[Beerinkol]

Mr. Nara,

This is in reply to your opening post. Long winding OPs require longwinding replies.

I do not want the other thread to get side-tracked into a discussion of EVR, so I am starting this one. I welcome all my brothers and sisters to participate in a reasoned discussion. I am under no illusion that anybody is going to fundamentally change his/her POV, but we may learn something new that we didn't know before. Since this is a very volatile topic with strong negative views, it is particularly important for all of us to be civil to each other, to keep our emotions in check. I request Shri KRS to keep this thread clean so to speak, as he has done everywhere else (1)Yes Let us discuss this topic keeping our discussion civl. Using derisive terms such as week-end brahmins, wannabe brahmins, ungainly kachcham wearing brahmins, tuft displaying brahmins, pundram wearing brahmins (They are only wearing on their own foreheads and not applying it on others foreheads which many NB politicians do!!) and similar terms for this purpose will have to be treated as uncivil epithets. As long as there is no attempt to deride brahmins as a community for whatever practices they follow collectively or individually, my responses and views posted here will be civil.

(2) I have nothing personal against any one here in this forum. I do not know any one personally. Whatever I say here is all about the ideas of people only. While others in their effort to be very nice to people go out of the way to package what they say with a lot of verbiage I desist from that because I have little time for that. I believe if we beat around the bush the thrust of our arguments is invariably lost. So I say things bluntly. While I would reiterate that hurting any body is not my intention, I can’t help if an individual is so strongly wedded to his ideas that he is unable to separate himself from his ideas and so feels hurt. If the by now familiar method of complaining to the moderator with imaginery grievances is resorted to I will just withdraw from the engagement.

(3) Let us try to understand the counter views also.

I know this statement is attributed to him. I have looked long and hard, but I have never seen a verifiable source for it This is some thing which I have argued no end earlier with another member in this forum. Please see whether this meets your standards of proof though I am not sanguine about the prospects. 1. Please refer to the book written by Rani Mainthan. Title-Rajaram-60, Publishers- Mona Publications, 113, 2nd street, A.I.Block, Annanagar, Chennai. Yr. of publication 1986. The author Rani Mainthan has credited in that book Viduthalai Sambantham with guidance and help in writing that book. Viduthalai Sambantham was the classmate of Mr. Rajaram, who was a DMK minister in Tamilnadu. In that book Ranimainthan claims that EVR brought up these two new rallying calls in the salem district Conference of DK: 1) If you see a brahmin and a snake beat the brahmin first. 2) Any one who gives even a glass of water to any DMK cadre will be considered as a below par dravidian by me.(DMK had been formed just then)
2. I heard with my own ears in a public meeting in Tuticorin in which EVR was credited with these incendiary remarks by his own cadres and he never objected to it or dis-owned it though he was present in that meeting on the stage. What more, when he took the mic he continued in the same vein.


"... he seems to have said such things largely to shock. In several places he claimed he hated not individual Brahmins but brhaminism as an institution. In a somewhat similar spirit, in an article for The Hindu, while maintaining that "Aryan" and Dravidian" are two distinct groups, he commented: "My desire is not to perpetuate this difference but to unify the two opposing elements in society.
This gives a more complete picture of EVR than what is widely believed even among many NBs.
This is an attempt to paper over a serious matter. An attempt to push under the carpet inconvenient facts which stare at your face. By the same argument I can make some outrageous comments about a member here and then say that whatever I said here was largely to shock while claiming in “many places” elsewhere that I criticise only the idea and not the person. People here, this includes you, are sensitive to this argument and have rejected outright such claims.

