Continuing the review of Passions of the Tongue

[Bharat Gupt]

Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan wrote:
>
> raja at IFA.HAWAII.EDU asked:
>
> > Could he just have been stating a simple fact,
> >  i.e., that ceGkuTTuvan2 was mATalan2's king,
> >  rather than "articulating a  case of linguistic
> >  nationalism"?
>
> No, because mATalan2's king is a Chola  while ceGkuTTuvan2 is a Chera king.
> The conversation takes place on the bank of the river gaGgA.

Does standing and speaking on the bank of Ganga make it Tamil nationalism ?
Is taking pride  or fondness in your spoken/family/ regional tongue enough to
constitute nationalism. The "mula-sthana" has been always a matter of identity
for pretwentienth century Indians. The mulasthaana , caste or gotra, and occupational
reference were  the constituents of an Indian name till recently.

Nationalism on the other hand is an urge to demarcate a state on the basis of
language which is then used for everkind of thng by its inhabitants. It is an obsession
with monolingualism that tends to use that language for everthing from buying a beetle
leaf to philosophical discourse. This phenomenon begins with print in Europe and came to
India in the 19th century. Before that Indians were highly multulingual, using different
languages for different things and for addressing different social classes.

If we call Cilapaddikaram is a work of Tamil nationalism, then Tulsidas's Ramayana is a
work of Avadhii nationalism, Surdas's Bhramargit of Brija nationalism (both works where
great affection is revealed for the topography) and Meghaduta of ???  Brahmin/Aryan-ism,
I guess, because it is sanskrit and being in sanskrit keeps it only brahmin eventhough
it is a great example of topographical aesthetics.

Bharat Gupt