Seventy Years of Secularism: Unpopular Essays on the Unofficial Political Religion of India

by Sandeep Balakrishna

An important stepping stone in this “Dravidian Campaign” is a person named Bishop Robert Caldwell who floated a groundless theory of linguistic differences, as well as an equally spurious theory racial theory to support his linguistic theory. The Christian missionary apparatus put Caldwell’s formulations almost immediately to their advantage. A whole new history was woven. Balloons like “the Shaiva Siddhanta was not a part of Sanatana Dharma but had its roots in Christianity” were floated. The Ramayana was turned on his head with Ravana as its hero. In 1960, “Ravana Kaaviyam,” a Tamil poem, was officially patronized and widely disseminated by the then DMK Government, and thanks to the popularity of such twisted work, societal tensions escalated. Then, in the post-Independence period, an adharmic force named secularism greatly contributed to further intensify social disharmony.