The newly sworn-in DMK government is relentless in imposing it’s ideology on the people of Tamil Nadu. After a manufactured outrage by Dravidian outfits of saint Thiruvalluvar’s portrait wearing saffron robe in a government university, the DMK government has removed it. The portrait has been replaced with one in which that saint is in white robes without any trace of Hindu religious symbols.
Saint Thiruvalluvar is believed to be a poet of the Sangam era who wrote Thirukkural, a compilation of 1330 couplets, set of guidelines on nearly every aspect of life. Thiruvalluvar is considered to be a Hindu saint and has a temple in Mylapore, Chennai. Last year, a 300 year old sculpture of Thiruvalluvar along with Nandanar, one of the 63 Nayanmars(Saiva saints) was found in Madurai.
In the sculpture Thiruvalluvar could be seen with a stylus in the right hand and palm leaves in the left hand. Archeologists who found the sculpture described it as one having a long beard and a flowing moustache with his eyes closed in a meditative stance. Most important of all they mentioned that Thiruvalluvar in the sculpture was adorned with janeu and similar looking like Nandanar, the Saiva saint. As per the Saiva philosophy Thiruvalluvar is also considered to be a Nayanmar.
Despite all this evidence, Dravidianists have been arguing, no, trying to enforce a wrong notion that he was ‘secular’. While in the 300 year old sculpture he is wearing all the religious symbols of Hinduism, DMK and Dravidianists want to portray him as a secularist. In 1971 the then DMK chief M.Karunanidhi changed Thiruvalluvar’s birthday. As per Hindu beliefs his birthday is celebrated on the day when Anusham star falls in Vaishakh month and special pujas are performed in the Mylapore temple.
However Karunanidhi changed it to the second day of Thai, the first month of Tamil calendar when he changed the Tamil New Year from April 14 to January 14 as per his whims and fancies. DMK was also behind removing Hindu symbols like Tripundra, rudraksha and janeu from Thiruvalluvar’s depiction. In 1957, the portrait of Thiruvalluvar drawn by one Venugopala Sharma was brought inside the assembly. The then CM Bhaktavachalam agreed to CN.Annadurai, the then DMK chief’s demand to hang the portrait in the assembly.
Then the same portrait bereft of the religious symbols was used in the postal stamp released in the memory of the saint. Later, when DMK won the elections and CN.Annadurai assumed the office of CM, he passed an order to hang the portrait in every government office and establishment. This is the history of secularisation of Hindu saint Thiruvalluvar.
what DMK did to Thiruvalluvar…. pic.twitter.com/Hn6qaBtiTF
— Vishwatma 🇮🇳 (@HLKodo) March 25, 2021
This was openly admitted, infact boasted by DMK MLA Dr.Ezhilan and ally VCK’s chief Thirumavalavan both of whom are known Hindu haters. In the past, when Vice President Shri.Venkaiah Naidu shared an image of the saint in saffron robes wearing all the religious symbols, he was bullied into deleting it. From then on BJP leaders have been sharing only the secularised image of the saint.
Now that DMK is back in power and spectacularly failing in managing the Covid crisis, it has resorted to its usual means of diversions. The portrait of Thiruvalluvar in saffron robes(it looks more like brick red though) placed in the library of government Agricultural University in Coimbatore in 2015 has been replaced now with an image of secularised Thiruvalluvar.
(Featured Image Source: News J)
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