் உண்டு. கலக்டெரும்,
பியூனும் ஒரே மதிப்புடையவர்கள் என்கின்ற மதிப்போடு வாழ்கின்றார்கள்.
எந்தப் பேதமும் அவர்களுக்கிடையில் இல்லை. இவ்வளவுக்கும் காரணம் அந்த
நாட்டில் கடவுள் இல்லாததாலேயே ஆகும்.
நம் நாட்டில் பேதங்களிருப்பதற்குக் காரணம் கடவுளேயாகும். இந்தப் பேதங்கள்
ஒழிய இன்று கடவுளைச் செருப்பால் அடிக்கின்றோம். இவற்றில் மாறவில்லை
என்றால் நாளைக்கு மனிதர்களையே கொல்ல நேரலாம். சமுதாய மாற்றம் என்றால்
கொலை, கொள்ளை, தீவைப்பு, நாசம் யாவும் நடந்து தான் தீரும்.
இன்று நாம் எல்லாம் சூத்திரர்களாக பறையன், சக்கிலிகளாக இருப்பதற்குக்
காரணம் கொலை. சித்திரவதை, கழுவேற்றல் முதலிய காரியங்களைச் செய்து தான்
ஆகும். இதிலிருந்து மாற நாமும் இக்காரியங்களைக் கையாள வேண்டியது தான்.
அறிவான காலமாக இருப்பதால் அடிப்படையிலிருந்து ஆரம்பித்து இருக்கிறோம்.
அதாவது கடவுளைச் செருப்பால் அடிப்பதிலிருந்து துவக்குகின்றோம். இது
வளர்ந்து நாளை அவர்கள் செய்த காரியத்தை நாமும் செய்யும் படி நேரலாம்.
இன்றைக்கு இருப்பதை விட மோசமான நிலை 2500 ஆண்டுகளுக்கு மேலிருந்து
அப்போது ஒரே ஒரு மனிதன் சித்தார்த்தன் என்பவன் தோன்றி, தற்போது நாம்
செய்வது போன்று அறிவுப் பிரசாரம் செய்த மக்கள் யாவரையும் மாற்றிவிட்டான்.
வேதங்களை எல்லாம் நெருப்பில் இட்டுக் கொளுத்தினான். அவன் கொள்கை நாடு
முழுவதும் பரவி மக்கள் எல்லாம் அவன் கொள்கையைப் பின்பற்ற ஆரம்பித்தனர்.
பார்ப்பனர்களை எல்லாம் கொலை செய்ய ஆரம்பித்தனர்.
இதைக் கண்டு பார்ப்பான் புத்த கொள்கையை ஏற்றவன் போல் நடித்து, அதில்
சேர்ந்து பிரசாரகனாகி புத்த மடங்களை எல்லாம் கொளுத்தினார்கள். பவுத்த
கொள்கைகளை ஏற்றவர்களை எல்லாம் நாசம் செய்து அக்கொள்கைகளைத் தடுத்து
விட்டனர். அதனால் தான் இன்றைக்குப் பார்ப்பானை பகுத்தறிவாளர் கழகத்தில்
சேர்க்கக் கூடாது என்று சொல்கிறேன். அவனைச் சேர்த்தால் புத்த இயக்கத்தில்
சேர்ந்து புத்த கொள்கையைப் பரவவிடாமல் தடுத்தது போல் தடுத்து விடுவான்.
எனவே நாம் ஜாக்கிரதையாக இருக்க வேண்டும். பார்ப்பானை நுழையவிடவே கூடாது.
பார்ப்பான் எந்த விதமான பாதகமும், அக்கிரமும் செய்வான். அதற்கு அவன்
சாஸ்திரத்தில் அவனுக்கு இடமிருக்கிறது. பார்ப்பான் தன் தருமத்தைக்
காப்பாற்றிக் கொள்ள எந்த விதமான அக்கிரமும் செய்யலாம், அது பாவமல்ல
என்பது சாஸ்திரமாகும். எனவே பார்ப்பான் நம்மை ஒழிக்க எந்தப் பலாத்காரமான
காரியத்திலும் ஈடுபடலாம். அதற்கு எல்லாம் நாம் தயாராகத்தான் இருக்க
வேண்டும். நம்மில் சிலர் உயிர் விட நேரலாம். அதைப்பற்றி எல்லாம்
கவலைப்படாமல் போராட வேண்டியதுதான்.
இப்போதைய காலம் மிகவும் பகுத்தறிவுக் காலம். உலகம் வேகமாக முன்னேறிக்
கொண்டு போகிறது. உலகில் நாம் ஒருவர் தான் இன்னமும் முட்டாள் தனமாக,
மூடநம்பிக்கைக்காரர்களாக இருக்கின்றோம். இதிலிருந்து நாம் விடுதலை பெற்று
மற்ற உலக மக்களைப் போன்று இழிவற்று, அறிவு பெற்று வாழ வேண்டும். இனி
நீங்கள் எந்தக் காரியத்தையும் நடுநிலையிலிருந்து சிந்திக்க வேண்டும்.
