A Tamil's Tale
A Bangalorean at a party I was at recently mentioned in jest that Tamils cleaned the public toilets in that city. I am a fan of such incendiary remarks myself, using them to stir things up at a party. However, I did not have enough beers in me to launch on a fight below the belt. Perhaps because of this, I responded with a tame "Kannadigas in Madras are like anyone else", and left it at that.
Jest aside, it is a curious anomaly of Tamil Nadu that it does not have any strong reaction to the presence of outsiders at all. There are multiple instances where Bangaloreans have lamented to me about the decline of Kannada culture in the city. The rare few would venture into dumping the blame on the Konga Blakie Tamils from the south. One could point out that it takes an especially retarded monkey to heap such abuses on a people. However, I have learnt not to bother. Irony is not the bigot's strong suite. They don't know it when they are thus insulted.
Chennai too, has a large and fast growing Telugu minority. In size, it is probably larger than the Tamil population in Bangalore. However, I have never heard anyone break a sweat about this. This city is stiflingly conservative, shockingly poor and mind numbingly hot, but it cannot be accused of being uncomfortable in its skin. This tolerance is however, a curious anomaly. It would be ridiculous to say Tamils are any more (or less) tolerant than other ethnicities in India. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and the now emaciated anti-Hindi movement in Tamil Nadu are proofs of this. Bangalore too, presents a different and equally curious anomaly. Karnataka is one of the most diverse states in India. I am not talking just about the Tamil and North Indian minorities in Bangalore. Even outside of Bangalore, Karnataka is home to numerous linguistic and religious minorities, like the Tulus, Konkanis, Baris, Malayalies, Sanketis, Tamils, Telugus and others. A history of dealing with such diversity is probably what made the wondrous cosmopolitanism of Bangalore possible. However, it has still not managed to silence the Konga Brigade.
I have not had the pleasure of visiting a public toilet in Bangalore and hence cannot vouch for the veracity of the claim about the Tamil cleaners. However, I have been to the restrooms in the Singapore airport and it is manned by Tamils. I have never noticed a janitor in any airport in the western world, but in Singapore and Malaysia, there seem to be droves of them hanging around, flushing your toilet two seconds after you have done the same yourself. As with Sri Lanka and many South East Asian countries, there are three or four distinct groups of Tamils in Sri Lanka and South East Asia.
Starting with 985 AD, an extra-ordinary power exploded out of Tamil Nadu. Two generations of Chola kings, Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra Chola followed a policy of unrelenting expansionism, that took their empire all the way up to Bengal in the North, and to Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra and Malaya in the south. Tamils followed where their kings did. Setting up colonies in these countries. Today, this group is usually well integrated into their new country and have only marginal ties to Tamil Nadu. They are also extraordinarily successful when their genius is allowed to flower, rising up to high ranks of the government in Singapore, Mauritius and even Sri Lanka. Many a Sri Lankan Tamil I have met have been at pains to explain to me that they are the "old Tamils" who don't support the LTTE, unlike the "plantation Tamils" who do.
That brings up the "plantation Tamils", taken by the British to work in slave like conditions on plantations. They are still numerous, still poor and sometimes have been unable to overthrow the feudal yoke that has held them down. In many places like Mauritius they are only one among the many people of Indian ethnicity who went there during British rule. In Sri Lanka and Fiji, they have been in violent conflict with local populations. In Mauritius, South Africa, Singapore and the Caribbean, they seem to have reached an amicable settlement with the local populace. Malaysia presents an ambivalence. The Tamils have not expressed their complaints violently, however, the state induced policy of positive discrimination towards Ethnic Malays has not helped. As one Tamil pointed out in a BBC Interview recently, "the Malays have the numbers and get the Jobs, the Chinese have the businesses and get the Money, we don't have squat and get the boot". In Bali, they are bombed by Islamic extremists, for whom Hindus serving Western tourists looks like a Double Bonus time.
