Dravidar Kazhagam has invited applications for admission in ‘Dravida School’ for the current academic year. Dravidar Kazhagam leader Suba Veerapandian(SubaVee), who founded the school, claims that Dravidian ideology’s origin, history, principles, etc are taught. SubaVee said he thought of establishing a separate school to teach these things after having taught the same for many years in the ‘Dravidian Training Camps’ conducted by DMK’s youth wing.

What is taught in Dravidian Training Camps?

There are many videos of SubaVee and other leading Dravidian ideologues speaking at events organised by DMK, DK, and other Dravidian organisations. If it is what SubaVee claims, it should be about how EV Ramasamy started the anti-Hindu anti-Brahmin campaign and called it the ‘Dravidian Movement’ and how a few individuals from landed castes came together to found the Justice Party to get hold of political power and how it later became DMK and implemented EV Ramasamy’s rabid anti-Hindu thoughts.

However, from the days of EV Ramasamy himself, it’s been about talking behind one’s back and continues to be the same till day. EV Ramasamy provoked non-Brahmin castes against Brahmins by talking behind the latter’s back and through absolutely vile lies. For example, he claimed that Brahmins had a habit of taking whichever women they liked in Kerala; thus, children born to non-Brahmin women were bastards of Brahmin men. He intentionally twisted the ‘Sambandham’ practice of the Nair and Nambudiri communities.

He used it to a large extent to spread a lie that Brahmin men used non-Brahmin women as whores. His scaremongering tactic was to spread panic that Brahmins would bring legislation to make wives of non-Brahmins their own. He said, “they have written in law books that ‘other than the 3% the remaining 97% Tamilians are shudra and sons of whores and sons of mistresses of Brahmins”. Such lies are repeated in Dravidian Training Camps to keep the fire burning.

Dravidian ideologues of today, like SubaVee, K Veeramani, etc, are the fountainhead of such lies to instruct the new age Dravidianists on spreading the anti-Brahmin propaganda. Another lie taught in these camps is that learning Sanskrit was mandatory to study medicine in the Madras presidency before the Justice Party came to power. But the fact is that Sanskrit was one of the languages, including Urdu, that was made mandatory to enter medical education. Since then, Dravidam has had no problem with foreign languages destroying Tamil but is dead against Sanskrit.

In an event organised by the rabid Thanthai Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, SubaVee asked the audience to question how Bhagwan Shiva can be a god for every Hindu. He quoted Nedumaran, another Dravidian idealogue, and said, “Shiva takes avatar 11 times in Periyapuranam. In all those avatars, he appears as a paappan(Brahmin). How can someone who appeared only as a Brahmin be the god of everyone? If he had taken Avatar in some other caste, we wouldn’t mind. You should ask this question”.

Periyapuranam is the Tamil poetic account depicting the lives of the sixty-three Nayanmars, the great Tamil Shaivite saints. But the truth is that Bhagwan Shiva appeared as a Shiva bhakta who asks for the meat of a Nayanmar’s son to serve him a feast and as a pulaya to accept his part of the sacrifices in a yagna.

In the same event, he denigrated Meenakshi Amman saying, “Even then she goes to an Iyer’s house”. It has another meaning that she went as a prostitute. This is how the newcomers are taught to hate and abuse their religion and gods. Dravidianists claim they are only against Brahminism and not the entire Brahmin community. But the kind of messaging they send out in the training camps is different.

Here one can see Sirpi Rajan, another leading Dravidian idealogue recounting how the followers of EV Ramasamy used to terrorise Brahmins. “They would cut the janeu and the tuft of Brahmins bathing in Cauvery river and send them in gunny bags to Periyar. He’ll write about it in Viduthalai magazine the next day and ask those who sent fewer numbers to work harder”.

A fellow Dravidianist and a journalist, K Ayyanathan, boasted about how someone attacked the former NSA MK Narayanan, incited by the former’s speeches. Narayanan was beaten with slippers, probably in connection with the Eelam Tamil issue, and that incident is repeated amongst the old and new followers of the Dravidian Movement.

One can see how this leads to new foot soldiers being created to work at the behest of the top elite Dravidianists like SubaVee, Veeramani, and others. Another interesting Dravidian ideologue, Kantharaj, a doctor and professor, continues to abuse Brahmins and blame them for “his condition” despite being professionally and economically prosperous. His brother was a minister in the late TN CM CN Annadurai’s cabinet. 

In an interview he says, “Didn’t you say in the past that I’m untouchable? that I shouldn’t come before you? How our stomachs would have burned when you made us live away from the village? Now it (stomach) burns you right? That’s what we want. This is Dravidam”. Kantharaj is from a landed OBC caste(Mudaliar) that used to patronise temples and Brahmins. They continue to hold positions on temple boards to this day. For example, PTR Palanivel Thiyagarajan, TN Finance minister, is a member of the Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple board.

They held similar positions in the past as well and it should be noted that it was Vaidyanatha Iyer, granddad of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman, who spearheaded the temple entry movement. While the landed and now OBC castes held administrative positions in temples and barred lower caste people from entering them, it was a Brahmin who actually fought for the latter’s rights. Yet Kantharaj and PTR Thiyagarajan act like the victims and boast about a 100% non-Brahmin assembly.

Such lies and propaganda are repeated in every Dravidian Training Camp till they are imbibed as the absolute truth in the cadre’s mind. Their thought process is molded to play victimhood all the time and to blame Brahmins for everything under the sun. They are taught not to worry about facts or truths. In fact, they are encouraged to lie if it is for the “greater good of the society”. Here, in a Dravidian event, Karu.Palaniappan, a failed cinema director and an elite Periyarist, says EV Ramasamy admitted that he lied and twisted facts sometimes but it was not for his own purpose.

While talking about Periyar, aka EV Ramasamy, the first argument any sane person who learns about his ideology is that, why would he marry his adopted daughter? If he had indeed toiled for women’s rights and empowerment, he could have married a widow, or even better, a prostitute, as he was very fond of them. He could have chosen a woman of a different caste, but he didn’t. That should be the first thought on the minds of those who think Periyar is great, but unfortunately, the brainwashing is too nuanced to allow logical thinking.