Why Only Tamils Claim Indus?

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]Uh, there is a query from Jayi Jagadeesan Gopal, uh, doctor.

[00:00:05]Uh, when the journey of civilization we are talking about is about Dravidian civilization, why people other than Tamils, Telugu, Kannada, and the Keralites are not interested in this subject? Okay, it's an it's a it's an excellent question. I'm uh I think we are bound to handle this question with absolutely with a kind of the kind of attention it deserves. It's a very right question. I I would thought about this. I tell you at this point of time, anywhere in the world, do you think that a group of people are going to assemble in a Zoom talk and talking about something called Indus Valley civilization? Nowhere else except the Tamils, nobody's talking. Except Tamil, nobody's putting a statue for John Marshall. Except Tamil, nobody's talking about putting a statue for him, if possible, in Britain. Nobody's talking about a journey of a civilization. It is obvious.

[00:00:57]I found the reason for this not in Tamil Nadu, but in Odisha. Let me tell you, it would be interesting. Odisha and Bengal, these two place, basically in the Indian subcontinent, if you are pushing eastward, beyond Odisha, you cannot push unless you jump into Bay of Bengal.

[00:01:19]There is a sea. So, that means all the people start living together. In Odisha, there are 62 tribals.

[00:01:27]62 tribal languages are spoken. Odia is one language.

[00:01:32]And then 62 languages are spoken, Dravidian, Austroasiatic, Indo-Tibetan, and then even in the on the Indo-Aryan languages, it's like a confluence of linguistic family. You don't find that in even in Tamil Nadu or Karnataka. You don't find Austroasiatic people. In my view, the epitome of the pluralism in India is Odisha and nothing else.

[00:01:56]>> [snorts] >> But, coming to the Orissa, beyond that they cannot jump into the in the sea.

[00:02:03]Like like that in Tamil Nadu, today we are finding ourselves in the Madurai, Tirunelveli, and Kanyakumari.

[00:02:10]Presume that there is a landmass for another 200 km or 300 km beyond Kanyakumari, we will find ourselves.

[00:02:19]Probably I would have found myself in that tip of the India.

[00:02:24]I'll be talking from that language. So, that mean the people who held to their identity are the people who pushed and pushed and pushed. The compromised people stayed back. The compromised people lost their language. And that's the reason I call it's a Dravidian Gujarat and Dravidian Maharashtra. I feel proud to give that name. It's a Gujarat the Gujarat of today I may not like.

[00:02:49]But in the past I like it because it was a Dravidian Gujarat. So, Dravidian Gujarat and Dravidian Maharashtra and they lost their identity. They picked up a new language. Do you know that which is the largest tribal group in India?

[00:03:03]The tribal group called Bhils. B H I L Bhil.

[00:03:08]If it's a plural it's a Bhils. Just Google when you are listening to my talk. So, Bhils you Google for it, you will find a tribal group. It is a their population if I rightly remember 1.3 crores to 1.5 crore. The largest tribal population of India living in five to six states. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and part of that. Largest tribal group. But they lost their language. They speak some language called Bhili which is a corrupt Indo-Aryan language. But you go and ask them that where you got the name called Bhil?

[00:03:43]Then say sir, in our language we got the name from what is called bow and arrow.

[00:03:49]Vil and ambu. Vil.

[00:03:51]I've seen it in Orissa because his the bow is a bill. We are the bow people and then that is the reason we are bills.

[00:03:59]So, they call connect with the Ramayana Mahabharata story. We are the Mahabharata stories. We are the Nishadas.

[00:04:08]Nishada is the person the tribal group to which the Drona belong to. Sorry, what do you call Ekalavya belong to? And the Drona took his thumb in the Nishada Nishada hunter. So, these people call themselves as a Nishad.

[00:04:22]Call themselves as a bill which is from the willu of the Dravidian family, but they lost their language.

