There is a certain type of trad who exemplifies the actual Dravidian thinking - that service castes, landless labour and Brahmins should be humble recipients of their feudal largesse. Fact is, Hindu society never worked that way. The state of affairs in late 18th and 19th CE /1
was an anomaly, in which certain mercantile moneylending castes and landowning village administrator castes were able to rapidly advance in capital and land banks. Accumulation of capital and land proceeded at such a pace because other opportunities of investment were /2
no longer available - say textiles, handicrafts, due to deurbanization of the British Raj and rural agrarian distress. For example, there is no real office of a Chettinad Raja. The title - Raja - was bestowed upon Sir Annamalai Chettiar in 1929 for loyal services to the Crown /3
All the latter day Dravidian elite were minted only in the 19th CE. Their titles and privileges, including temple patronage, were bought. And the fortunes were made through usury, tax farming and clerical services as dubashes and gumasthas to the EIC and then to the Crown. /4
Like the robber barons of America bought respectability through endowing universities and libraries, these Indian moneylenders bought respectability by endowing pathashalas and temples. All the rage told and retold through stories are of rich landlords being forced to humble /5
themselves before a lawyer or a collector. Strangely, the memory of their humility and servitude to the white man never seems to hurt. Prof Karunandan is so on-the-money when he says that 'their villains' like Macaulay are 'our heroes'. It is true. British education enabled /6
their loyal service to the Crown. Even today, any Dravidian idealogue will extol the wonders of European values. That thinking is what percolates down to having Amy Jackson dress as a Tamil village girl. The flip side is their rage at the slightly lighter-skinned Tam Brahm /7
and their contempt for the darker among Tamils. The worst skin tone jokes are told by Tamil comedians, to a population most of whom are dark by Indian standards /END
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