North South Divide
The differences between North and South India, both as in languages as well as in social structure were compounded in Tamil Nadu through the feeling that the nation was dominated by the North and that the South had been both neglected and exploited. The antipathy towards the north developed as the animosity against Sanskrit; which were two folds as hostility towards Hindi (a Sanskritic language) as well as Brahmin (as a proponent of Sanskrit). Brahminism was seen as the instrument of this "tyranny". Ritually and socially superior to the non-Brahmin masses, a Brahmin commanded a dominant political and economic position in Tamil Nadu. With the rise of Dravidar Kazhagam and birth of DMK, along with the ascent of Kamaraj in the Congress, the Brahmin dominance was already on the process of being displaced in the Madras State.
The North South divide in India was more prominent by the 1960s with the both the mass and the politicians of the North looking at English as a foreign language that has usurped the rightful place of indigenous languages, whereas the South feared that English to be replaced by Hindi which is equally foreign to its tongues.
Read more about this topic: Rise Of Dravidian Parties To Power In Tamil Nadu
Famous quotes containing the words north, south and/or divide:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live here, and have lived here, are so ugly.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“I always divide people into two groups. Those who live by what they know to be a lie, and those who live by what they believe, falsely, to be the truth.”
—Christopher Hampton (b. 1946)