--------------------- 12.5.1971 அன்று அரூரில் ஈ.வெ.ரா. பெரியார்
அவர்கள் ஆற்றிய சொற்பொழிவு- `விடுதலை’, 22.5.1971
Periyar on Economics
by Mukilan Murugasan
(Malaysian Dravidian Association)
Good morning ladies and gentleman. I have been asked to give a presentation on Periyar on Economics. Our society at one time was an advanced society. We have made great contributions to the world we live in. We gave the world Thirukkural. It covers all aspects of a human life and teaches how one should lead his life. Then we have King Chola who established empires. He travelled up to Kedah. We have our traders who travelled to countries as far as Rome. We built huge temples. We have great literatures. We have great poets. We lived in peace and harmony. Our language is one of the oldest languages in the world and therefore we are one of the oldest civilizations.
But what happened to all this achievements today? The British brought us in as coolies. We cleared the jungle. We constructed the roads. We planted the rubber trees. We died by snakebites, mosquito bites and diseases. But are deprived of opportunities. Madam Muthammal Palanisamy in her autobiography titled “Shore to Shore” described they manner the British treated Indians. During the colonial period an Indian who interacts with the British were not allowed to wear hats or shoes. They are required to remove their hat and shoes and stand barefooted before the British officer as a sign of respect. Dr. Shanthi Thambiah, a Social Anthropologist with University Malaya in her article titled “Toil of the migrant women” said that during the height of indentured Indian labor migration, abuses relating to young women were rampant. Similarly, Indian women and children living in rubber estates contributed to the household economy and to the plantation economy. Indian women’s share of the labor force in plantation increased from 20 percent to 25 percent in the late 19th century to 43 percent in 1947. Outside the plantation economy, Indian women worked as domestic servants and laborers. We are the highest number of drinkers. We are the number ones where crime is concerned. We share only 1.5% of the economic cake. We rate the highest in suicide.
I am sure you are quite familiar with the following names. Dravidar Kazhagam, Malaysia Dravidar Kazhagam, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. All these associations carry the word Dravidar. And they also have Periyar as their mentor or leader. So, what is Dravidar and who is Periyar? Why did struggled so hard for our community. For that we have to take a look at the past.
The Aryans entered India from outside around 1900 – 1750 BC. Their central source was the Rigveda. The rigveda portrays them as warrior tribes who glorified military skill and heroism, loved to drink, hunt, race, and dance; and counted their wealth in cattle. They looked down on the short, dark-skinned indigenous people. Those the Aryans fought lived in fortified towns and put up a strong defense against them. The key to the Aryans success probably lay in their superior military technology; they had fast two wheeled chariots, horses and spears. The epics present the struggle in religious terms; their chiefs as heroes, their opponents as irreligious savages who did not perform the proper sacrifices. As the head of the tribe was a chief, or raja who led his followers in battle and ruled them in peacetime. The warriors in the tribe elected their chief for his military skills. Next in importance to the chief was the priest, entrusted with sacrifices to the gods and the knowledge of sacred rituals. In time as Aryan society put increasing emphasis on proper performance of the religious rituals, priests evolved into a distinct class. The warrior nobility met at assemblies to reach decisions and advise the king. The common tribesman tended herds and in time worked the land. The conquered non-Aryans fell the drudgery of menial tasks. However, the people who spoke Dravidian languages maintain their control. In the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the people of the south and Sri Lanka are spoken as dark-skinned savages and demons who resisted the Aryans. R.C. Majmudar goes on to identify, the indigenous resistance as coming from the Dravidians, the assumption being that the indigenous people spoke a Dravidian, as opposed to a Sanskritic, language.
“It was not merely a struggle between two nationalities. The Dravidians had to fight for their very existence but all in vain. The Dravidians put up a brave fight, and laid down their lives in hundreds and thousands on various battlefields, but ultimately had to succumb to the attacks of the invaders. The Aryans destroyed their castles and cities, burnt their houses, and reduced a large number of them to slaves.”
The Manu Dharma is the law book of the Hindus. It stipulates morality, law and custom of the Hindu society. However, Dr. N. Kanthasamy, a strong advocate of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Ithihaasas is somewhat critical of the Manu Dharma. His article in Tamil Oli published in 1996 by the University Malaya Tamil Language Society says that the texts in the Manu Dharma clearly exhibit the hierarchy of caste distinction. Dr. N. Kanthasamy further adds on that the Manu Dharma narrates an account of the four-fold caste system. From the mouth of Brahma originated the Brahmins. From his own arm came the Kysatriyas. The Vaishyas and the Sudras came from his thigh and foot, respectively. This sort of legendary birth of the four-fold caste may seem ridiculous at the surface level but it is only symbolic. Mouth indicates speech. So, the Brahmins who came out from the Brahma’s mouth were famous for their learning and scholarship. Arm indicates strength and hence the warrior caste became meaningful. The last two organs denote movement and industry, which are essential for the merchant community and the working class, respectively. However, the dominance of the Brahmins existed uniformally through ages. It should be noted that the first three castes had some rare privilege while the last class was always under privileged and suppressed. Most of the specialists who had studied the institution of the four-fold caste with the social background concluded that the system was cleverly and cunningly postulated by the upper class Brahmins.
Dr. N. Kanthasamy, further notes that the Aryans after establishing themselves in India introduced the caste system to subdue the people of the lower ranks. Manu, the lawgiver had modified the rules, morals and the customary laws to regulate the four-fold social system. The ethical course assigned to each of the castes differs considerably. If a Brahmin committed a crime, the punishment imposed will be very mild. If a Sudra committed a similar crime, the punishment would be very severe. Thus the punishment varied from caste to caste for the wrong doers. The type of ethics was promulgated during the period when the rules were under the control of the Brahmins and priests.
