Dravidian Identity

Subject : Social Issue

Context : Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi stated that Dravidian has become a Tamil identity due to divisional politics

Concept :

Dravidian is the term usually used for people from south Indian affinities.
The antiquity of the term Dravida goes back to the time of the AdiShankaracharya, who used the term to refer to South India.
Dravidian Group of Languages mainly consists of languages spoken in the southern part of India.
Around 25% of the population speak the languages classified in this group. Proto Dravidian gave rise to 21 Dravidian languages.
Among these 21 Dravidian Group languages, the four major Dravidian Group languages are:
Telugu (numerically the largest of all Dravidian languages)
Tamil (the oldest and purest form of language)
Kannada
Malayalam (the smallest and youngest of the Dravidian languages).

Dravidian Movement in History:

It was a dynamic social movement aimed at destroying the contemporary Hindu social order in its totality and creating a new, rational society without caste, religion, and God.
Ideologues such as AyotheethasaPandithar, Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai, and M.S. Purnalingam Pillai as well as latter-day ‘Justice Party’ leaders such as Dr. T.M. Nair, P. The agaraya Chetty, and C. NatesaMudaliar championed the socio-political call for the emancipation of non-Brahmin.
The Justice Party was a political party in the Madras Presidency of British India and was the first backward class mobilization that created social change and political empowerment.