POLITICIANS within the North try too laborious to be extra Hindu than the following, the BJP complains. In Tamil Nadu, as per the get together, it’s simply the other: they wish to be seen as extra “non-Hindu” than the opposite.
The row on the difficulty has this time surfaced over Mani Ratnam’s much-anticipated movie Ponniyin Selvan I (PS-I), primarily based on Kalki’s Chola-era historic fictional novel. The set off was award-winning Tamil filmmaker Vetrimaaran’s warning to Tamils over Hindutva teams coopting Raja Raja Chola as a Hindu, scary a pointy response from the BJP.
Talking on the sixtieth birthday celebrations of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) MP Thol Thirumavalavan on October 1, Vetrimaaran mentioned Hindutva forces try to applicable Tamil identification, referring to social media posts calling Raja Raja Chola a “Hindu king”.
All artwork is political, Vetrimaaran mentioned, including that Tamils want to make sure that their tradition and symbols are used appropriately. “If we don’t try this, they (the Hindutva teams) will take our symbols,” he mentioned.
One of many BJP’s seniormost leaders in Tamil Nadu, H Raja, shot again, asserting that Raja Raja Chola was very a lot a Shiva devotee and referred to as himself ‘Sivapadha Sekaran’. “He constructed the Brihadeeswarar Temple. Has Raja Raja Cholan constructed church buildings or mosques to say he was not a Hindu?” he requested.
On Thursday, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan joined the talk, noting that ‘Hinduism’ as a faith didn’t exist in the course of the Chola interval. “There was Vainavam, Saivam and Samanam. The identify ‘Hindu’ was given by the British as there have been totally different religions…” Haasan mentioned.
Quickly the trending hashtag on social media was #TamilsAreNotHindus.
One other politician who backed Vetrimaaran was Congress MP from Karur, Tamil Nadu, S Jothimani. The backward class chief mentioned Raja Raja Cholan was “a Tamil king”. “He was a Shaivite. There was no such custom referred to as Hindu custom then. The BJP is completely ignorant about Tamil historical past. Neither are they involved. The one factor that issues to them is hatred,” she mentioned.
On Friday, Union minister and BJP chief L Murugan, on a two-day go to of the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, mentioned: “How can Tamil and Hindu be totally different?” He additionally accused the ruling DMK within the state of encouraging such “anti-Hindu” sentiments, referring to latest remarks by its chief A Raja.
Puducherry Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who hails from Tamil Nadu, lashed out at “an try to cover the Hindu cultural identification in Tamil Nadu” and mentioned efforts have to be made to withstand it.
Veteran Congress chief Karan Singh too waded into the row, asserting that to say the Chola king was a Shaivite and never a Hindu is like saying somebody is a Catholic however not a Christian. Singh, who belongs to the Hindu royal household that dominated Jammu and Kashmir, mentioned he was “astounded” on the row.
“That is completely ridiculous. Shiva is the primordial Hindu deity, focus of intense devotion for tens of millions over the millennia from Srinagar all the way down to Rameshwaram. The emperor constructed a number of the best Shiva temples that are marvels of structure, specifically the good Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur, the place I’ve worshipped many occasions,” he mentioned in a press release.
The phrase Hindu could have gained traction later, however Shiva and Vishnu, Hanuman and Ganesha, Mahalakshmi and Mahakali have all been a part of what we name Sanatan Dharma for millennia, the previous Union minister mentioned.
The controversy over the Chola king faucets into the rising friction between the Dravida ideology and Tamil nationalism politics of the southern state, and the BJP’s aggressive model of uniform Hindutva, which it’s seen as attempting to impose throughout the nation. With the BJP gaining a foothold in Tamil Nadu by way of the weakened AIADMK, this imprint is seen as a transparent and current risk.
Chief Minister M Okay Stalin more and more presents his authorities as a “Dravida” authorities, has sought to convey collectively a “social justice” nationwide entrance consistent with the DMK’s ideology, and infrequently speaks out towards the domineering BJP-led Centre. His authorities has additionally been highlighting a sequence of latest excavations within the state which point out that the Sangam period of the area was as developed because the Harappan, and pre-dated it.
For lecturers and historians although, there may be little level to the Chola king debate, as either side paints it in its political colors. “Politicians don’t have anything else to do, so they’re into these discussions,” a high tutorial who has authored books in regards to the Chola and Pallava durations mentioned, requesting to not be named.
A professor researching and instructing Tamil historical past and archaeology additionally refused to be named, calling it a “ineffective controversy”. The professor agreed with the view that the phrase Hindu or Hinduism was “a colonial development”. “If it was the Islamic invasion that made them unite and struggle a overseas philosophy, the British, who had been already aware of Semitic religions like Christianity and Islam, needed to place every thing else in India right into a single basket, and there emerged the time period ‘Hindu faith’,” the professor mentioned.
Nevertheless, he underlined, that was only one half. Raja Raja Chola constructed the utmost variety of Shaivite temples, the knowledgeable on the interval mentioned. “He additionally constructed a number of Jain and Buddhist temples. His interval was identified for non secular tolerance. He by no means tried to regulate different perception programs. Politics and faith had been two distinct entities in his interval. Faith had no area in political administration or governance. That was Raja Raja Chola,” he mentioned. “We all know that he by no means claimed himself as a Hindu, nor did he point out himself as a Shaivite.”
By the way, in 2020, when a consecration ceremony was held at Brihadeeswarar Temple constructed by Raja Raja Chola, after a niche of 23 years, there was a conflict over the language for use. After the matter was dragged to the Madras Excessive Courtroom, it was determined that rituals could be held in each languages – Tamil, representing the king’s Dravida roots, and Sanskrit, as insisted upon by the higher castes.
In the same dispute over the language situation, one other Madras Excessive Courtroom order, in 2008, advised the conservative clergy who referred to as for prayers to be held solely in Sanskrit that portraying “as if God can perceive solely the Devanagari language, and (that) Tamil can not stand on a par” was baseless.