Tamil Nadu (pop. 72,147,030) is a state in southeast India. One of the four Dravidian states of India, it has had more than 2,000 years of continuous cultural history. Tamil is one of the oldest formal written languages in India.
Tamil Nadu has some of the most remarkable temple architecture in India, and a living tradition of music and dance. People who live in the state are called Tamilians. Chennai, formerly called Madras, is the capital city. The state covers an area of 50,216 square miles (130,058 square kilometers).
People and government
People.
There are isolated groups of tribal peoples, such as the Todas who live in the Nilgiri Hills. The great majority of Tamil Nadu’s inhabitants are Dravidians (see Dravidians). About 90 percent of the population speak Tamil, the main language of the state. In the north, especially around Chennai, many people speak Telugu, another Dravidian language. They make up 6 percent of the population.
About 90 percent of the people of Tamil Nadu are Hindus. About 6 percent are Christians, especially in the south where Roman Catholic and Protestant missions have been active for over 500 years. Christianity in the south may date from A.D. 52, when many people believe St. Thomas the Apostle came to India and was martyred in Mylapore (now a suburb of Chennai). There are also small groups of Jains, Muslims, and Parsis.
Government.
Tamil Nadu took its present form as a result of the States Reorganization Act of 1956. By that time, the earlier British presidency of Madras had lost its northern districts to Andhra Pradesh and its western districts to Mysore, now Karnataka. Under the 1956 Act, it also lost the district of Malabar but gained four talukas (subdivisions) from Trivandrum and another, Shencottah taluka of Quilon District, when the new state of Kerala was formed.
Tamil Nadu has 39 elected members in the Lok Sabha (lower house) and 18 members of the Rajya Sabha (upper house) of the Indian parliament. The state’s Legislative Assembly has 235 members. Until 1967, the Indian National Congress dominated the Assembly. But after an attempt by the central government to impose Hindi as a national language, the Congress Party was routed by a regional party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Since then, either the DMK or a splinter party, the All India Anna DMK, has been in power in the state.
Economy
Agriculture.
Less than half of Tamil Nadu’s population works in agriculture, and it contributes less than 10 percent of the state’s economic wealth. Farmers have used irrigation in the region for more than 2,000 years. They built tanks (large, shallow reservoirs) as early as A.D. 800 in the areas around what is now Chennai. Farther south, the people have used the Kaveri River for irrigation for over 1,000 years. In both regions, rice is the most important crop.
Sugar cane, peanuts, and other oilseeds are important cash crops. Bananas, cotton, millet, and rubber are also grown. Tea and coffee from the hills of the Western Ghats make a major contribution to exports and domestic consumption. The hills are also famous for the production of cardamom, ginger, pepper, and other spices. Potatoes are widely grown in the Nilgiris for sale in India’s big cities.
Manufacturing.
Tamil Nadu is one of India’s most industrialized states. Cotton processing began in mills in Madras city during the 1800’s. Today, cotton textile production is a major industry. In the 1930’s, the government developed hydroelectric power in the hills of the southwest, and Coimbatore rapidly became a major industrial center for the textile industry. Tamil Nadu has since become an engineering center, producing a range of products that includes automobiles, buses, motorcycles, precision tools, and trucks. The state also has cement, fertilizer, sugar, and oil-refining industries. Tamil Nadu’s more traditional industries remain important. Leather especially is one of India’s major exports.
Mining.
Tamil Nadu has extensive mineral deposits. Minerals that are mined include bauxite, gypsum, and limestone. Lignite (brown coal) is mined at Neyveli. Salem steel mill processes iron ore. Magnesite is mined in Salem district.
Electric Power.
Tamil Nadu produces electric power in a variety of ways. Hydroelectric, thermal, and wind power stations all contribute to the state’s electric power production. The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, northeast of Kanniyakumari, began producing electric power in 2013.
Transportation.
Tamil Nadu has some of the best road and rail connections in India. Chennai is the focus for the transport system, linking the state with other major centers in India and abroad. The broad-gauge rail system links Chennai with Bengaluru, Cochin, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, and other northern destinations. A narrow-gauge rail system serves the south. Tamil Nadu also has a very large number of roads. As well as the national highways, there is a widespread network of good state highways.
Communication.
Tamil Nadu has many daily newspapers. Most households own televisions and have access to mobile telephone services.
Land
Location and description.
Tamil Nadu is in southeastern India. To the east and south is the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. Across the Palk Strait in the southeast lies the island country of Sri Lanka. To the north and west are the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Kerala.