There are the Tamil Brahmins. When Ramanujan was first offered a chance to go to England, he refused because his religion forbade crossing seas. From there to now, when the Brahmins are one of the most diasporic and scattered communities in the world, it has been a bitter long march, accompanied by the heart break of leaving a home behind as also by astonishing economic and intellectual successes in lands far and wide. Correctly or wrongly, the leading lights of the pre-independence Tamil Nadu identified Hinduism in general and Brahminism in particular as a strong cause of the suppression of the Tamil people and the dis-proportionate success of the Tamil Brahmin. Over the years, the importance of religious literature (Thiruvilaiyadal, Skanda Puranam, Kamba Ramayanam) was de-emphasized in the Tamil Canon in favor of relatively secular literature (Tirukkural, Silappadikaram, Manimekalai). The upshot of this policy has been the almost complete absence in Tamil Nadu of the kind of communal debauchery and anti-Muslim feeling that is so wide spread in Gujarat and other states of North India (Most, if not all, Tamils who have expressed such ill will to me have tended to be Brahmins living in the West!). The downside of this policy is the fostering of a virulent kind of anti-Brahminism. Although this extremism is a fringe phenomenon, it has nevertheless had a devastating impact on the Brahmins in Tamil Nadu, creating a mentality of being under seige and causing their population proportion to steadily decline for two full generations now, primarily because of migration. As with most stories of voluntary migration, this is a story of loss. Both for the migrants who lose their roots, and for Tamil Nadu, which loses talented and moneyed people, since these are usually the ones that manage to get away. Of course, time changes many things, and anti-Brahminism for its own sake is today not the force it once was. One is hopeful that things will turn course before it is too late.
Then there are the economic migrants. A few seconds after having my toilet flushed for me at the Singapore airport, I was accosted by a couple of guys who asked me if I spoke Tamil. When I said I did, they asked for help filling up the immigration form, which was in English. I got talking to them and learnt that they were migrant workers in South Korea, and were visiting Tamil Nadu after three years. I was curious to know more and after talking to them a long time, I gained their confidence and got the full story. Turns out they were illegal immigrants. They went to South Korea on a tourist visa and never came back. They work brutal hours for a couple of dollars an hour (they asked me how much I got paid, and I was too embarrassed to tell them a straight answer). They consider this to be good pay, and even manage to send most of it back home to support their families. Apparently the South Korean government has taken a humanitarian view of their situation and has offered them a one time chance to visit their families and get back into the country with a no questions asked legal visa. Hence their travel back home. I asked how they managed in South Korea of all places, without knowing English or even Hindi, let alone Korean. The answer was instinctive and instantaneous.
"We are Tamils", said one man. They all shrugged after that, but gave no further explanation. I am a Tamilian. No further explanation was necessary.
Jest aside, it is a curious anomaly of Tamil Nadu that it does not have any strong reaction to the presence of outsiders at all. There are multiple instances where Bangaloreans have lamented to me about the decline of Kannada culture in the city. The rare few would venture into dumping the blame on the Konga Blakie Tamils from the south. One could point out that it takes an especially retarded monkey to heap such abuses on a people. However, I have learnt not to bother. Irony is not the bigot's strong suite. They don't know it when they are thus insulted.
Chennai too, has a large and fast growing Telugu minority. In size, it is probably larger than the Tamil population in Bangalore. However, I have never heard anyone break a sweat about this. This city is stiflingly conservative, shockingly poor and mind numbingly hot, but it cannot be accused of being uncomfortable in its skin. This tolerance is however, a curious anomaly. It would be ridiculous to say Tamils are any more (or less) tolerant than other ethnicities in India. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, and the now emaciated anti-Hindi movement in Tamil Nadu are proofs of this. Bangalore too, presents a different and equally curious anomaly. Karnataka is one of the most diverse states in India. I am not talking just about the Tamil and North Indian minorities in Bangalore. Even outside of Bangalore, Karnataka is home to numerous linguistic and religious minorities, like the Tulus, Konkanis, Baris, Malayalies, Sanketis, Tamils, Telugus and others. A history of dealing with such diversity is probably what made the wondrous cosmopolitanism of Bangalore possible. However, it has still not managed to silence the Konga Brigade.
I have not had the pleasure of visiting a public toilet in Bangalore and hence cannot vouch for the veracity of the claim about the Tamil cleaners. However, I have been to the restrooms in the Singapore airport and it is manned by Tamils. I have never noticed a janitor in any airport in the western world, but in Singapore and Malaysia, there seem to be droves of them hanging around, flushing your toilet two seconds after you have done the same yourself. As with Sri Lanka and many South East Asian countries, there are three or four distinct groups of Tamils in Sri Lanka and South East Asia.
