federalidea.com

By Sadanand Menon

It’s not a new idea. But if the four south Indian states were to refuse any more to bear the burden of the ‘backward north’, confederate themselves and secede from the Republic, you might actually have a new coastal superpower in the region. Yet it is curious how the north for so long assumed an infallible superiority in the ‘north versus south’ diatribe, given that southern indices in human development, living standards and cultural density have been way beyond the backward ones of the bimaru states.

The ’south’ is now recasting itself on the map of the subcontinent in an entirely new way. The ‘Madrasi’, till now a figure of ridicule in popular culture and Bollywood cinema, seems to have acquired a fleshed out identity and an unprecedented glamour.

Chennai-based choreographer Chandralekha used to have a jocular way of dealing with north India’s all-too-familiar jibes about the alleged cultural conservatism of south India. She used to say: “Consider this case. A popular actor/chief minister dies. His wife and his concubine contest his legacy and fight the election. The people vote the concubine as his heir. By what yardstick do you call this cultural conservatism?”

The south’s claims to cultural plenitude needs to be considered more carefully. Chronologically, Mohenjodaro, Harappa or Dholavira might pre-date Poompuhar, Mamallapuram or Kodungallore by millennia. Yet, the wave upon wave of invasions, war and plunder seem to have also brutalised and coarsened north India’s civilisational edge.

In comparison, the south has had a more sedate passage with palpable historical and cultural continuity. Almost everyone in bygone ages–Greeks, Sumerians, Phoenicians, Syrians, Romans, Arabs and early Christians and Muslims–seemed to land first along the southern coastline of the subcontinent, but without occupational or imperial intent. They also contributed to the forming of a fascinating comity of coastal confederations which, in turn, spawned the incredible cultural expansion of the Pallava, Chola and Vijayanagara dynasties right across South-East Asia.

Any cultural audit today will find the south’s supply side column bloated–its diversity of languages, scripts and dialects, an astoundingly rich cache of musical forms and dance-theatres, a treasure house of architectural innovations, the highest per capita literacy, the largest readership of newspapers and periodicals, and the greater density of poets and writers, translating into the largest number of Jnanpith award winners.

Some influential firsts include the first armed uprising in free India (Telangana), the first elected Communist ministry (Kerala), the most radical poetry movement (Sri Sri’s ‘Digambara’ movement) and the first rationalist’s association of Gora, all of which influenced the self-sustained ‘new cinema’ movement (in Malayalam and Kannada).

But the new boom in southern economy powered by the IT bonanza, while throwing much floating capital into the market and creating the ambience of a quantum leap in, say, cultural or artistic goods, has hardly contributed to the infrastructure of facilities or freedoms within which such activities can progress.

I have myself written extensively about the primitive conditions here under which artists work and show. Despite an exploding constituency of rasikas at the annual Chennai season, showcasing 2,200 plus performances across 45 days, there has been a steady institutional collapse of cultural showpieces like Kalamandalam, Kerala, or Kalakshetra, Chennai–which are now on artificial respiration. The art village, Cholamandalam, no longer represents avant garde or even fringe art.

As agriculture collapses in the South, the rice bowls of Thanjavur, Kuttanad, Godavari and Mandya have slowly turned fallow.Inevitably, the sumptuous culture they spawned would begin to tatter and fray too. Much of the contemporary South is being overtaken by rampant consumerism and the marauding culture of the Punjabi diaspora in dress, food and TV serials.

However, all is not lost. In the famous 1970s film, Amitabh Bachchan sneers, “Merey paas bangla hai, gaadi hai, paisa hai; tumhare paas kya hai?” Shashi Kapoor primly retorts, “Merey paas maa hai!” Today, in the South we would preen and say, “Hamare paas Rajnikant hai”. [Courtesy: Outllook]