On the punishment for low caste people, the Manu says the following:
Apastambha Dharma Sutra III, 10-26, says:
The tongue of a Sudra, who spoke evil about a Brahmin, should be cut off. A Sudra who dared to assume a position of equality with the first three castes was to be flogged. If a Sudra overheard a recitation of the Vedas, molten tin was to be poured into his ears; if he repeated the Vedas his tongue should be cut and if he remembered Vedic hymns, his body be torn into pieces.
The Manu stipulates that the Sudras should not earn money and should not become ministers. They are supposed to eat only the remnants and residues of what has been eaten by higher castes.
Brahmins should not be taxed and should be maintained by the State.
No collection of wealth was to be made by a Shudra, even though he may be capable, for a Shudra who has acquired wealth would pain a Brahmin, and that Brahmins may appropriate by force the property of the Shudra.
Even if a Shudra acquired wealth, he must always remain a slave. His main job is to wash the feet of the higher caste.
Even if a Shudra is learned and virtuous, he should not be given respect and honor.
The First Indian Governor General and Ex-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Mr. Rajagopalachari, alias Rajaji, advocated that people should pass down through generations the professions of their father and forefathers in order to reduce unemployment. This suggestion was highly praised by many newspapers owned by Brahmins. The reasoning behind this advocacy was to keep the low castes tied down to their menial jobs while the Brahmins maintained their high positions. Periyar was against this proposal and fought vigorously against the implementation of the policy. This caused Rajaji his Chief Ministership and eventually the policy was withdrawn.
India till today is economically backward due to the Brahmins not allowing others to progress. They hold high offices in government; control the news media, educational system and so on. This prevents others from rising up, and breaks free of the caste system bondage. Periyar says with all the facilities at their disposal they produce brilliant scientists, doctors etc. Assuredly even the low caste Hindus could do this if they were provided with the same facilities.
Periyar’s philosophy is that, different sections of a society should have equal rights to enjoy the fruits of the resources and the development of the country. They should all be represented, in proportion to their numerical strength, in the governance and the administration of the state. Periyar’s unique contribution was his insistence on rational outlook to bring about intellectual emancipation and a healthy world-view. He also stressed the need to abolish the hierarchical, graded, birth-based caste structure as a prelude to build a new egalitarian social order. In other words, he wanted to lay a sound socio-cultural base, before raising a strong structure of free polity and prosperous economy.
Periyar opined the huge amount of money spent on temple worship, pilgrimages, and festivals if channeled for the improvement of scientific knowledge, education, and industrial development will prevent the migration of Indian laborers to foreign countries. It will also halt the Brahmins who make up only 3 percent of the total population to dominate the rest of the population.
Periyar points out that, weddings in the Tamil society are wasteful and causes tremendous amount of difficulty for the families of the bride and bridegroom. It also involves a lot of wastage for everyone. However, the people involved often disregard the difficulties and wastage resulting from the wedding. They are of the opinion that, it is an obligation to spend large amount of money for a wedding. They do not mind going through the hardship and difficulties arising due to the wasteful expenses. The wastage and difficulties is not confined to the families celebrating the wedding but it also extends to the relatives, friends and neighbors. Almost all families that celebrate the wedding borrow recklessly and spend lavishly to satisfy those who attend the wedding. They also do this fearing that others may speak low of them.
Those wasteful expenses cause many families to crush and they remain in debt for a long period of time. Napoleon Hill, the author of The Law of Success also shares a similar view. He says that there are many young couples these days start their family with unnecessary debts hanging over their heads and never manage to get out of from under the load. After the novelty of marriage begins to wear off the married couple begin to feel the embarrassment of want, and this feeling grows until it leads, oftentimes, to open dissatisfaction with one another, and eventually to the divorce court.
According to Periyar, a wedding indicates a decision by a man and a woman to live together as a husband and wife. It should not mean anything more than that. Therefore, making elaborate preparations, spending lavishly on decoration, jewellery, transport, clothes, food, wedding halls and other meaningless religious rites are unnecessary.
Most people cite religious rites are intended o be cited as evidence in case of legal difficulties that may arise later. However, a marriage that is conducted in the Marriage Registrars office costs nothing and it is legal and binding. Therefore, religious rites, which involve wastage of time, money and energy, must be avoided.
The money that is spend on feast, buying and distributing clothes to relatives, making jewelleries, and other wasteful expenses could be deposited in the bank and earn an interest out of it. The accrued amount could be used for the well being of their children. The enormous amount of money spent on nuptials and the ceremonies related to childbirth should be channeled towards proper upbringing of the couple’s children.
Periyar says that despite all these, women find pleasure in slavish marriages. This is due to their parents bringing them up without any education, independence and self-respect.
Periyar suggests that every wedding should be conducted with minimum expenses. Pomposities and unnecessary expenses should be avoided altogether. Grand feasts, buying clothes for all the relatives and performing religious rites during weddings are all wasteful. Instead a marriage can be conducted in a Marriage Registrars office in the presence of two witnesses. This type of weddings will only involve minimum charges.
