Robert Caldwell and Dravidian Movement:

Robert Caldwell is the Scotish missionary who came to India and supposedly pioneered the study on Dravidian Languages, mainly tamil. Here is an effort to view his works from nationalist perspective.

BackGround: After invasion of Europeans to Indian Subcontinent, as the saying goes "Bible follows the Bullet", lot of missionary activities started in India. There was a continuous effort by Portugal missionarys to christianize India by using the power of state, which is termed as Goa Inquisition.Later, many clever missionaries soon found out that India cannot be converted by force because India inherently has strong Hindu way of life which assimilates all sects and cultures in India. They tried to find a way to seperate Hindus by telling the people have different roots.

Robert Caldwell: The pioneer of this work is Robert caldwell, who termed as the father of systematic study of Dravidian Languages.He was a scotsman who was the Bishop of Tinnevely, the heartland of "Maravar Poligars" (One of the Tamil military Casts) during the time when the British were engaged in suppressing these casts.

He was born in 1819 and came to India in 1838. He settled down in a place named Idayangudi and built a church there.He was in the committe which translated the "Prayer Book" and Bible into Tamil. Caldwell married in India and his wife was a worthy helpmate who spoke Tamil fluently and helped her husbands efforts of evangelism.

Dravidian Movement: Caldwell profounded a theory that the culture and civilization of south Indian (Tamil people, per se) whom he termed as "Dravidians" is intrinsically different from North Indian. This hypothesis states that the origin of Tamil and other languages in south India is different from that of Sanskrit and other north Indian languages. It also claims that south Indians are part of a different race than north Indians. This theory lead to anti-cast movement in the starting and later to a seperatist movement by people like Ramaswamy Naiker(Periyar) who were inspired by Caldwells Ideology.

Evangelistic Efforts: For him, the the idolatry and the Sanskritic culture of the articulate Brahmins was a spiritual threat to the propagation of the Gospel, the violence of the Maravar against christians was a dire physical threat.

Writings of caldwell shows following things:

a. The British empire was destined to finally bring 'order' amongst Tamils, a large portion of whom had been more prone to the habit of war than to the arts of peace from the dawn of history in south India. The Maravar were the caste which chiefly found in Tinnevely and Madurai.They are known as a fierce and turbulent race famous for their military art. As a historian, Robert Caldwell was well aware of the hegemony of the Maravar’s martial culture in Tamil society, he wisely excluded this fact from what he desired to portray as the true "Dravidian civilization",which clearly shows his imperial and religious interests.

b. Robert Caldwell had a strong anti-Brahmin bias which is non-existent in Tamil literature and culter.He was the first and foremost christian missionary who always believed that Brahmins are stumbling block for christian evangelization.

Linguistic Evangelism:
His efforts not only discouraged the study of sanskrit in Tamilnadu, but also drove to a cleansing of Samskrit words from Tamil vocabulary.His literary works are considered as the 'theoritical foundation for Dravidian movement' in Political, Academic and cultural perspective. His book "A comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages" which is published in 1856 is considered as authentic refference for Tamil language studies. This book is reffered by all the students who study tamil language and make them to fall into the pit of Dravidian philosophy.

Aryan Invasion Theory(AIT) and Caldwell :

Aryan Invasion theory states that Vedic culture arose in India after the migration or invasion of people to India originated outside India.British rulers, European scholars and missionaries combined in an effort to destroy the roots of Hindu Culture, and used Aryan Invasion theory to sow seeds of division in the Indian society.

AIT the sinister brainchild of conquerors of foreign colonies who could only imagine that all higher culture had to come from outside 'backward' India, and who likewise assumed that a religion could only spread through a politically supported missionary effort. It created division and conflict between the peoples of India, making them vulnerable to conversion by Christian missionaries.As the creator of this Aryan-Dravidian divide theory, Bishop Caldwell, admitted his linguistic theories to be ofmore political and moral importance that being to serve the purpose of Christian missionary propaganda. Now, scholars today of both East and West believe the Vedic people who called themselves Aryan were indigenous to India, and there never was an Aryan invasion. The languages of India shows that they share common ancestry in ancient Sanskrit and Tamil.

Effects of Caldwell Theories:
The fallacy he built among the people of Tamilnadu created a seperatist movement by the people like Periyar and Karunanidhi. Whole Tamilian people have become a confused lot. They dont consider themself as Hindus and they identify as Dravidians. Word "Hindu" reffers to only Brahmins. But still, these "Dravidians" more religious compared to other south Indian people. They have immense devotion towards Hindu Gods like Murgughan and Shakthi.

However Caldwell and his descendants effort was a success story of anti-national movement. Many districts of Tamilnadu are now christianized to an extent of 45%. TamilNadu is getting ruled by two parties who follow this Dravidian theory with minor modifications. Tamilnadu has the maximum number of missionaries now. We can infer from history that once the percentage of Non-hindus increases in a territory it finally leads to seperatism. "Dharmantaran" leads to "Rashtrantharan" as we can see in the states like J&K and Nagaland.

Conclusion:

It is absolutely necsessary to build a Hindu consciousness among Tamilians and bring them back to Hindu fold. The schemes like "Ghar Wapasi" through which Christians who got converted by hook or crook can be reconverted back to Hinduism would help in this regard. The whole Tamil language grammar needs to be re-discovered on nationalist grounds. Tamilians should be educated with the fact that they are part of one of the greatest culture in world and they were integral part of Bharath for thousands of years. This will not only help for the suppression of seperatist movement also to bring back the Hindu revival.