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Publication detail

Dravidian Nationalism and Western Religion

Authors: Kaushik Arvind Swaminath

Year: 2018

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	Dravidian Nationalism and Western Religion	The subject of this research is the intellectual foundations of Tamil Nationalism. Specifically, it examines the manner in which the Tamil Nationalists of the early twentieth century conceptualized language and religion as the fundamental consistuents of a nation. This study hypothesizes that this idea of nationalism is alien to the native culture of Tamil Nadu, and was borrowed from European orientalists and theologians. Within Christian theology, language is the medium through which human beings receive the revelation of God. Therefore, the grammar and vocabulary of language shapes one's understanding of religion. Religion, in turn, determines the character and worldview of a nation. When this fundamentally Christian idea of nationhood and its constiuent elements migrates to a non-Christian culture like that of Tamil Nadu, it is bound to become reinterpreted and distorted. This study argues that the distortion of the concept triad of language-nation-religion by the Tamil nationalists has a systematicity to it. By studying this systematicity, one can gain insights into the native culture, its political and social structure.