WEST BENGAL-BJP s Rise as a Mass Force

blessings of the Kanchi Shankaracharya before launching her campaign. This, on the one hand. On the other hand, she constantly invoked the name of E V Ramasamy Periyar and thereby claimed the heritage of the Dravidian movement. It is tempting to recall here what Kuthoosi Gurusamy, a prominent Dravida Kazhagam leader of yesteryears once remarked about Brahminism: that even if there were to be an independent sovereign Dravidian state, with Periyar as its president, the first people to welcome him would be the Brahmins! Gurusamy was particularly sensitive to the co-opting dynamic that seems to have been a salient aspect of Brahminism since the days of the Buddha, and the recent events in Tkmil Nadu have proved him right.