Tamil: to be or not to be

One of the first things I became acutely aware of in Madurai was the notion of identity. It excludes as much as it includes. So which is it? What defines identity? Ethnicity? Primary language? Religion? Caste?

The first billboard I saw in Madurai was a bilingual one, the only bilingual billboard I have ever seen in Madurai. It said, in Tamil and English (in that order), "Tamil language, divine language". I'm told such billboards are scattered across Tamil Nadu. Now, what I don't get is, why English? In all such matters, the use of English is anathema to the "Tamil-is-divine" bunch. So why have a billboard announcing the greatness of Tamil; in English? It's obvious: for the benefit of people like me. Just what they wanted me to take from it, I still dunno.

Something that's always confused me is the sense of Tamil identity. Tamils are probably the most divisive people I know, yet there is a strange sense of belonging. What's stranger still is the number of ethnically non-Tamils who identify themselves as Tamil. When non-Tamils (especially northies) think of Tamil (or any other group), we think ethnic group. A lot of the pro-Tamil people I know turned out to be ethnic Telugus, or Mallus. One recent expat from Andhra went so far as to tell me he now preferred Tamil over Telugu. Back in Bangalore, the first person I
knew from Tamil Nadu (and identifying herself as Tamil) turned out to be Telugu as well.

Yesterday I passed by two Badagas chatting. For those of you who don't know, Badagas are the largest tribal group in the Nilgiri hills, and speak a dilect of Kannada. I thought I'd use my scant knowledge of Kannada and eavesdrop. Well, whadya know? They were talking in Tamil! I don't get it. Every Badaga I've encountered is very proud of his heritage and language. Yet at least one Badaga I know speaks to his parents in Tamil.

This sort of identity-cross-connection is something I hadn't encountered in the North, at least not at this scale. In the North people are more prone to think in terms of religion=language, but that's definitely not the case here. Most Christians here (again, unlike the North) dress, speak, and behave much like everybody else. Women dress in Indian attire, and sport bindis and Hindu-inspired jewelery. Tamil Churches depict Mary in a sari, again, unlike in the North. In fact, in Bangalore I discovered that pilgrims visiting shrines of Mary for her Feast Day wear
saffron, since it is a holy colour for Indians (as told to me by one such pilgrim).

In contrast, Christians from the North (or the North-East) are far more uprooted (if I may use that term) from their ancestral culture. While most South Indian Christians have Sanskrit names, most North Indian ones do not. There is a denominational bias here. Most recent converts to American protestant churches are especially critical of "Indian" systems, and take special pains to distance themselves from anything “Indian”. It's a cultural thing too, after all. There's a greater identification with the US as the Mother Culture, rather than their
heathen ancestral one.

In recent times, these American churches have made serious inroads into South India, and I hope to cover that in a later post.