Land features.
The Western Ghats dominate the western flank. These hills form two main groups, the Nilgiris in the north and the Palani, Cardamom, and Annamalai hills in the south. The highest mountain in southern India, Anai Mudi, rises to 8,842 feet (2,695 meters) in Tamil Nadu.
To the east of the hills lie the plains. They are broken in the north by isolated uplands such as the Shevaroy and Javadi hills. Along the coast is a flat alluvial plain. There are deltas where major rivers, especially the Kaveri, have deposited alluvium (fertile soils and silts) over many hundreds of years. The deltas are famous as the rice bowls of Tamil Nadu. They were once the center of the major Tamil kingdoms. In the south are the arid plains of Madurai and Ramanthapuram.
Climate.
On the plains, temperatures are always quite high. In Chennai, the average January temperature is about 77 °F (25 °C). The difference between winter and summer is not as great as in north India, and the average temperature in May, the hottest month, is about 91 °F (33 °C). However, temperatures are greatly affected by altitude. Kodaikanal, for example, at a height of over 8,200 feet (2,500 meters), is about 15 °F (8 °C) cooler than Chennai, and occasionally has night frosts in winter. Because most of Tamil Nadu lies to the east of the Western Ghats, the climate is much drier than that on the west coast. The plains to the east lie in the rainshadow of the mountains. Strong winds blow across the plains in the early monsoon season, but as they come down the eastern slopes of the hills they warm up and become drier (see Monsoon). The districts around Madurai receive less than 30 inches (75 centimeters) of rain per year. The extreme southeast experiences almost desert conditions with less than 24 inches (60 centimeters) per year.
The change of landscape between Trivandrum and Madurai around India’s southern tip illustrates the dramatic effects on vegetation and agriculture of this sudden decrease in rainfall. Tamil Nadu, and particularly the area around Chennai, has an exceptional rainfall pattern. It has about 47 inches (120 centimeters) of rain each year, most of which falls in what is sometimes called the retreating monsoon.
From October to December, weather depressions move across the east coast around Chennai from the Bay of Bengal. They bring heavy rains, often accompanied by storms, to the coastal belt, which decrease inland and southward from Chennai. It is a season when cyclonic storms, from the east and southeast over Malaysia, also strike parts of the south Indian coast as they move first west and then north up the Bay of Bengal. Such cyclones can cause enormous disruption, damage, and loss of life, particularly when they strike densely populated parts of the country.
Rivers and lakes.
The state’s most important river is the Kaveri. It rises in Karnataka within 60 miles (100 kilometers) of the west coast. Farmers use its water to irrigate the Thanjavur Delta between Tiruchchirappalli and the sea. It is so shallow that a person can walk across it ankle-deep at its mouth. Other rivers include the Palar in the north and the Tambraparani in the south. Like all rivers in peninsular India, they are often dry, reflecting the seasonal nature of the rainfall on which they depend. The building of the Mettur Dam on the Kaveri River in 1926 created Tamil Nadu’s biggest lake.
History
Evidence from various sites in southern India shows that there were Stone Age settlers in what is now Tamil Nadu about 200,000 years ago. Stone burial sites are common in several parts of the region. Dravidians moved into the south of India in about 3000 B.C.
The people of Tamil Nadu had developed an Iron Age culture by about 1000 B.C. By about 300 B.C., Tamil Nadu was under the rule of three dynasties. The Cholas occupied the coastal area east of Thanjavur and inland to the head of the Kaveri Delta at Tiruchi. At various times, they were a strong military power. One of their princes, Elara, conquered the island of Sri Lanka in about 100 B.C. (see Chola Empire). The central area—Madurai, Tirunelveli and a part of south Kerala—was ruled by the Pandyas. The Pandyas were a great maritime trading power who had connections with the Roman Empire up to about A.D. 500. The Cheras controlled much of what is now Kerala on the west coast of the peninsula, but they also penetrated southern Tamil Nadu.
From around the 300’s B.C., a poets’ academy known as the Sangam flourished in Madurai. According to legend, poets at the academy put Tamil literature through an extraordinary test. They threw books into the sacred tank of the Meenakshi Temple, and those that floated would be deemed worthy, while those that sank were considered useless. The writings of that period show that life in Tamil society was different from that in the north of India. In Tamil Nadu, the wise men were at the top of society, followed by peasants, hunters, artisans, soldiers, fishermen, and scavengers. This contrasted with the caste system that existed in the rest of the subcontinent (see Caste).
