Bringing religion into that is just plain stupid, this will bring an emotional outlook to this debate.
The main message from most people here from the North, is that this is an attack on Hinduism.
Who is an Hindu? , is it somebody who pray to Ram only?
Certain south Indian don't pray Ram, but do pray Krishna- are they Hindus?
In the South, the concept of a dravidian history is quite strong- just like an Aryan history is also quite strong in the North. just as well certain people in the South like the Andhra consider themselves mainly Aryan, but speak dravidian Telugu and look like most people in TN/KNT/KL. So the concept of Aryan dravidian is not that clear cut.
If you read the Ramayana carefully, its just a book on how the Aryan North went to war against the dravidian south. Look at the subtle racism here against the south , an army of "monkeys" from the forest in the south help an aryan invader to defeat a dravidian army. So don't think its a great surprise Ram is not that popular in some part of the South.
Now, It's mainly Northern Indians who has taken the task of defending Hinduism, who is more Hindu the North or the South? The south was never under foreign rule for a thousand years like the North were. So Hinduism in the South is in most part the same that is was thousand of years ago if not more, whereas in the North the Hindusim that was there more than a thousand years ago is long gone. So who is more Hindu? Who is defending what against what?