On speaking about expenses, Periyar concludes that an increase in income is not important for an individual or a family. One should instead learn to minimize expenses and learn to save. Whatever may be the financial status of the family, the expenses should be within their limits. It is very unprincipled on the part of a women of ordinary means desire to dress like a rich woman. One should learn to spend according to his income. Expenses should be carefully planned and somehow, saving should be effected. Lavish expenditure spoil’s one’s character. A person who earns RM2000 month who tries to live as person who earns RM5000 a month will have a debt of RM3000. Every member of his family will have the same spending habit as they acquire this habit from their parents. The children when they think of going to the college, it becomes impossible due to their parents debts. This makes the entire family unhappy and miserable.
One day Periyar was having dinner in one of the officials house. After dinner a young man was pouring water while Periyar washed his hands. The young man kept on pouring water even after Periyar asked him to stop. Periyar stopped him and asked whether will he do the same if it is ghee. There will come a time when everyone will have to pay for drinking water.
Periyar once summoned Anna to send a telegram to someone. The telegram is supposed to read as already told. Periyar immediately said why two letters. We will have to pay for that. Why can’t we use tolded instead. Anna hesitated. Anna being a MA graduated felt awkward to use such word fearing that others will make fun of him. Periyar asked, “why Annadurai, why are you hesitating?” Anna replied that there is no such word as tolded in English. So, Periyar asked what is the meaning of told. Anna replied it means informed. Periyar replied if that is the case tolded means already informed. That’s all.
From this two illustration some of us may think that Periyar is a miser. We must first understand the difference between a miser and prudent spender. A miser is a person who will not lose a single cent. He will not hesitate to live at other peoples expense. A prudent spender on the other hand is someone who spends his money carefully that is by avoiding unnecessary expenditures.
Practically all people who live beyond their means are tempted to speculate with the hope that they may recoup, at a single turn of wheel of fortune. The wheel generally stops at the wrong side and, far from finding themselves out of debt; such people as indulge in speculation are bound more closely as slaves of debt.
In order to become rich one has to make sacrifices. Someone made the sacrifice of spending less and invested the difference in something that went up in value and made him rich. Some people, somewhere, sometime, got rich without making any kind of sacrifice, but I have never run across them.
The sacrifice may have been made by the rich man or woman, or by his or her father, grandfather, or great-grandfather, or uncle, or friend, or someone else. If an oil well pops up on the farm, the sacrifice isn’t great, but then again, someone had to save up the money to buy the farm in the first place.
Most great fortunes I know about were started by someone who worked long hours, scrimped and saved and made unbelievable sacrifices to get the fortune started. There are only three ways someone can get rich. One is to inherit it. You don’t have to do anything about it as your ancestry is completely beyond your control. Someone else has made all the sacrifices of spending less than they earned to create this wealth for you.
The next one is to marry it. This is something that one can work on. This can be quite a project and I have seen both men and women work this approach to wealth quite effectively. I don’t see anything wrong with it. I see most people believe that the good lord made someone especially for you.
For one to get rich he must first of all understand the difference between asset and liability and buy assets. That’s alone one has to know. This may sound simple but a lot of people have no idea how profound this rule is. Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities, but they think they are assets. We must not see the words but what the numbers are telling us. When we read a book we must not see what the words are telling us, but what the story is telling us. We book a house worth RM100, 000. We pay a 12 percent down payment of RM20, 000 apply for a loan of RM80, 000. We pay a monthly installment of RM500 for the next 30 years. Which means we are going to work till retirement to pay for this liability? Now did we acquire an asset or liability? If we pay a monthly installment of RM500 for the next 30 years we would have ended up paying RM180, 000 for a loan of RM80, 000. That is we have made the bank richer by RM100, 000 and we become poorer by RM100, 000.
An asset is something that puts money into your pocket. A liability is something that takes out money from your pocket. So if you want to be rich simply buy assets. If you want to be poor simply buy liabilities. In most families they work hard in an effort to go get ahead. Not because they don’t make money. But because they spent their lives buying liabilities that they think assets.
A poor person works hard and spends his income in paying rent, transport, food and clothing. His income is just enough to pay for all this. Should anything extraordinary happen he has to borrow. In the subsequent months he will be paying for an additional expense that is the interest on the money borrowed.
A middle-income person also works hard to earn money. But he spends his income differently. For example, a recently married couple, highly educated young couple moves in together, in one of their cramped rented apartments. Immediately, they realize that they are saving money because two can live as cheaply as one.
But the problem is their cramped apartment. They decide to save money to buy their dream home so they can have kids. They now have two incomes, and they begin to focus on their careers. Their incomes begin to increase. As their income rises, their taxes also go up. Then they decide to go out and buy a house of their dreams. Now they have a new tax, called property tax, assessment rate, and etc. Then, they buy a new car, new furniture and new appliances to match the new house. All of a sudden, they wake-up and realize that they are full of mortgages and credit-card liabilities. Then a child comes along. Then they work harder. More money means more taxes. A credit card comes along. They take it. After a few months it maxes up. They see an advertisement by a bank in the papers saying that they offer low interest rates for refinancing houses. They refinance the house and settle the credit card loans. They breathe a sigh of relief. Their credit cards have been paid off. They have actually folded their credit card loan into their housing loan and pay for it for the next 30 years.
