The following text is from a great thread on Twitter by @tamilgramsi on why Pongal festival is by nature anti-Brahmanical and why still it remains as a Tamils festival.

Almost all the Indian festivals will have some brahmin story attached to it. Deepavali, Navarathri are a prime example. If you ask someone who will celebrate Diwali, they will say Hindus. But if you ask someone who will celebrate Pongal, the answer will be Tamils. So this Pongal is not attached to any religion. It’s a national festival of the Tamils.

Still, you can see churches and mosques celebrating Pongal in Tamil Nadu. This makes the festival important one. Moreover, Pongal is not associated with the Brahmanical idea of purity.

Brahmanism considers death as pollution and you should not have festivals or like Deepavali for a year. But with Pongal, you don’t have any such restrictions. This shows that Pongal was here even before Brahmanism.

The Pongal food: For Pongal people will offer yam, palm sprout, sweet potato to thank Sun. As I mentioned in one of my previous thread all these vegetables are prohibited for Brahmins as they think all these underground tubers belongs only to Shudras. These tubers still have no place in Hindu temples. So this is another example that Pongal was there even before the advent of Brahmanism into Tamil society. Moreover, Manu Smriti says brahmins should not indulge in agriculture practices, so this festival doesn’t make any sense for them.

So, on the whole, Pongal is a Tamil’s festival which is now celebrated even by the Brahmins but it still stays here as an anti idea of Brahmin cultural hegemony. So all Tamils celebrate this festival by thanking our great nature.