Let me start with one Manu Dharmashasthra verse:"4.135. Let him who desires prosperity, indeed, never despise a Kshatriya, a snake, and a learned Brahmana, be they ever so feeble."EVR is not the first to make this snake comparison! Please note, there is no mention of killing the Brahmin "snake" by EVR. When there is a text available it is devoid of the most incendiary part Manu Dharma Shastra may say so many things. MDS says and so EVR also says is not an argument that will wash. For it to be accepted you should be in a binary world where you are EVR and others are all manuvadis which is not the case here. EVR can not escape responsibility for what he said by your quoting MDS. Moreover what do you mean by the words “devoid of the most incendiary part”? If your case is that the sentence “If you take off your leg, that’s all. Don’t leave.” does not have the sentence “So kill him”, then it is a pathetic attempt at obfuscation. The whole English transalation has its roots in the Tamil saying “kaalai chutrina pambu kadikkaamal vidathu. Enave atthai konraal pavamillai”. Now please read again to see whether incendiary words are implied or not.

Anyway, I think this kind of rhetoric crosses a line, I certainly do not condone it, but I understand where he is coming from Where is he coming from? From a panchaman family? He could never have been a paanchaman because panchamans can never produce political turncoat like EVR.


These kinds of acts must be condemned, and of course I do condemn them Do you? This equivocation indicates the opposite.

But, these are isolated incidences by overzealous youngsters. For all the anti-Brahmin rhetoric of EVR, Brahmins in fact flourished in Tamil Nadu
Wow!! What a patronising statement! So brahmins will have to be ever thankful to EVR for that? You have presumed EVR is Tamilnadu and Tamilnadu is EVR which is far from truth. If brahmins flourished it is due to two reasons. 1) They are made of much stronger material 2)The majority of Tamilnadu never thought EVR to be a leader who should be listened to. He, at best, had a limited following and nuisance value for the powerful middle castes. They used him well politically.

EVR had such a sway among the masses that he could have made life a lot more difficult to Brahmins if his intent was to eradicate Brahmins, that too in a violent way. This is just what you fondly believe. That is all. I come from a southern district and there was no following worth the name for EVR even during his hey days in my district. The people of southern districts brought DMK to power because of the charisma of MGR, oratory skills of Anna and the pig headedness of the congress regime then. No credits to EVR or his brand of atheism/anti brahmin hatred masala.

Today, the Dravidian governments, DMK or ADMK, provide police bandobast to Brahminical matams. Whenever the matam-head travels they provide police escort. They get free pass at all the tolls Any Government in power has a duty to protect its citizens and they just do that. The protection given is directly proportionate to the threat perception

Other acts such a cutting poonal/kudumi were (a) though condemnable, relatively mild What do you mean by the word mild? Cutting a poonool or cutting a kudumi is not cutting the throat and so is mild and this is what you mean? Great logic indeed. Do you know what is the meaning of “minority rights” or human rights? Please refresh your position on human rights. I have seen the fear and the helplessness in the eyes of that purohit on a city bus in Srirangam when he was spat on his face by a blackshirt volunteer of DK. I had been a personal witness to the fear of the women folk of Pudugramam of Turicorin when the marauding crowds of DK came and knocked at their doors and threatened to break them open. You have not seen any of these and so you say these are mild. I do not see any difference between those animals in Germany who put elderly men, women and children, all jews, into a motor vehicle and sent them straight to the burial ground (because the vehicles were designed in such a way that the exhaust of the engines will emit the deadly poisonous exhaust fumes into the hold of the vehicle and so the passengers will be dead and be ready for burial by the time the vehicles reach their destination)and the goons who molested the women in Turicorin.


(b) isolated. In other words, the rhetoric was meant to shock, not to carry out violent acts, and were understood in that way only.
For a young and energetic kazhagamite on the street that was not the way to understand EVR’s commands.


If EVR's heated rhetoric was the cause these isolated instances of mild violence (cutting kudumi is violence, but not like killing or trashing property) then we must have seen widespread violence against Brahmins like what we witnessed in the Balkans some 20 years ago A perfect ‘strawman’.


one must think back and see what sort of society we lived in up until the 60s when DMK came to power. There was wide spread officially permitted segregation in public places. I have seen restaurants that openly displayed signs like ப்ராமிணர்கள் சாப்பிடும் இடம். I have seen public eating places where only Brahmins are allowed, Gandhi talks about this in one of the Congress national meetings.