Then one day their friend invites them for a Mega Sale. A chance to save money. They say to themselves, “I won’t buy anything. I’ll just go look. But I’ll take my credit card along, just in case if I find something.”
We have seen this kind of people. They do not know what the trouble is if they do not know how to spend the money they have.
In the case of rich people, the assets that they acquire produce more income than expenses. As a result the rich get richer and richer.
In addition, married couples should not live for themselves. They should learn to share their wealth with those who are in need. One should bear the little inconvenience when helping someone. Periyar adds on that a person who is only concerned in accumulating wealth will have his entire life spent on seeking wealth. The children were often neglected and they turn out to be a menace for the society such as the bohsia’s in the KL city. Parents have themselves to blame for this. But they take the pleasure in blaming the foreign culture, Internet and so on. By adopting this principle in all affairs of life, Periyar says one will be doing some service to the society.
Periyar further adds that there is no necessity to bear children. Men will not lose anything if he does not have children. The desire that one’s property should go down to one’s own blood provides the basis for the wish to have children. In Russia, Periyar says since individuals do not have the right to own property; the government itself takes interest in the children. Individuals should bear children only if he can provide the child everything it needs. Education is to enable one to live with freedom and to lead a good life. Therefore men and women should not be in a hurry to beget children soon after marriage. A married couple should wait at least five years before they think of having a baby. Periyar also lashes out at people who say that children are god-given by questioning them that will the god provide food for all the children that are born.
Periyar further says that one should engage in trade in order to prosper. A trader no matter how small is his business will have more money than a person who works for others. A farmer will remain as a farmer forever, unless he knows how to market his products. He will be rich only if he finds treasure while working his land.
In the same time for a petty trader to grow rich he must have the intelligence, self-confidence and above all honesty. He must be also caring and earn the respect of his community. He has to be generous and do some community service.
Once Tamil Periyar Thiru Vi. Ka was running a Tamil daily “Thesa Bakthan”. At that time both Periyar and Thiru Vi. Ka were in Congress. Periyar sent an amount of Rs1000 as donation as financial assistance for Thesa Bakthan. Thiru Vi. Ka immediately published this news in Thesa Bakthan as Periyar Ramasamy contributed Rs1000. Periyar immediately wrote a letter to Thiru Vi. Ka requesting Thiru Vi. Ka to amend the news as Donation of Rs1000 was received through Ramasamy Naiker. The reason for this was the contribution included donations made by others. Periyar could have easily kept mum about the news report. However, his honesty earned him tremendous amount of respect. This made him a great leader. Till today the organization that he set up is still receiving donations. There are over 46 institutions today ranging from hospitals, schools, orphanage and etc under the management of Dravidar Kazhagam.
(Malaysian Dravidian Association)
Good morning ladies and gentleman. I have been asked to give a presentation on Periyar on Economics. Our society at one time was an advanced society. We have made great contributions to the world we live in. We gave the world Thirukkural. It covers all aspects of a human life and teaches how one should lead his life. Then we have King Chola who established empires. He travelled up to Kedah. We have our traders who travelled to countries as far as Rome. We built huge temples. We have great literatures. We have great poets. We lived in peace and harmony. Our language is one of the oldest languages in the world and therefore we are one of the oldest civilizations.
But what happened to all this achievements today? The British brought us in as coolies. We cleared the jungle. We constructed the roads. We planted the rubber trees. We died by snakebites, mosquito bites and diseases. But are deprived of opportunities. Madam Muthammal Palanisamy in her autobiography titled “Shore to Shore” described they manner the British treated Indians. During the colonial period an Indian who interacts with the British were not allowed to wear hats or shoes. They are required to remove their hat and shoes and stand barefooted before the British officer as a sign of respect. Dr. Shanthi Thambiah, a Social Anthropologist with University Malaya in her article titled “Toil of the migrant women” said that during the height of indentured Indian labor migration, abuses relating to young women were rampant. Similarly, Indian women and children living in rubber estates contributed to the household economy and to the plantation economy. Indian women’s share of the labor force in plantation increased from 20 percent to 25 percent in the late 19th century to 43 percent in 1947. Outside the plantation economy, Indian women worked as domestic servants and laborers. We are the highest number of drinkers. We are the number ones where crime is concerned. We share only 1.5% of the economic cake. We rate the highest in suicide.
I am sure you are quite familiar with the following names. Dravidar Kazhagam, Malaysia Dravidar Kazhagam, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Anna Dravida Munetra Kazhagam, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. All these associations carry the word Dravidar. And they also have Periyar as their mentor or leader. So, what is Dravidar and who is Periyar? Why did struggled so hard for our community. For that we have to take a look at the past.
The Aryans entered India from outside around 1900 – 1750 BC. Their central source was the Rigveda. The rigveda portrays them as warrior tribes who glorified military skill and heroism, loved to drink, hunt, race, and dance; and counted their wealth in cattle. They looked down on the short, dark-skinned indigenous people. Those the Aryans fought lived in fortified towns and put up a strong defense against them. The key to the Aryans success probably lay in their superior military technology; they had fast two wheeled chariots, horses and spears. The epics present the struggle in religious terms; their chiefs as heroes, their opponents as irreligious savages who did not perform the proper sacrifices. As the head of the tribe was a chief, or raja who led his followers in battle and ruled them in peacetime. The warriors in the tribe elected their chief for his military skills. Next in importance to the chief was the priest, entrusted with sacrifices to the gods and the knowledge of sacred rituals. In time as Aryan society put increasing emphasis on proper performance of the religious rituals, priests evolved into a distinct class. The warrior nobility met at assemblies to reach decisions and advise the king. The common tribesman tended herds and in time worked the land. The conquered non-Aryans fell the drudgery of menial tasks. However, the people who spoke Dravidian languages maintain their control. In the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the people of the south and Sri Lanka are spoken as dark-skinned savages and demons who resisted the Aryans. R.C. Majmudar goes on to identify, the indigenous resistance as coming from the Dravidians, the assumption being that the indigenous people spoke a Dravidian, as opposed to a Sanskritic, language.
