“Keezhadi”: below-the-belt-hit the DMK aims at the Modi Government (Part-1 of 4)

Here below is an official meme-post of the DMK Party presently circulating widely in the social media / WhatsApp cyberspace .

L’Affaire Keezhadi first grabbed headlines in mainstream news media in Tamil Nadu about 5 years ago. Since then it has morphed into a war of words between the Tamil Nadu state government Archaelogical Department and the Union of India Government with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) getting caught in the crossfire. The war is being fought simultaneously on three fronts:

(a) a culture war

(b) a heated academic dispute and

(c) a political arm-wrestling match between Dravidian and Pan-Indian perspective on Indian historiography.

Since updates on the above war-fronts do not appear too often in media reports, most people in Tamil Nadu , except for a handful of academicians, historians, political observers and DMK / BJP Party apparatchiks, barely know what it is really all about — what it means, how it arose and why it portends profound changes to the history of all India. In fact, I confess my own knowledge of this Keezhadi controversy has been sketchy and skimpy. All I had been aware of vaguely was this:

Keezhadi is an archaeological site near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, where excavations since 2014 had uncovered evidence of an ancient urban settlement, possibly dating back to the Sangam period (as early as 800 BCE). The findings since then have been significant in establishing the antiquity and urban nature of ancient Tamil civilization, with artefacts showing advanced literacy and urban planning.

The ASI initially led the excavations but later halted operations and transferred the lead archaeologist, K Amarnath Ramakrishna, in 2017, citing a lack of significant findings. This move was widely criticized by Tamil political parties and scholars as an attempt to suppress evidence of Tamil antiquity.

The Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department later took over the excavations, which have continued to reveal important findings. Recently, the ASI returned Ramakrishna’s comprehensive excavation report (submitted in January 2023), asking for corrections and further justification of the dating and findings, which many see as a delaying tactic. Ramakrishna has strongly defended his report, refusing to make the changes demanded by the ASI, stating that all findings and dating are well-documented and based on scientific evidence.

My conjecture is that with the State Assembly Elections coming up early in 2026, the BJP and the DMK/ Dravidian parties are going to find that this Keezhadi dispute will come in very handy to exploit as potential fertile election issue from which a lot mileage could be extracted. It could be whipped up into a highly emotive issue which can ignite and inflame Tamil electorate’s parochial passions. Keezhadi has already stirred up a broader politico-cultural debate over Tamil Nadu’s ancient civilizational identity. It is now being framed as a debate between Tamil pride versus Vedic-centric historical narratives, and the North-South and Aryan-Dravidian divide.

It was therefore in the context of the above current situation in Tamil Nadu that I wanted to update my own knowledge and understanding of what exactly was happening in l’affaire Keezhadi. So, I decided to spend a little time and effort to educate myself about it through what these days is called taking desk-top, AI-aided “deep-dive” into the subject.

What I have been able to learn from the “deep dive” will be described in summary form in three separate Parts to follow. They will cover all three war fronts mentioned above viz.:

(a) academic dispute

(b) political arm-wrestling

(c) culture war

(to be continued)

Sudarshan Madabushi