62 SOCIAL SCIENTIST Pattammmal, Dharmambal and Neelambikai Ammaiyar. More women courted arrest in the cause of Tamil in 1939. Each of these women was to carve out a place for herself in the sphere of Tamil renaissance, Dravidian nationalism and gender-based social reforms. The anti-colonial, anti-Hindi discourse conducted entirely in chaste Tamil untainted by Sanskritic words or phrases was a feature of Tamil ethnic nationalism that began in the 1930s. The anti-Hindi resurgent Tamil discourse continues to be a dominant cultural characteristic of politics and literature in Tamil Nadu even into the 1990s, almost fifty years since India won freedom. The Tamil movement was a multi-pronged one. The lyakkam was stridently anti colonial and condemned all evidences of westernisation whether in speech or culture. It was quite unlike the Theosophical movement which embraced many aspects of westernisation treating them as elements of modernisation and also used the English language in its anti-British nationalist campaign. The Tani Tamizh lyakkam was directed primarily against the Congress led 'northern' domination (the word 'northern' is a literal translation of the phrase Vadakkatiya' from which one has Vada mozhi' 'northern language') and the use of Hindi as a cementing force in the national struggle. In fact the writings of Periyar, Bharati Dasan, Neelambikai Ammaiyar, Maraimalai Adigal and others focus not so much on anti-English/British sentiments as on anti-Hindi sentiments. The Tani Tamizh lyakkam was thus essentially ethnic nationalism. Even within Tamil Nadu the lyakkam represented Dravidian nationalism rather than Tamilian nationalism. The movement segregated Sanskrit as well as its cultural signifiers - the Brahmins. The sharp anti-Brahmanical tone of the writings of the leading personalities of this movement like Periyar, Bharati Dasan, Neelambikai and others shows the seminality of the anti-Sanskritic, anti-Brahmanical thrust in this movement.1 It is important in this context to note the formation of another movement which also had an anti-Brahmanical thrust. This was the Tamil Isai Sangam (Tamil Music Sangam) founded in 1942 by Raja Annamalai Chettiar at the Annamalai University in South Arcot district. This was a counter organisation to the Madras Music Academy founded in 1926 by Brahmins. The Tamil Isai Sangam by and large extended its patronage to non-Brahmins and emphasised Tamil music in contradistinction to the Sanskritic musical traditions of Muthuswami Dikshitar