By: Arvindan Neelakandan
Always feeding wrong versions of history to impressionable minds, the Church in Tamil Nadu seems to have refined its methods this time.
The Church, relentless in its evangelical agenda, has zeroed in on more virulent elements within the Dravidian movement as well as fringe Tamil nationalist-secessionist movements. Mathimaran, a vociferous Dravidian rhetorician claims that Bharathi, the great Tamil poet was only a Brahmin supremacist. He pits Dr Ambedkar against Gandhi much like Kancha Illaiah. He is invited for the training programmes of Christian nuns and his books filled with anti-Hindu hatred are sold in these programmes.
So, clearly the Church now aims to switch to the next level in its crusade against Hinduism in Tamil Nadu. It promotes Tamil secessionist-nationalist fringe groups. While the Dravidian movement considered all Tamil Hindu culture as Aryan Brahminical imposition, these groups take a more nuanced step. They claim that the original Tamil religion and culture were different and were corrupted by ‘Aryan Brahmins’. Seeman, on the other hand, claims Shiva and Muruga to be his ancestors. This claim, where Hindu deities are posited as secular ethnic ancestors, plays well into Christian evangelical agenda. While it gives a psychological comfort of an illusive attachment to Tamil culture, it effectively reduces the spiritual aspects of Tamil culture to a naught. So Shiva is no more the cosmic principle but an ethnic ancestral totem symbol. Similarly, Tamil music, dance forms, temple architecture, and literature – can all be reduced to ethnic elements and secularised (only to be later Christianised).
(This piece is borrowed from an article at:
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/the-sinister-games-of-the-church-in-tamil-nadu )
Filed under: Contemporary World