“It was not merely a struggle between two nationalities. The Dravidians had to fight for their very existence but all in vain. The Dravidians put up a brave fight, and laid down their lives in hundreds and thousands on various battlefields, but ultimately had to succumb to the attacks of the invaders. The Aryans destroyed their castles and cities, burnt their houses, and reduced a large number of them to slaves.”
The Manu Dharma is the law book of the Hindus. It stipulates morality, law and custom of the Hindu society. However, Dr. N. Kanthasamy, a strong advocate of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Ithihaasas is somewhat critical of the Manu Dharma. His article in Tamil Oli published in 1996 by the University Malaya Tamil Language Society says that the texts in the Manu Dharma clearly exhibit the hierarchy of caste distinction. Dr. N. Kanthasamy further adds on that the Manu Dharma narrates an account of the four-fold caste system. From the mouth of Brahma originated the Brahmins. From his own arm came the Kysatriyas. The Vaishyas and the Sudras came from his thigh and foot, respectively. This sort of legendary birth of the four-fold caste may seem ridiculous at the surface level but it is only symbolic. Mouth indicates speech. So, the Brahmins who came out from the Brahma’s mouth were famous for their learning and scholarship. Arm indicates strength and hence the warrior caste became meaningful. The last two organs denote movement and industry, which are essential for the merchant community and the working class, respectively. However, the dominance of the Brahmins existed uniformally through ages. It should be noted that the first three castes had some rare privilege while the last class was always under privileged and suppressed. Most of the specialists who had studied the institution of the four-fold caste with the social background concluded that the system was cleverly and cunningly postulated by the upper class Brahmins.
Dr. N. Kanthasamy, further notes that the Aryans after establishing themselves in India introduced the caste system to subdue the people of the lower ranks. Manu, the lawgiver had modified the rules, morals and the customary laws to regulate the four-fold social system. The ethical course assigned to each of the castes differs considerably. If a Brahmin committed a crime, the punishment imposed will be very mild. If a Sudra committed a similar crime, the punishment would be very severe. Thus the punishment varied from caste to caste for the wrong doers. The type of ethics was promulgated during the period when the rules were under the control of the Brahmins and priests.
On the punishment for low caste people, the Manu says the following:
Apastambha Dharma Sutra III, 10-26, says:
The tongue of a Sudra, who spoke evil about a Brahmin, should be cut off. A Sudra who dared to assume a position of equality with the first three castes was to be flogged. If a Sudra overheard a recitation of the Vedas, molten tin was to be poured into his ears; if he repeated the Vedas his tongue should be cut and if he remembered Vedic hymns, his body be torn into pieces.
The Manu stipulates that the Sudras should not earn money and should not become ministers. They are supposed to eat only the remnants and residues of what has been eaten by higher castes.
Brahmins should not be taxed and should be maintained by the State.
No collection of wealth was to be made by a Shudra, even though he may be capable, for a Shudra who has acquired wealth would pain a Brahmin, and that Brahmins may appropriate by force the property of the Shudra.
Even if a Shudra acquired wealth, he must always remain a slave. His main job is to wash the feet of the higher caste.
Even if a Shudra is learned and virtuous, he should not be given respect and honor.
The First Indian Governor General and Ex-Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Mr. Rajagopalachari, alias Rajaji, advocated that people should pass down through generations the professions of their father and forefathers in order to reduce unemployment. This suggestion was highly praised by many newspapers owned by Brahmins. The reasoning behind this advocacy was to keep the low castes tied down to their menial jobs while the Brahmins maintained their high positions. Periyar was against this proposal and fought vigorously against the implementation of the policy. This caused Rajaji his Chief Ministership and eventually the policy was withdrawn.
India till today is economically backward due to the Brahmins not allowing others to progress. They hold high offices in government; control the news media, educational system and so on. This prevents others from rising up, and breaks free of the caste system bondage. Periyar says with all the facilities at their disposal they produce brilliant scientists, doctors etc. Assuredly even the low caste Hindus could do this if they were provided with the same facilities.
Periyar’s philosophy is that, different sections of a society should have equal rights to enjoy the fruits of the resources and the development of the country. They should all be represented, in proportion to their numerical strength, in the governance and the administration of the state. Periyar’s unique contribution was his insistence on rational outlook to bring about intellectual emancipation and a healthy world-view. He also stressed the need to abolish the hierarchical, graded, birth-based caste structure as a prelude to build a new egalitarian social order. In other words, he wanted to lay a sound socio-cultural base, before raising a strong structure of free polity and prosperous economy.
