Book Review: An Update on AIT (Part 1)

[nanda chandran]

P Chandrasekaran writes :
>"....it is a very fitting tribute to pay, having a well-rounded
>knowledge of Tamil  ..."

>an indisputable evidence that millenia ago Tamil was consciously used
>as a glorified label for the native heritage.

C'mon, c'mon! Where exactly is 'native' ever mentioned? And that too as
against alien Samskrutam!

And loyalty to a particular language need not necessarily mean hostility
towards another. The Bengalis are passionate about their language, but they
don't deny Samskrutam its place.

>The "political agenda" agenda of the epic cilappatikAram seems to be
>expressly
>to unite the fragmented Tamil society into one unified force against
> >alien
>cultures and powers and there are passages in it from employing the >word
>"Tamil"
>and "tamil nADu" from which this can be deduced.

CilappatikAram, a text from a religious background which has traditionally
prided on itself being 'Arya' hardly supports your argument.

And to take a non-astika text as a base for your argument whose tradition
has never been the truly popular tradition, weakens your argument further
still!

And most pro-AIT specialists hardly seem to be in touch with the living
reality. A big percentage of the so called 'dravidian' populace can hardly
pronounce the 'zha', in the word "Thamizh" (Tamil) itself, let alone master
the intricacies of the language. While the so called Aryan brahmana excels
in his proficiency in the so called dravida tongue!

So apart from framing 'theories' from ancient texts, a hard look at living
realities might also come in handy when constructing the history of a
people.

Another interesting thing to note is that the so called 'protector' of the
dravidian heritage - the dravidian political parties - the DMK - which for
the past few decades resorted to rabid anti-brahmanism, have shown no
hesitation to embrace the pro-Aryan, Hindutva BJP to further its political
ends, when its dravidian appeal had faded with the so called dravidian
populace. Just reveals where the actual interests of the 'dravida'
intelligensia (I don't mean the professors!) lies!

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