I hope to post a few studies on Indian languages before going on a short trip, so here is one of them.

The author analyzes shifting attitudes toward the Telugu language in the 19th century. The idea of a language as a medium of communication gradually became supplemented by the idea of language as the primary marker of cultural identity. Accordingly, the place of birth and one's linguistic belonging to it also were seen as something which can never be altered. In turn, the language itself became personified and imbued with new highly emotional meanings.

Obviously, this biologistic reading of cultural identity has its roots in English, German and French discourses of that time. Accordingly, reading this study might also help you understand how languages in other parts of the world became viewed as the destiny of their speakers.
While such ideologies bore terrible fruits in the Balkans and Anatolia, the development in southern India also led to alienation and hostility between Telugu and Tamil speakers, ultimately impoverishing both cultures and their literary traditions. Telugu of course ultimately fared much worse than Tamil in terms of publishing and cultural preservations.

I should also add that the author responds to the book by Ramaswamy on the Tamil language which I posted here previously, criticizing it as well as praising it.

Dravidian