Thread by @zeneraalstuff

To really understand the Tamil politics of today, we must go all the way back 250 years, and study the Poligar Wars. While the conflict was its most intense between 1798 and 1805, we must understand that the conflict started at least 40 years earlier /1

https://twitter.com/tskrishnan/status/1355380176369065985

The turning point was after Sivaganga fell, when a class' loyalty was bought over through Zamindaris and titles. Through the 19th CE, this class grew in wealth and power, lending money, buying up land and trading. They continued this through the brutal suppression of India /2

by Victorian England, when the native economy was gutted by taxes, share cropping and the railway. Entire tribes were classified as criminal by birth, the ancient trade routes were disrupted by internal revenue lines, traditional social security was broken. Famine, pestilence /3

and disease were rife. When finally concessions were extracted from the British, this class turned up for a share in the power and pelf. They did nothing for Home Rule, but formed the Government when dyarchy was introduced. They stayed away from the freedom struggle, but /4

contested in the very first elections held in Independent India. All along, one thing remained, their loyalty to the white man and his ways. /END