[00:04:29]Many people who are in the Madhya Pradesh and Bihar and Orissa lost their language. Tribals have retained it and we are still retaining because we are near Kanyakumari, we are fighting it out. Had I found myself in Andhra or Karnataka or Maharashtra, I would have lost my identity. I would not be fighting. But today, even today, in Tamil Nadu, some character whom I don't care, I don't bother, they even would like to call me as a Piramoli Alar. Okay, they would like to do a DNA study of me and say that no, I said, "Hell with you."

[00:05:05]Because I have that particular spirit of fighting from the Kanyakumari. So, this is what happened in Orissa. That is the reason Oriya is a Oriya is a classical language. That is the reason Oriya classical world conference next to Tamil in the entire country two languages conducted world classical conference such a style is Oriya. You will find a huge wealth of the thing because Oriya is an independent classical language because it pushed to the sea.

[00:05:33]Many people in the way, there is no trace of Vaishali language.

[00:05:38]There is no language trace of Maithili language.

[00:05:41]There is no trace of Bhojpuri language except Bhojpuri movie with a little bit of half-clad females. Bhojpuri movies They Marwaris are losing their language.

[00:05:53]So, everybody on the way they will lose their language. Oriya people still trying to retain their language like Tamils. So, that is it. That explains nobody else would bother. But, we would still bother.

[00:06:07]Madam, yeah, yeah. Sorry.

[00:06:08]Yeah, as a Telugu person probably I can just very quickly try to answer Jay Jagadeesan's question on why is Tamils wave other than people I think he said Telugu Kannada Keralites are not interested in the subject. I think they are definitely everyone is interested in their own history and but I think there are probably two reasons I can give. One thing is that of course the passion Tamils have is really remarkable and the the most important thing is that I think Tamil has retained and preserved the old literature. I believe that even Kannada and Telugu probably had some old literature that was not preserved. There is you can't say that Nannaya already wrote Mahabharata entire Mahabharata in such detailed complex Telugu. It is very surprising that you would not believe there were there were probably some Jain texts that were there that could have been built. There is a Bhadriraju also shows some evidence that the those may have happened. But, I think there is no literary text that Tamil can rely on the old texts and old grammar books and old evidences that Telugu and Kannadigas don't have it. So, the even the prosody the chandas and the meters and the poetry many of them are very Sanskritized. So, I think it become lost some of the unique developments achievements that they could claim for that. The other thing is that whenever Telugus Kannadigas entered this kind of history thing they this is the important thing probably somewhat sensitive that I say they often find themselves playing defense because I think there is a small vocal section of uh Tamil people who are working on it say that everything came out of Tamil and you are just Telugu is nothing but just a corrupted Tamil mixed with Sanskrit then then you're playing defense [laughter] that constantly push back against the eraser of your own language identity that really scares runs deep and that I think that's a deep frustration that You are absolutely right. People get into the argument of a mother or sister.

[00:08:13]I would always feel comfortable whether mother or sister or cousin is a family.

[00:08:19]So I I would I would rather feel comfortable. There are many people get into that argument and put them in defensive. If you really look at it in in in Kannada and Telugu and all it starts with the epic Bommarillu Ramayanam something like that. So something that comes from the yeah. Whereas if you if you really look at that Prakrit literature Marathi side Saptasati there is a literature is a which is an epitome of the Deccan literary thing which is comparable with the Sangam literature.

[00:08:49]It has been it has been translated in Tamil also. Halas Saptasati there is a there is a there is a Satavahana king Hala who also issued a coin with one side Sanskrit another side Tamil.

[00:09:04]Yeah Satavahana coin and they they composed 700 love poems which is a little somewhat resembling the Sangam text. Probably somewhere they missed the bus.

[00:09:17]Dr. Hart Professor Hart also compares Sanskrit literature to Tamil literature and he actually calls it the Deccan culture.

[00:09:26]Which is very interesting. So he says that whatever you find in Tamil was probably prevalent all over Deccan including Kannada and Telugu area just that we probably they never wrote it down or it was lost to history but the culture is common that is why even um borrows the same idioms so it is not alien to them it is their own