After actor Rajinikanth’s comments on social reformer Periyar saying that at a rally led by him in 1971, unclothed effigies of Lord Ram and Sita were garlanded with footwear; a statue of the Dravidian icon was found vandalized in Kancheepuram district at Kaliyapettai.

The face and hand of the statue have been damaged. The desecrated statue has now been covered with a white cloth. 

DMK President MK Stalin and PMK founder S Ramadoss condemned the vandalism incident and demanded strict action against those involved in damaging the statue of the social reformer. 

Rajinikanth has received wide criticisms for his comments against the social reformer and the Dravidar Viduthalai Kazhagam’s (DVK) Chennai district secretary Umapathi filed a petition before the Madras High Court seeking direction to the inspector of Triplicane police station to register a complaint against Rajinikanth.

However, Rajinikanth has refused to apologize for his comments. He had said, “A controversy has emerged that I said something that did not happen. But I did not say anything that did not occur. I only said what I heard and things that appeared in magazines. Sorry, I will not express regret or apologize.”

“I did not say anything out of imagination or something that was not there. Lakshmanan [then Jan Sangh and now BJP leader] who took part in a dharna [in 1971] has corroborated it,” he added.

Tamil Nadu minister Sellar Raju had lashed out at Rajinikanth for his statement saying that it was because of Periyar’s reforms that the re-marriage of Rajini’s daughter had been made possible. 

Saying that Rajinikanth shouldn’t have spoken about an incident that took place 50 years ago and talk about Periyar’s struggle as a matter of pride Raju said, “Rajinikanth arranged the second marriage for his daughter on the principle of Periyar. He should never forget this. Rajini, always patient, is being currently misled by someone.”

Stalin too said that he had a “piece of advice” for Rajinikanth. He had told The Hindu, “I have an advice for him. When he talks about Periyar, who fought for almost 95 years for the Tamil people, he should think and speak.”

This is not the first time that statues of the social reformer have been vandalized. In April 2019, a statue of Periyar at the Aranthangi district in Tamil Nadu was found with its head dislodged and lying on the ground.

In 2018 in Vellor another Periyar statue was found broken after BJP leader H Raja had said that all statues of the social reformer must be broken.
 

Related:

Ramdev insults Periyar, calls followers ‘ideological terrorists’
Why is Periyar not taught in Indian schools and colleges?
Self-Respect Marriage: A Promise of Equality and Companionship

The post Periyar statue vandalized days after Rajinikanth’s comments on the social reformer appeared first on SabrangIndia.

BJP men in Tripura heard their leaders loud and clear.

The day after the election results in Tripura were announced, a wave of attacks were orchestrated by the BJP against the Left specifically targeting the CPI(M). Till the evening of March 5th, 514 CPI(M) cadre and supporters were injured in assaults by BJP men, 1,539 houses were attacked, 196 houses were set on fire, 134 party offices were attacked and 208 party offices were captured. Many mass organisation offices also were attacked and captured. The attacks are continuing. These figures were given to the police authorities in Tripura and to the central government. In the 25 years of its governance, there is not a single instance of any office of an opposition party being burnt or captured or the kind of mass attacks on supporters of the then opposition as Tripura is witnessing today. It shows the hollowness and hypocrisy of the claims made by BJP leaders that while they believed in democracy, the CPI(M) did not.
 

Two statues of Lenin were demolished in Tripura, allegedly by workers of the BJP
 

The BJP-IPFT has won a big victory in Tripura with 43 seats. While the BJP has around 43 per cent of the vote, along with its ally the IPFT, it is around 50 per cent. In spite of its being able to retain only 16 seats of the 50 it had won last time, the CPI(M) and three Left parties, who fought one seat each, got 45 per cent of the vote. The CPI(M) will have to introspect and review the reasons. But it is to subdue and subordinate this substantial pro-Left base in the very initial phase of its rule that the BJP-RSS is resorting to such attacks and the use of methods to intimidate, bully and create an atmosphere of fear. The use of violence against communists is one method of achieving “Communist-mukt Bharat” – or so the BJP thinks.

