The hatred of Dravidian ideologues against Hinduism aka Sanatana Dharma and its associated cultural aspects is well-known. This article attempts to recapitulate the systematic destruction of Sanskritic culture and Sanskrit carried out by the flagbearer of Dravidian ideology, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party.
This article is based on this compilation report and other writings on this topic by Shree. Sandeep Balakrishna. We begin with a historical outline of the genesis of the Dravidian movement before independence, followed by post-independence activism, then to the current state of affairs in recent years.
Pre-Independence Bharat
This tale of hatred and perversion of truth begins in the pre-independence Bharat. The Justice Party (officially the South Indian Liberal Federation), was born on November 20, 1916, at Victoria Public Hall in Madras. Founded by Dr. C. Natesa Mudaliar, T. M. Nair, P. Theagaraya Chetty, and Alamelu Mangai Thayarammal, the party emerged from a series of non-Brahmin conferences that sought to empower marginalized communities and challenge the status.
The Justice Party came under the leadership of Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy and his Self- Respect Movement. In 1944, Periyar transformed the Justice Party into the social organisation Dravidar Kazhagam. Periyar E.V. Ramasamy emerged in the early 20th century, strongly opposing Sanskrit due to its perceived associations with Brahminical dominance and cultural imposition.
It might seem incredible and even unbelievable today, but even as recently as in the 1940s, the learning of Sanskrit and its literature was regarded as a mark of high culture in Tamil Nadu. Especially in Tamil Nadu. Throughout Indian history, Kanchipuram strode aloft as one of the renowned and prestigious centres of Sanskrit scholarship. The sacred city took pride in being home to several unbroken lineages of extraordinary Sanskrit Pandits and Vidwans.
However, the rowdy denizens of the Justice Party, in their rabble-rousing speeches essentially spouted variants of the following clamour: “What is there in Sanskrit that’s not there in Tamil? The wicked Aryas from the north and their Sanskrit language invaded our pure Tamil land and destroyed our literature and culture and flung us into backwardness. We must liberate our pure Tamil land and culture from these Aryas. They are today known as South Indian Brahmins, who continue to oppress us.”
The justice party and its predecessors didn’t have it easy. The early role played by the Church, especially by Bishop “Kaltuvel Aiyar” (Robert Caldwell) in seeding and fomenting Tamil separatism is well-known. But its far-reaching consequences leading up to our own time need deeper examination.
One such consequence has already been mentioned: the naked lie that evil Aryas from North India and their oppressive Sanskrit language destroyed an alleged “original” Tamil culture and a “pure” Tamil language. This has become a settled truth in Tamil Nadu’s public discourse. It is still the seed capital of the Dravidian ideology. It also posits that these Aryas armed with their Sanskrit were solely responsible for creating backward classes in the state.
The calculated destruction of Sanskrit in Tamil Nadu was the direct and associative outcome of inveterate Brahmin-hatred espoused by the Dravidianists. From the start, the Dravidianists adopted a scorched earth policy of destroying everything that could remotely be considered Brahminical: the Sanskrit language and literature, temple traditions and social customs. But the most effective imagined enemy they found was Sanskrit: specifically, Sanskrit as opposed to Tamil.
Dravidianists wrote inflammatory pamphlets and delivered provocative speeches against Brahmins, Sanskrit, Hindu Deities, Puranas, etc. One such vile pamphlet that appeared in 1929 was the Visittira tevarkkal korttu (The Wonderful Court of Hindu Deities). It used the literary device of a court of law in which revered Hindu Deities were put on trial and cross-examined for the various sexual and violent crimes they had committed against the non-Brahmins, and harsh punishments were imposed on them. The pamphlet concluded that the entire Hindu “religion” was a mass of superstition and had to be wiped out from the Tamil land.
With the tacit support of the British, Caldwell had the destruction of Brahmins in mind because they formed the chief obstacle to his soul-harvesting project. But he masked this sinister intention by announcing that what he was really doing was scholarly work in Tamil linguistics. By using linguistics as a pretext, he extrapolated the sociological equation that Brahmins=Aryas=Evil North Indian Invaders=Oppressors of Dravidians. The first move was to deny the verifiable historical truth that Tamil was derived from Sanskrit. In fact, he went so far as to claim that Sanskrit had stolen from Tamil.
Dravidianist spewed venom against Brahmins and Sanskrit through public rallies and inflammatory speeches. One of the first casualties of Sanskrit learning was a traditional Gurukulam located in the ancient Kallidaikurchi Brahmin Agraharam falling in the jurisdiction of the Tirunelveli district. It was situated on the banks of the venerated Tamraparni river sanctified by countless generations of Vedic scholarship and whose glories Muthuswami Dikshitar never tired of singing. Kallidaikurchi is just 70 kilometres from Kanyakumari. And Kanyakumari is today a Christian majority city.
Post-Independence Bharat
The Dravidianists implemented a cleansing campaign against Sanskrit right from the 1950s. According to them, the pristine “purity” of the Dravidian version of Tamil, like the jealous Abrahamic Gods, wouldn’t tolerate an equal, and therefore demanded a wholesale slaughter of Sanskrit.