This is not worse than the two tumbler system which is still in existence in Tamilnadu practised by all the dominent castes. This two tumbler system was in existence even in those days when “bramanarkal saappidum idam” was there. But EVR’s ire was directed selectively against the brahmins and not against the dominent castes for obvious reasons (he did not want to shoot himself on his legs). If you have seen only the “bramanarkal saappidumidam” in restaurants, I have seen more than that. I have seen not only the restaurants in the towns but also the ordinary “chaayaakkadai” in the village street corner where panchamans were served tea in a coconut shell.

EVR wanted to drill it into each and every NB of all stripes that B's are not gods on this earth, that they were no less a human being than the Brahmins Very true. But when it came to relation with panchamans NB’s were certainly Gods of a special variety- A god who went to war with brahmins riding on the panchaman on the one hand and exploited to the hilt the panchamans treating them as worse than vermin on the otherhand- without even thinking so much about it.

One indisputable legacy of EVR is, today, no B can demand separate eating area in any restaurant anywhere in Tamil Nadu And no panchaman can drink tea from the same glass which is used for a thevar.

No B can force an NB to take off muNdasu and wrap it around his waist with folded hands Yes but Pillais of Uththapuram will carefully preserve their purity by building walls around their locality to prevent panchamans polluting them. And Naidus of Venmani will roast dalit women and children in the embers of their own burnt huts if they had the gumption to ask for wage increase for farm labour. This is not some thing that happened in 1950s but right now in the current decade.

The old practice of even a B child using the language of வாடா, போடா even to elderly NBs will be tolerated today Even today dalit is subjected to this torture in villages. If you are interested please let me know. I will take you to villages and show you.

EVR's sometimes over the top rhetoric shook the psyche of the Tamil people, in the case of B's to accept changes, and in the case of NBs to assert these changes. EVR is the one who taught self respect is a basic human right Yes selectively to NBs only to the exclusion of dalits. EVR was worse than Hitler.

In this process, a few of his overzealous followers surely went too far, and such acts are condemnable, were condemned, I condemn them as well Yes but only after trying to justify the condemnable behavior and equivocating. Finally a half hearted condemnation is what comes out


There are a lot of things that bother me. It bothers me that even now we have cheris outside villages where Dalits are restricted. It bothers me that Dalit students are made to clean toilets. It bothers me that Adivasees are robbed blind by international corporations with government protection. Yes, it bothers me that the kudumi of some Brahmins are cut. In the grand scheme of suffering that is visited on powerless humansbeings, Brahmin victims of DK violence are way down the list Will you please check up your list and let us know which one comes first and which one later among the following:1. Dalits being treated specially with two tumbler system in the innumerable village tea stalls and 2)Dominent castes being told that there is a special enclosure where brahmins only sit and eat. That will be quite revealing. Are you aware that No 2 is not a reality today while No1 is still the fact of life? It is obviously not even there in your consciousness to be included in your list. Some human rights this!!

The repeated attempts to eulogise EVR as a social revolutionary, ignore his hatred for brahmins as just a rhetoric, cover up the poison that he injected into the Tamil Society, the attempt to blow up his sway over people beyond its true level, bring in foreign citation as proof of his greatness(whiteman never gives any thing without a secret agenda) are all whiplashes you are inflicting on the brahmins who have suffered in Tamilnadu. Please stop this. I am sending an appeal to the moderator separately by a PM. I do not intend to write any more about this topic because I believe this only helps people with sadistic tendencies to have a high by repeatedly eulogising a brahmin basher in this forum which is visited by brahmins. I do not want to add any more respectability to their views by arguing any more. Enough is enough.

Cheers.