The ideological victory claimed by Modi over communists was sought to be sealed by bulldozing the statue of Lenin which had been installed in Belonia town in South Tripura in 2013. It was not a spontaneous action. A group of BJP men used a bulldozer to bring it down. It was beheaded and it is reported that these men kicked the head around like a football. Those educated on texts written by their ideological forefathers like Savarkar and Golwalkar who glorified Nazi Germany and considered it a model worth following, acted as they were trained to, knowing that such loutish acts had the support of their leaders. The first to tweet his approval was RSS leader Ram Madhav. This was followed by the Governor of Tripura who said “one democratically elected Government can undo what another democratically elected Government did and vice versa.” So according to a person who holds an important constitutional post mandated to uphold the law, the hooligans who brought down the statue were representatives of a “democratically elected government”. What further evidence is required that their are patrons behind this action?
 

PM Narendra Modi with senior BJP leaders after the party’s victory in Tripura by-polls
 

Some BJP leaders have justified it on grounds that Lenin was a foreigner, a terrorist.

The Russian revolution in 1917 led by Lenin which overthrew the despotic regime of the Tsar and challenged the might of imperialist powers who almost strangulated the revolution in its infancy had the most profound influence on all nations striving for their freedom including India and its freedom fighters, from Gandhi to Nehru, from Bhagat Singh to Rabindranath Tagore. Bhagat Singh was deeply influenced by the Russian revolution, reflected in the manifestos of the several organizations he led from the Naujawan Sabha to the Hindustan Republican Association which later transformed into the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. A biographer of Bhagat Singh wrote that at his last meeting with Bhagat Singh, the freedom fighter said that he was reading about the life of Lenin and that he would like to finish it before he was hanged (“The Man and His Ideas” by Gopal Tagore) Rabindranath Tagore visited Soviet Russia after Lenin had passed away. He was a great admirer of Lenin. “If I had not come to Russia,” wrote Tagore, “life’s pilgrimage would not have been complete.” Nehru wrote of the “great Lenin” that “although under the leadership of Gandhi we followed another path, we were influenced by the example of Lenin.”

The RSS and the political fronts it set up have never been part of this history, never been part of the national freedom struggle to know what the Russian revolution had meant for those dreaming and sacrificing their all for India’s independence.
 

A statue of Periyar was vandalised in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore last night, after a BJP leader suggested it in a controversial Facebook post
 

But even so, the destruction of Lenin’s statue signifies more than the anti-communism which is the RSS’ DNA: it shows up once again the extreme intolerance of the Sangh Parivar to any other ideology which challenges or is in opposition to the Sangh. This act should dismay not only admirers of Lenin and his legacy but anyone who believes in the freedom of expression and political debate. If the outrage is not strong enough, it is not going to stop at Lenin. Already BJP leaders elsewhere are taking the cue. In Tamil Nadu, BJP leader H Raja posted on Facebook “Today it is Lenin in Tripura, tomorrow in Tamil Nadu (it will be) casteist Periyar’s statue.” The legacy of Periyar, the social reformer and ideologue of the Dravidian movement, represents a challenge to the Manuvadi-based Hindutva ideology of the Sangh, thus this aggression.

We know the kind of statues that the ruling regime prefers. Those of men who pledged their loyalty to the British pleading for mercy from a jail term, those of men who preached that India could never be one in the name of a fake humanism, and most recently, the statue of the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi. Did a single BJP leader publicly oppose the atrocious plan of the Hindu Mahasabha to put up statues of Nathuram Godse in their offices and temples under their control?

The newly-elected BJP government in Tripura should repair Lenin’s statue and put it back from where it was removed. It should put an end to the violence unleashed against Left supporters. Statues can be destroyed by force, not an ideology.

(Brinda Karat is a Politburo member of the CPI(M) and a former Member of the Rajya Sabha.)

This article was first Published on NDTV

The post Destruction Of Statues Exposes RSS Ideology – Brinda Karat appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The men identified as Mutharaman, a BJP worker and Francis, a CPI member, desecrated the statue at about 9pm on Tuesday night. Both, have since been arrested. Police say, both men were inebriated at the time of the incident. Mutharaman has been removed from the party as per state BJP Chief Tamilsai Soundararajan. 

The post Periyar Statue Desecrated in Vellore appeared first on SabrangIndia.