Tamil Renaissance

Tamil Renaissance refers to the literary, cultural, social reform and political movements that took place in the Tamil-speaking districts of Southern India starting in the second half of the 19th century and lasting to the culmination of the anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s.

The period was characterized by a literary revival, spearheaded by Tamil writers of two different factions. One preferred an increased mixture of Sanskrit words with Tamil, believing that such a fusion raised the quality of Tamil language. The other faction favored reducing Sanskrit words to the barest minimum, in the belief that Sanskrit-origin words made the Tamil language lose its individuality. Rapid propagation of Western ideas and formulation of the Dravidian civilization theory during the second half of the 19th century inculcated a sense of pride in educated Tamils, eventually leading to the birth of Tamil nationalism, which inspired the Dravidian movement. In its later stages, the renaissance also had a profound impact on Tamil cinema.

Background

Tamil Nadu history begins in the 3rd century BC. From then until a few centuries AD, the Tamil country was ruled by the Chera, Chola, and Pandya kings, who patronized Tamil language. The Pandya kings, especially, held regular sangams at Madurai, due to which this period is also called Sangam Age. However, when these kingdoms began to decline, Tamil arts, culture and literature suffered a temporary setback before rising to even greater heights under the Medieval and Later Cholas and the Later Pandyas. But when the Pandya kingdom was conquered by the Delhi Sultanate, many literary and artistic works were systematically destroyed and the indigenous Tamil culture relegated to secondary status. Though there was a partial revival under the Vijayanagar Empire, Tamil civilization never recovered its past glory. The Vijayanagar kings, as well as their successors, the Madurai and Thanjavur Nayaks and the Thanjavur Marathas mainly patronized Telugu or Sanskrit. For instance, though there were several Tamil literary works penned during the rule of the Thanjavur Marathas, most of them were minor koothu, and none of them were of any great quality or importance.

Beginnings

When the British Crown took over the administration of the country from the British East India Company, there was a rapid rise in literacy levels in South India. Brahmins reaped huge advantages from the reward-for-merit policy of the British Raj and eventually emerged as the foremost elite group among the native Indians. By the beginning of the 20th century, the domination of Brahmins turned into a monopoly, as some favoured members of their own community over others in government appointments.

The second half of the 19th century also saw the birth of Tamil pride, based on a distinct non-Aryan Dravidian identity. The Comparative Study of the Dravidian Family of Languages by Bishop Robert Caldwell, for the first time, classified words in Dravidian tongues by their linguistic roots and distinguished them from their Indo-Aryan equivalents.[1] The antiquity and greatness of Tamil civilization was further revealed by the archaeological discoveries of Robert Bruce Foote and the rediscovery and reproduction of ancient Tamil classics by U. V. Swaminatha Iyer.[2] Dravidian individualism combined with resentment of Brahmin domination eventually led to the birth of the Anti-Brahmin movement and inspired the works of K. N. Sivaraja Pillai, Maraimalai Adigal and Bharathidasan and the socio-political movements of Iyothee Thass and E. V. Ramasami Naicker. It also inspired the romanticism of V. Kanakasabhai and L. D. Swamikannu Pillai.

Tamil nationalism also inspired a pan-Indian anti-British school of thought, thereby strengthening the Indian independence movement in Tamil Nadu. Indian independence activists like Subramanya Bharathy, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, V. V. S. Aiyar, Subramania Siva, V. Kalyanasundara Mudaliar and M. P. Sivagnanam were accomplished Tamil writers.

Key individuals

Linguists and litterateurs
Historians
Epigraphists
Mysticists
Writers and journalists

Notes

  1. ↑ Comale (1976). European impact on modern Tamil writing and literature. Dravidian Linguistic Association. p. 53.
  2. ↑ Karen Prechilis (1999). The embodiment of bhakti. Oxford University Press. p. 8. ISBN 0195128133, ISBN 978-0-19-512813-0.

Bibliography

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