Periyar opined the huge amount of money spent on temple worship, pilgrimages, and festivals if channeled for the improvement of scientific knowledge, education, and industrial development will prevent the migration of Indian laborers to foreign countries. It will also halt the Brahmins who make up only 3 percent of the total population to dominate the rest of the population.
Periyar points out that, weddings in the Tamil society are wasteful and causes tremendous amount of difficulty for the families of the bride and bridegroom. It also involves a lot of wastage for everyone. However, the people involved often disregard the difficulties and wastage resulting from the wedding. They are of the opinion that, it is an obligation to spend large amount of money for a wedding. They do not mind going through the hardship and difficulties arising due to the wasteful expenses. The wastage and difficulties is not confined to the families celebrating the wedding but it also extends to the relatives, friends and neighbors. Almost all families that celebrate the wedding borrow recklessly and spend lavishly to satisfy those who attend the wedding. They also do this fearing that others may speak low of them.
Those wasteful expenses cause many families to crush and they remain in debt for a long period of time. Napoleon Hill, the author of The Law of Success also shares a similar view. He says that there are many young couples these days start their family with unnecessary debts hanging over their heads and never manage to get out of from under the load. After the novelty of marriage begins to wear off the married couple begin to feel the embarrassment of want, and this feeling grows until it leads, oftentimes, to open dissatisfaction with one another, and eventually to the divorce court.
According to Periyar, a wedding indicates a decision by a man and a woman to live together as a husband and wife. It should not mean anything more than that. Therefore, making elaborate preparations, spending lavishly on decoration, jewellery, transport, clothes, food, wedding halls and other meaningless religious rites are unnecessary.
Most people cite religious rites are intended o be cited as evidence in case of legal difficulties that may arise later. However, a marriage that is conducted in the Marriage Registrars office costs nothing and it is legal and binding. Therefore, religious rites, which involve wastage of time, money and energy, must be avoided.
The money that is spend on feast, buying and distributing clothes to relatives, making jewelleries, and other wasteful expenses could be deposited in the bank and earn an interest out of it. The accrued amount could be used for the well being of their children. The enormous amount of money spent on nuptials and the ceremonies related to childbirth should be channeled towards proper upbringing of the couple’s children.
Periyar says that despite all these, women find pleasure in slavish marriages. This is due to their parents bringing them up without any education, independence and self-respect.
Periyar suggests that every wedding should be conducted with minimum expenses. Pomposities and unnecessary expenses should be avoided altogether. Grand feasts, buying clothes for all the relatives and performing religious rites during weddings are all wasteful. Instead a marriage can be conducted in a Marriage Registrars office in the presence of two witnesses. This type of weddings will only involve minimum charges.
On speaking about expenses, Periyar concludes that an increase in income is not important for an individual or a family. One should instead learn to minimize expenses and learn to save. Whatever may be the financial status of the family, the expenses should be within their limits. It is very unprincipled on the part of a women of ordinary means desire to dress like a rich woman. One should learn to spend according to his income. Expenses should be carefully planned and somehow, saving should be effected. Lavish expenditure spoil’s one’s character. A person who earns RM2000 month who tries to live as person who earns RM5000 a month will have a debt of RM3000. Every member of his family will have the same spending habit as they acquire this habit from their parents. The children when they think of going to the college, it becomes impossible due to their parents debts. This makes the entire family unhappy and miserable.
One day Periyar was having dinner in one of the officials house. After dinner a young man was pouring water while Periyar washed his hands. The young man kept on pouring water even after Periyar asked him to stop. Periyar stopped him and asked whether will he do the same if it is ghee. There will come a time when everyone will have to pay for drinking water.
Periyar once summoned Anna to send a telegram to someone. The telegram is supposed to read as already told. Periyar immediately said why two letters. We will have to pay for that. Why can’t we use tolded instead. Anna hesitated. Anna being a MA graduated felt awkward to use such word fearing that others will make fun of him. Periyar asked, “why Annadurai, why are you hesitating?” Anna replied that there is no such word as tolded in English. So, Periyar asked what is the meaning of told. Anna replied it means informed. Periyar replied if that is the case tolded means already informed. That’s all.
From this two illustration some of us may think that Periyar is a miser. We must first understand the difference between a miser and prudent spender. A miser is a person who will not lose a single cent. He will not hesitate to live at other peoples expense. A prudent spender on the other hand is someone who spends his money carefully that is by avoiding unnecessary expenditures.
Practically all people who live beyond their means are tempted to speculate with the hope that they may recoup, at a single turn of wheel of fortune. The wheel generally stops at the wrong side and, far from finding themselves out of debt; such people as indulge in speculation are bound more closely as slaves of debt.
In order to become rich one has to make sacrifices. Someone made the sacrifice of spending less and invested the difference in something that went up in value and made him rich. Some people, somewhere, sometime, got rich without making any kind of sacrifice, but I have never run across them.
The sacrifice may have been made by the rich man or woman, or by his or her father, grandfather, or great-grandfather, or uncle, or friend, or someone else. If an oil well pops up on the farm, the sacrifice isn’t great, but then again, someone had to save up the money to buy the farm in the first place.
Most great fortunes I know about were started by someone who worked long hours, scrimped and saved and made unbelievable sacrifices to get the fortune started. There are only three ways someone can get rich. One is to inherit it. You don’t have to do anything about it as your ancestry is completely beyond your control. Someone else has made all the sacrifices of spending less than they earned to create this wealth for you.
