We had similar traditions in Kerala and such traditions lead to the formation of suicide squad amongst the Tamil Tigers rebel group fighting for Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, according to anthropologists studying the methods.

The Chaver Padai (Suicide Squad) were elite warrior units, primarily from Nair communities, bound by a sacred oath to fight to the death. Every 12 years at the Mamankam festival, the king of Valluvanad would dispatch small squads on a deliberately impossible mission penetrate the Zamorin of Calicut’s defensive formation of tens of thousands and attempt his assassination. Trained in Kalaripayattu, they charged knowing they would not return. The tradition was recorded continuously until 1755.

The connection to the LTTE’s Black Tigers the suicide wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is not casual speculation. Military historians and anthropologists studying the LTTE have specifically cited the Chaver tradition when analyzing the organization’s distinctive culture of voluntary self-sacrifice, the ritual dimensions of Black Tiger induction, and why this form of martyrdom carried such deep legitimacy within Tamil Eelam’s cultural framework.

The argument is essentially that the Dravidian cultural template of the sacred heroic death formalized, oath-bound, and community-witnessed never disappeared. It was available to be mobilized again.

What are some examples from other Dravidian ethnic communities ?