INDIA, January 9, 2026 (India Today): In this wide-ranging essay, senior journalist T. R. Jawahar examines why Tamil Nadu remains uniquely resistant to national political parties and argues that the answer lies deep in the state’s cultural memory rather than electoral arithmetic. As the 2026 assembly election approaches, Jawahar frames Tamil Nadu as India’s strongest citadel of regionalism, shaped by a long tradition of cultural self-consciousness and skepticism toward homogenizing national narratives. The article introduces a new series that seeks to explain this exceptionalism by exploring Tamil history, literature, religion, politics and identity, rather than predicting electoral outcomes. At the heart of this inquiry stands Thiruvalluvar, the author of the Thirukkural, whose moral authority continues to influence Tamil self-understanding across centuries.

Jawahar portrays Thiruvalluvar as a civilizational “codifier” whose work bridges the Sangam world and the later age of ethical instruction, placing virtue (aram) above power, theology, or sectarian identity. The essay traces how the Thirukkural’s non-sectarian, ethically universal vision has allowed it to be claimed by competing forces—Dravidian parties, Hindu nationalists, rationalists, Jains, Saivites, and Vaishnavites—yet fully owned by none. Statues, temples, and institutions across Tamil Nadu and the global Tamil diaspora testify to Valluvar’s enduring symbolic power, most dramatically in the 133-foot statue at Kanyakumari. Jawahar argues that debates over the dating of the Thirukkural are themselves political, because placing it before hardened religious identities reinforces Tamil claims to an indigenous, humanist moral tradition. Valluvar endures, the article concludes, because he articulated a code of ethics at a moment when politics faltered—preserving a Tamil civilizational conscience that still shapes the state’s distinctive political and cultural posture today.

Source: https://www.indiatoday.in/interactive/visuals/time-tide-tamil-valluvar-codifier-and-conscience-keeper-across-centuries-part-12-332-09-01-2026

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