The next one is to marry it. This is something that one can work on. This can be quite a project and I have seen both men and women work this approach to wealth quite effectively. I don’t see anything wrong with it. I see most people believe that the good lord made someone especially for you.
For one to get rich he must first of all understand the difference between asset and liability and buy assets. That’s alone one has to know. This may sound simple but a lot of people have no idea how profound this rule is. Rich people acquire assets. The poor and middle class acquire liabilities, but they think they are assets. We must not see the words but what the numbers are telling us. When we read a book we must not see what the words are telling us, but what the story is telling us. We book a house worth RM100, 000. We pay a 12 percent down payment of RM20, 000 apply for a loan of RM80, 000. We pay a monthly installment of RM500 for the next 30 years. Which means we are going to work till retirement to pay for this liability? Now did we acquire an asset or liability? If we pay a monthly installment of RM500 for the next 30 years we would have ended up paying RM180, 000 for a loan of RM80, 000. That is we have made the bank richer by RM100, 000 and we become poorer by RM100, 000.
An asset is something that puts money into your pocket. A liability is something that takes out money from your pocket. So if you want to be rich simply buy assets. If you want to be poor simply buy liabilities. In most families they work hard in an effort to go get ahead. Not because they don’t make money. But because they spent their lives buying liabilities that they think assets.
A poor person works hard and spends his income in paying rent, transport, food and clothing. His income is just enough to pay for all this. Should anything extraordinary happen he has to borrow. In the subsequent months he will be paying for an additional expense that is the interest on the money borrowed.
A middle-income person also works hard to earn money. But he spends his income differently. For example, a recently married couple, highly educated young couple moves in together, in one of their cramped rented apartments. Immediately, they realize that they are saving money because two can live as cheaply as one.
But the problem is their cramped apartment. They decide to save money to buy their dream home so they can have kids. They now have two incomes, and they begin to focus on their careers. Their incomes begin to increase. As their income rises, their taxes also go up. Then they decide to go out and buy a house of their dreams. Now they have a new tax, called property tax, assessment rate, and etc. Then, they buy a new car, new furniture and new appliances to match the new house. All of a sudden, they wake-up and realize that they are full of mortgages and credit-card liabilities. Then a child comes along. Then they work harder. More money means more taxes. A credit card comes along. They take it. After a few months it maxes up. They see an advertisement by a bank in the papers saying that they offer low interest rates for refinancing houses. They refinance the house and settle the credit card loans. They breathe a sigh of relief. Their credit cards have been paid off. They have actually folded their credit card loan into their housing loan and pay for it for the next 30 years.
Then one day their friend invites them for a Mega Sale. A chance to save money. They say to themselves, “I won’t buy anything. I’ll just go look. But I’ll take my credit card along, just in case if I find something.”
We have seen this kind of people. They do not know what the trouble is if they do not know how to spend the money they have.
In the case of rich people, the assets that they acquire produce more income than expenses. As a result the rich get richer and richer.
In addition, married couples should not live for themselves. They should learn to share their wealth with those who are in need. One should bear the little inconvenience when helping someone. Periyar adds on that a person who is only concerned in accumulating wealth will have his entire life spent on seeking wealth. The children were often neglected and they turn out to be a menace for the society such as the bohsia’s in the KL city. Parents have themselves to blame for this. But they take the pleasure in blaming the foreign culture, Internet and so on. By adopting this principle in all affairs of life, Periyar says one will be doing some service to the society.
Periyar further adds that there is no necessity to bear children. Men will not lose anything if he does not have children. The desire that one’s property should go down to one’s own blood provides the basis for the wish to have children. In Russia, Periyar says since individuals do not have the right to own property; the government itself takes interest in the children. Individuals should bear children only if he can provide the child everything it needs. Education is to enable one to live with freedom and to lead a good life. Therefore men and women should not be in a hurry to beget children soon after marriage. A married couple should wait at least five years before they think of having a baby. Periyar also lashes out at people who say that children are god-given by questioning them that will the god provide food for all the children that are born.
Periyar further says that one should engage in trade in order to prosper. A trader no matter how small is his business will have more money than a person who works for others. A farmer will remain as a farmer forever, unless he knows how to market his products. He will be rich only if he finds treasure while working his land.
In the same time for a petty trader to grow rich he must have the intelligence, self-confidence and above all honesty. He must be also caring and earn the respect of his community. He has to be generous and do some community service.
Once Tamil Periyar Thiru Vi. Ka was running a Tamil daily “Thesa Bakthan”. At that time both Periyar and Thiru Vi. Ka were in Congress. Periyar sent an amount of Rs1000 as donation as financial assistance for Thesa Bakthan. Thiru Vi. Ka immediately published this news in Thesa Bakthan as Periyar Ramasamy contributed Rs1000. Periyar immediately wrote a letter to Thiru Vi. Ka requesting Thiru Vi. Ka to amend the news as Donation of Rs1000 was received through Ramasamy Naiker. The reason for this was the contribution included donations made by others. Periyar could have easily kept mum about the news report. However, his honesty earned him tremendous amount of respect. This made him a great leader. Till today the organization that he set up is still receiving donations. There are over 46 institutions today ranging from hospitals, schools, orphanage and etc under the management of Dravidar Kazhagam.
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