In 1968, the DMK government, led by C.N. Annadurai, established a Two-Language Policy that prioritized Tamil and English while effectively eliminating Hindi and Sanskrit from the state’s educational curriculum. The removal of Sanskrit from the eligibility criteria democratized the study of medicine and opened the doors to those who were not from the ‘upper caste’ groups.
Recent attempts to suppress Sanskrit in the state
DMP MP opposes interpretation of Lok Sabha proceedings in Sanskrit
On February 11, 2025, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Dayanidhi Maran During Question Hour opposed the simultaneous interpretation of Lok Sabha proceedings in Sanskrit, calling it a waste of taxpayers’ money and linking it to RSS ideology. Maran questioned the necessity of Sanskrit interpretation, arguing that it was ‘not communicable’ and citing the 2011 Census, which recorded only 73,000 Sanskrit speakers.
TN Dy CM compared NEET to Sanskrit language!
Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin compared the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical entrance nationwide to Sanskrit language, on grounds that both are used as a tool to eliminate backward, rural, and under privileged candidates from pursuing medical education.
Dravidian leader demands removal of Sanskrit language expertise for archaeology dept post
CPI state secretary R Mutharasan demanded the withdrawal of the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) notification which makes a degree in Sanskrit mandatory for appointment to the post of assistant curator in the Archaeology department. He sought the intervention of the state government to cancel the notification issued by the TNPSC and issue a revised notification without insisting on Sanskrit degree.
DMK MP says Sanskrit forced Dalits to study like upper caste!
Former DMK Rajya Sabha MP, TKS Elangovan said that “the entry of Sanskrit and Hinduism has spoiled this land”. They made the “Dalit Hindus” and “Backward classes people” to study like the “upper caste people”. This makes us question whether the Dravidianists consider so-called lower caste people as capable human beings at all!
TN govt forces archakas in temples to perform archana in Tamil
The Tamil Nadu government has introduced a new standard operating procedure (SOP) for archakas to promote Tamil in temple rituals. As part of this initiative, the government will pay 60% of the archana ticket fare collected by temples to archakas who perform archana in Tamil. This move aims to eliminate Sanskrit mantras from temple rituals and promote Tamil instead.
TN govt removes Dean over Sanskrit oath
The Tamil Nadu government removed A Rathinavel the dean of Madurai Medical College , a day after its new students were administered the Maharshi Charak Shapath, in Sanskrit, instead of the usual Hippocratic Oath in English. Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian said “We have also written to all medical institutions in the state to follow the traditional Hippocratic Oath”.
DMK protests against inclusion of Bhagavad Gita in syllabus
The students wing of DMK staged a protest against the alleged imposition of Sanskrit in Anna University and other issues. Anna University has included a paper on Bhagavad Gita for the engineering students. Ezhilarasan, student wing district secretary said.” Definitely the protest is in its initial stage. We will continue to protest until Anna University removes Bhagavad Gita from the syllabus.
Jayalalithaa opposed Sanskrit week celebrations in TN
The late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa opposed CBSE’s directive to celebrate ‘Sanskrit Week’ in schools in the state in August of 2014. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she asked for a modification of the directive to focus instead on celebrating a ‘Classical Language Week’ in each state grounded on the linguistic heritage of that state.
All these instances show the disgusting levels of Sanskrit and Hindu hatred that is being propagated by Dravidianists in the state of Tamil Nadu, which is supposed to be the state with the highest number of Hindu temples! This is ironic and shows the pathetic state of Hindus in the land of supposed Hindu majority!
De-Sanskritization of Tamil language had a limit and this is more realized in conversational Tamil than formal/literary Tamil.
DMK says Hindi is the mask and Sanskrit is the face.
They don’t realize that on the contrary Hindi imposers use Sanskrit as a mask when the face is Hindi.
(Interestingly the Tamil Bible has a lot of Sanskrit vocabulary and so do Tamil Christian names consequently as this predates de-Sanskritization).
First of all there is no such thing as Hindi imposition.
As far as Tamil Bible having Sanskrit vocabulary is concerned – Christianity is good at appropriation to prey on innocent Hindus. They keep appropriating everything Hindu to further their conversion agenda which is ably aided by Dravidianism.
Our concern here is de-Sanskritization by Dravidianists.
(I am not a Hindi imposer nor you might be, but there are Hindi imposers).
Coming back to my comment, read it again.
I said that the Tamil Bible was written before de-Sanskritization in our immediate previous centuries.
I specially mentioned it here because this is something which has not been undone as it was printed before de-Sanskritization.
So it is an example where de-Sanskritization can’t work, because it is already Sanskritized and even excessively, like the names till date and they even call the Bible (Vedam), unlike in Marathi it is called (Pavitra Shastra).
Christianity appropriates every culture and even “religion” and this is there even where there is no “Dravidianism”, it doesn’t need to be aided.
Your comment is about another subject, which doesn’t refute this, but i have responded.