Starting with 985 AD, an extra-ordinary power exploded out of Tamil Nadu. Two generations of Chola kings, Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra Chola followed a policy of unrelenting expansionism, that took their empire all the way up to Bengal in the North, and to Sri Lanka, Java, Sumatra and Malaya in the south. Tamils followed where their kings did. Setting up colonies in these countries. Today, this group is usually well integrated into their new country and have only marginal ties to Tamil Nadu. They are also extraordinarily successful when their genius is allowed to flower, rising up to high ranks of the government in Singapore, Mauritius and even Sri Lanka. Many a Sri Lankan Tamil I have met have been at pains to explain to me that they are the "old Tamils" who don't support the LTTE, unlike the "plantation Tamils" who do.
That brings up the "plantation Tamils", taken by the British to work in slave like conditions on plantations. They are still numerous, still poor and sometimes have been unable to overthrow the feudal yoke that has held them down. In many places like Mauritius they are only one among the many people of Indian ethnicity who went there during British rule. In Sri Lanka and Fiji, they have been in violent conflict with local populations. In Mauritius, South Africa, Singapore and the Caribbean, they seem to have reached an amicable settlement with the local populace. Malaysia presents an ambivalence. The Tamils have not expressed their complaints violently, however, the state induced policy of positive discrimination towards Ethnic Malays has not helped. As one Tamil pointed out in a BBC Interview recently, "the Malays have the numbers and get the Jobs, the Chinese have the businesses and get the Money, we don't have squat and get the boot". In Bali, they are bombed by Islamic extremists, for whom Hindus serving Western tourists looks like a Double Bonus time.
There are the Tamil Brahmins. When Ramanujan was first offered a chance to go to England, he refused because his religion forbade crossing seas. From there to now, when the Brahmins are one of the most diasporic and scattered communities in the world, it has been a bitter long march, accompanied by the heart break of leaving a home behind as also by astonishing economic and intellectual successes in lands far and wide. Correctly or wrongly, the leading lights of the pre-independence Tamil Nadu identified Hinduism in general and Brahminism in particular as a strong cause of the suppression of the Tamil people and the dis-proportionate success of the Tamil Brahmin. Over the years, the importance of religious literature (Thiruvilaiyadal, Skanda Puranam, Kamba Ramayanam) was de-emphasized in the Tamil Canon in favor of relatively secular literature (Tirukkural, Silappadikaram, Manimekalai). The upshot of this policy has been the almost complete absence in Tamil Nadu of the kind of communal debauchery and anti-Muslim feeling that is so wide spread in Gujarat and other states of North India (Most, if not all, Tamils who have expressed such ill will to me have tended to be Brahmins living in the West!). The downside of this policy is the fostering of a virulent kind of anti-Brahminism. Although this extremism is a fringe phenomenon, it has nevertheless had a devastating impact on the Brahmins in Tamil Nadu, creating a mentality of being under seige and causing their population proportion to steadily decline for two full generations now, primarily because of migration. As with most stories of voluntary migration, this is a story of loss. Both for the migrants who lose their roots, and for Tamil Nadu, which loses talented and moneyed people, since these are usually the ones that manage to get away. Of course, time changes many things, and anti-Brahminism for its own sake is today not the force it once was. One is hopeful that things will turn course before it is too late.
Then there are the economic migrants. A few seconds after having my toilet flushed for me at the Singapore airport, I was accosted by a couple of guys who asked me if I spoke Tamil. When I said I did, they asked for help filling up the immigration form, which was in English. I got talking to them and learnt that they were migrant workers in South Korea, and were visiting Tamil Nadu after three years. I was curious to know more and after talking to them a long time, I gained their confidence and got the full story. Turns out they were illegal immigrants. They went to South Korea on a tourist visa and never came back. They work brutal hours for a couple of dollars an hour (they asked me how much I got paid, and I was too embarrassed to tell them a straight answer). They consider this to be good pay, and even manage to send most of it back home to support their families. Apparently the South Korean government has taken a humanitarian view of their situation and has offered them a one time chance to visit their families and get back into the country with a no questions asked legal visa. Hence their travel back home. I asked how they managed in South Korea of all places, without knowing English or even Hindi, let alone Korean. The answer was instinctive and instantaneous.
"We are Tamils", said one man. They all shrugged after that, but gave no further explanation. I am a Tamilian. No further explanation was necessary.
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