As the BJP and RSS realised that “Ram” of North India is not going to help them to promote the politics of hate in Tamil Nadu and the south, they have now chosen the Tamil God Murugan to incite communal passions. The conference is a clear-cut attempt to appropriate the Lord Murugan to serve its politics of Hindutva and communalism. The BJP, being an alien party to the culture and politics of Tamil Nadu, is trying to internalise itself in the state by appropriating popular symbols and Gods like Muruga. The Lord Muruga is being attempted to be transformed into a communal symbol. Thirupparangunram hills, a place of worship of Muruga in Madurai, is chosen to incite communal passions and to divide Hindus and Muslims to elevate BJP’s communal brand of politics, as a centuries-old Sufi shrine and a mosque are also located in another side of the same hills. Unlike the Lord Ram, Lord Murugan is considered to be a god of middle castes. The so-called devotees’ conference is also a design of communal forces to penetrate among the majority backward castes and to isolate them from the Dravidian parties.
The conference was left with the imprint of the union government as the Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi, Maharashtra Governor CP Radha Krishnan and Union Minister of State L Murugan and the Deputy Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Pawan Kalyan also visited the site to offer prayers to Lord Murugan. Gurumurthy, an ideologue of RSS from Tamil Nadu, has also agreed that RSS, BJP and Hindu Munnani left no stone unturned to hoist the saffron flag in the city of Madurai, famous for the development of Tamil in the ancient period.
AIADMK leaders, blessed by Edappadi, also silently joined the conference which was claimed to be a Murugan Devotees’ conference and not the BJP conference. When the sound system cried “Come Muruga, to destroy the evil forces”, the images of Periyar, Annadurai and Karunanidhi were displayed on the LED screen implying the above three of leading the evil forces in the state. But, the former ministers of AIADMK (All India Anna Dravidia Munnetra Kazhagam) who were present on the occasion, pleaded ignorance saying that the LED screen was behind their back, to escape the criticism of betrayal by another Dravidian party named after Annadurai. The walls were decorated with posters inviting Lord Muruga with his weapon, the spear, to destroy Dravidianism. The communal forces have launched a veritable ideological war against Dravidianism, using people’s faith and spirituality and describing it as a force of destruction and Hindutva as a force of creation.
Resolutions of the Conference
The first resolution of the conference, with the slogan to protect the god Murugan and the hill (worshipping site), was to light the lamp on the mast of the temple in a winter month of Karthikai. The conspiracy to continue the debate on communalising Thiruparangunram hills (a place of worship of Murugan) throughout the year was obvious in the first resolution itself. It is an attempt to continue the “Vel Yatra” launched by the Union Minister Murugan and Annamalai (former state president of BJP) as a communal-political movement like Ayodhya. The RSS man Gurumurthy himself calls it a conference of Hindu spiritual nationalism laced with politics.
The second resolution congratulates the Modi regime and the army for the Operation Sindoor which offered death as a gift to the terrorists who ‘snatched away the sindoor’. It was resolved to establish a rule of Hindu spiritual nationalism in Tamil Nadu akin to the rule of the BJP-RSS at the centre.
The third resolution pledges to protect the Thiruparangunram hill in Madurai and its purity and accuses Muslims of destroying it and thus intends to promote a communal division of Hindus and Muslims. It is also resolved to kindle Hindu uprising by saying that all hills are owned by Murugan and thus it belongs only to Hindus and none else.
The fourth resolution asserts that the temples are the centres of spiritual, cultural and social solidarity and not the centres of commerce and trade. It condemns the building of educational and commercial complexes in the hills in order to protect the purity, contradicting its own action of converting Ayodhya into a centre of corporate trade and commerce. The resolution also says that the income of temples cannot be used for any public cause and should be used only for spiritual purposes and for the welfare of pandits. They have coined a slogan to liberate temples from the clutches of the government and its department which is a governing body for administration of all temples in the state. They demand that the temples shall be handed over back to religious institutions or trusts, liberating from the control and administration of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments department and the associated act.
The fifth resolution calls for “No Vote to Enemies of Hindus and the Nation”, explains that No Vote to Anti-Hindu politicians, precisely not to the DMK led INDIA in Tamil Nadu and also indicates that Udayanidhi, the Deputy Chief Minister, Kanimozhi, DMK MP, Thirumavalavan, a leader of a Dalit party VCK and A Raja, a dalit leader of DMK, are the anti-Hindu politicians.
The sixth resolution calls for reciting Kantha Sashti Kavasam (a devotional song in praise of Lord Murugan) on the memorial day of Murugan, to build the unity of Hindus.
Six resolutions were adopted in the conference of devotees of Lord Murugan, who is said to have six avatars and six places of worship in the state, aimed at transforming hundreds of years of history of the politics of secularism and social justice into a history of communalism, social injustice and sanatan. The communal forces have begun to play politics around the Tamil God Murugan after their failed experiments with Ram and Ganesha in the state. They are consciously avoiding the most popular Tamil devotional songs and insist on reciting the same song with Sanskrit lyrics with a clear purpose of sanskritisation and imposition of Hindi.
The communal forces cannot be defeated by upholding “Tamil God” Murgan against “Hindu God” Murugan. Murugan is being used as a shield by Hindutva forces against Dravidianism. They adopt a metaphor of Murugan as Hindutva and asuras (demons) as Dravidianism. This must be tirelessly countered at ideological and political level. They attempt to target Dravidianism with a spear, the weapon of Lord Murugan. They launch a war, using the Murugan’s spear, against egalitarianism, women’s liberation, independence of language, the elimination of caste, and the destruction of Manu Dharma.
Pavan Kalyan has delivered his speech saying that Lord Murugan is a revolutionary leader who destroyed injustice and established equality. He wanted to use Murugan to inverse the centuries old tradition of Dravidian and Left movement that fought for equality against disparity and for justice against injustice. One cannot be victorious by engaging in competitive communalism but for waging a comprehensive and consistent struggle for democracy and equality. The spirituality should not become a politics and the politics should not surrender before spirituality. Only a consistent struggle for such a democracy can be a weapon to defeat the forces of communalism.