The Pallavas became powerful in the A.D. 300’s and ruled northern Tamil Nadu from 550 to 869. They were also great builders and adventurers. Mahabalipuram became an important port and naval base in the 600’s. The Pallavas were mainly Shivaites (followers of Shiva, a Hindu god), and during the 700’s they built the Mahabalipuram shore temples. Their king, Narasinhavarman II, also built the great Kailasanatha temple at Kanchipuram, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) from modern Chennai. For 150 years, this was not only the administrative center but also the literary and artistic capital where scholars studied the Sanskrit language and the Vedas, the sacred books of Hinduism (see Vedas).
The Cholas returned to power in 850 and remained a dominant political force until 1173. Within a hundred years, during the reign of Rajaraja, they defeated the Pandyas and the Cheras. Their great empire expanded to cover the whole Tamil area, Sri Lanka, the region of the Andhras, southern Karnataka, and the Laccadive and Maldive islands. At his capital, Thanjavur, Rajaraja I built the Brihadishwara Temple, one of the finest examples of Dravidian architecture. See Rajaraja I.
There was further expansion in the 1000’s during the reign of Rajendra Chola. He conquered Kerala and the Pandyan lands in the south, and led raids to the north and northeast. On his return he founded the city of Gangakondacholapuram in the Kaveri delta. His naval expeditions to the Malayan Peninsula resulted in Chola domination over the trade routes in that area of the Indian Ocean and control of the sea routes to Java, Sumatra, and China. One other major result was the Hindu influence on the art of Java and Bali. Chola control over this vast area continued for nearly a hundred years until the Pandyas became powerful again and ruled from about 1175 to 1300. In Karnataka, the Hoysalas came to power in 1022 and emerged as a strong force (see Karnataka).
Tamil Nadu also came under the influence of the Vijayanagar Empire, the last Hindu empire in India, which superseded the Pandyas. After the disintegration of the Vijayanagar Empire, the Tamil region came under the control of several petty chiefs.
The arrival of the British in the area in the 1600’s brought far-reaching changes. Under British rule, the region became united under a single administration.
During the 1600’s and 1700’s, the British East India Company established its power in southern India. In 1639, the Company set up its factory at Fort St. George, the trading post that developed into the present-day city of Chennai. From this center, the company directed its political and trading activities. Through wars, annexations, and treaties with Indian rulers such as the nawab of Carnatic, the nizam of Hyderabad, and the sultan of Mysore, the East India Company acquired the territory covering present-day Tamil Nadu.
British rule caused considerable opposition and resistance, particularly from local Indian rulers who had lost their lands to the Company. Veera Pandya Kattaboman of Tirunelveli, was one of many leaders in the Tamil region who fought against the British. The nationalist movement of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s aroused considerable enthusiasm in Tamil Nadu. The Non-cooperation, Civil Disobedience, and Quit India movements all received popular support there.
V. O. Chidambaram Pillai helped in the restoration of national honor and self-respect by starting the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company. Subramanya Bharati woke national feelings in Tamil Nadu through his poems.
A non-Brahman movement arose in the early 1900’s. Its early political organization was the Justice Party, led by Theagaraya Chetty and T. M. Nair. The Self-respect Movement initiated in 1925 by E. V. Ramaswami Naicker (called Periyar) gave a social and cultural dimension to the non-Brahman movement. In 1944, Periyar founded Dravida Kazhagam, a social organization dedicated to the ideal of establishing a separate Dravidian country. Annadurai, one of Periyar’s close disciples, formed a political party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, with the same objective. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam later gave up its idea of breaking away from India.
At the time of Indian independence in 1947, Tamil Nadu was a part of a British administrative unit called the Madras presidency. In 1956, according to the recommendations of the States Reorganization Committee, Tamil-speaking areas were formed into a separate state. The new state was called Madras, after its capital.
In 1968, Madras state was renamed Tamil Nadu. In 1991, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated while campaigning for another term as prime minister. Investigators determined that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) were responsible for the attack. The LTTE were involved in a civil war in Sri Lanka and had opposed a Gandhi-backed peace plan. Several LTTE members were sentenced to death for the attack, and others were imprisoned for life. In 1996, the city of Madras was renamed Chennai.
In December 2004, a powerful undersea earthquake in the Indian Ocean near the Indonesian island of Sumatra generated a series of large ocean waves called a tsunami. The tsunami’s towering waves killed about 8,000 people and caused major property damage along the coast of Tamil Nadu.
