When I posted the above Thought on my Facebook Page wall yesterday and shared it with many friends of mine, I was reminded immediately by way of a cautionary call to be careful about my politically incorrect utterances which I received from a dear old friend and ex-professional colleague of mine who long ago emigrated to Canada.
He sent me a sweet message which I thought was as misinformed as it was well-intentioned:
“ Isnt Tamil front and centre of the state whose name begins with Tamil in its name ?? Isnt reaching more people and getting more of them to go to temples a good thing in the long run ?? Isnt Considering “Hindi” and “Tamil” as one and the same in Tamil Nadu, the “Ultimate irony” ? I am a dumb guy. I just like to ask dumb Questions.
Since he and I have a friendship going back 30 years, we often like to argue and engage in banter with each other vigorously at times … So, I responded to him rather candidly as below:
“Tell me then is Tamil archanai going to suddenly begin drawing more record crowds of devotees to temples than those that we see already going there now?! Is there any Hindu peoples survey-finding to show that there are millions of Tamil people who don’t go to temples for worship because Archanai is not in performed in Tamizh language?
What rubbish !
“Your question is course the politically correct one and it is the anodyne stand to take in present-day TamilNadu given its prevailing political and social atmosphere .. But my politically incorrect thoughts on the matter are these which in my free country I have a right to hold and give voice to:
1. Let me remind you that it is in this very same land of Tamil Nadu that for thousands of centuries temples had “archanai” and ritual were always performed in the Devabhaasha which both Tamil and Sanskrit were regarded to be during all those ages … It was tradition embraced by people since time immemorial ..
2. Tamizh language did not suffer in any way through those ages here in Tamil Naad because Kovil archanai was performed in Sanskrit . At least common people here did not think so. In fact , they knew that Tamizh flourished through the millennia in this land .. You only have to you look at the examples of Naayanmars and Azhwars … Not to mention the sangham Tamil literature centuries before them! And please tell me, how was Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural in any way affected during his own times by archanai in kovil being conducted in Sanskrit? Has he ever said or uttered a word against the use of Sanskrit in temples? And don’t we all know well that the “book launch event” of the greatest Tamizh epic of Kamba Ramayana was in fact held within the precincts of the Sri Rangam temple where there was no Chola Raja imposition against Sanskrit ?! And may I remind you again that even in modern times none can ever establish that Sanskrit archanai in Kovil had in any way stood as any kind of obstacle to the development of modern Tamil language . After all, wasn’t Ponniyin Selvan, a modern Tamil classic, written at a time when there was no mischievous, manufactured conflict or binary choice in the State between Tamizh and Sanskrit ?
3. So in my opinion, it is all arrant bunkum to say that imposition of Tamizh archanai in Kovils should be mandated by law and only then the great Tamil language will flourish . Tamil and Sanskrit have lived happily together and enriched each other for 1000s of years … so please spare us all the specious malicious anti-Sanskrit propaganda.
4. Let me also tell you that in the last 85 years, in Tamil Nadu , nothing substantially has really been achieved by way of developing the rich literary traditions of Tamil amongst the common people on the streets. We have today amongst us young generations of Tamil society who have scant if not pathetic knowledge of Tamil . Most of us here in Tamil Nadu now speak only the pidgin or cockney version of Madras or Kollywood cinema or “gaana music” Tamil. Stop any Tamil on the street today and ask him anything you might know about classical Tamil literature … and you’ll get only dumb stares back at you. Once on a TV show I watched an anchor went around on the streets of cities in Tamil Nadu picking young persons at random and asking them to name the 12 months of the Tamizh calendar year … guess what? … Nine out of ten such people could not do it … they knew only the names of the months in a year only in English !
5. It is pure malicious propaganda, post-truth and puerile bunkum to say that by introducing Tamil archanai in kovils great social change and equality will be ushered into this land. It is nothing but part of the vote-bank propaganda that politicians in the State time after time in election after election have perfected and employed as a most effective tool to divide the people of TamilNadu along the lines of hateful ideology stitched together with false narratives surrounding race and ethnicity .
Vaazhga Samskrtamum Tamizhum! Vaazhga Tamizhagam! Vaazhga Bhaaratham! Vaazhga Tamizhnaatin kovilgaL!
Jai Hind ! Bhaarath Maatha ki jai !
Sudarshan Madabushi