As a proud Tamilian myself, I too did feel more than just disappointment… I felt a bit of anger and hurt welling up too inside my heart when I read the news a week ago that the Central …. oops! sorry wrong terminology!…. the Union Government of India, more specifically, the Ministry of Defence, had rejected the inclusion of the entry of the grand tableaux-on-wheels of TamilNadu State in the 2022 Republic Day Parade Celebrations in New Delhi on 26 January.
I too like the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister felt that the Indian Government had slighted the people of our State and was being politically peevish towards Tamil Nadu Government on account of the many differences all know exists between the two on certain issues of national and public policy and so-called “centre-state relations of federalism” which are rather testy and very frosty today, to say the least. But then why should such political differences, I thought to myself, get in the way of Tamil Nadu State being able to show its good intent and bonafide wish to join in the joyous celebrations of a national festival such as the anniversary of the founding of Republic India?!
I admit I was irked even with the attitude and tone of the Defence Minister, Sri Rajnath Singh whose publicly published letter to Mr Stalin too I read and which explained the “transparent process” by which Tamil Nadu’s tableaux entry was rejected for inclusion in the R-Day pageantry.
It is only today, however, the day after R-Day, while reading the HINDU (27th Jan 2022) that I realise why the Union Government of India had given such brusque and short shrift to Tamil Nadu!
The photo in the above news report is that of the tableaux which was meant to be included in the R-Day pageantry parade in New Delhi but got rejected by the MoD.
Now please zoom in and take a closer look at the photo… What do you see?
That’s the idol of the great Tamil socio-political atheistic iconoclast , Tiru. Ramaswamy Naicker with the figurine of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of Nation, placed behind him.
Who is Tiru. Ramaswamy Naicker?
He is the presiding deity in the pantheon of gods believed to have walked the earth on Tamil soil in the last 100 years and who is fondly cherished by all those who pride themselves today as Dravidianists of the state of Tamil Nadu as “Periyaar”.
Today, right from CM Stalin who sits right at the top at Fort St.George all the way down to the lowest DMK and DK Party cadre worker who goes around sticking party propaganda posters on the public walls on the streets of Chennai with impunity and raising giant flex-boards of Periyaar at DMK Party street-rallies… , they all do solemnly swear by “Periyaar ideology”. They hail Periyaar’s Dravidian socio-political doctrines as their own sub-national Tamizh Constitution and as their gospel and articles of faith, code of ethics and conduct.
Now, it’s the towering icon of the “Periyaar the Great” that you see has been installed right up front and centre so prominently in that “floating tableaux” which Tamil Nadu Govt. had wanted the Union Government to allow to be included in the R-Day pageantry.
Lo and behold! Now at last… the light of understanding dawns on me ! I know clearly now why the Defence Ministry refused to approve the Tamil Nadu tableaux float …
While for the TN Government, Periyaar might be Dravidian god-incarnate, for the Union Government he is nothing but anti-national anathema. And that is why I am willing to boldly conjecture that but for the idol of Periyaar being consecrated there atop the tableaux-head and right up front too to boot, the Defence Ministry might well have allowed our State’s entry into the R-Day parade and pageantry this year also just as it had done in the previous years.
I am willing to speculate that the TN Govt might have been indeed requested by the MoD to remove the Periyaar figurine from the tableaux as a pre-condition for approving the entry for inclusion in the pageantry. The TN Govt. would’ve, of course, refused the pre-condition being set and protested that it was as an “affront to the federal structure of India … “ and hence the rejection… ?
Let me say that, now, I do not suffer any longer the sense of grievance I had felt before when I had been mistaken into believing that my Tamilian pride had been hurt over the denial of permission by the Modi govt. for including the TN tableaux as part of the R-Day national parade. Now, I am able to see the true reason behind the Union Government’s refusal … and I am able to see how mischievously politicised the matter had been sought to be made … and how it’s the TN Govt that is to be squarely blamed for attempting to do so.
Everyone knows it as a matter of the recorded history of independent India that Periyaar was a rabid separatist who kept on espousing secession from India as a matter of great Tamil pride and dreams, until of course 1947, when he gave up his foolish agenda for a separate Dravida Naadu which he wanted to be carved as a separate balkanised nation out of the territory of free India. He even mooted his secessionist idea to the British Raj that was on its way out of India.
Now, here is an excerpt from the HINDU dt. 19 March 2019 which I hope you will take the trouble to quickly peruse and understand. It clearly exposes Periyaar to be the anti-India Tamil sub-nationalist that he certainly, in fact, was so proud to be and it also explains in summary his separatist ideology:
QUOTE
“The Dravida Nadu as a political idea was originally floated by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy who came out with the slogan “Tamil Nadu for Tamils” in 1938 in response to the plan to introduce compulsory learning of Hindi across India. By the following year, his clamour had changed to Dravida Nadu because of the South’s cultural oneness…Though Periyar said the two demands were the same….”
“…… describing the Dravida Nadu as an “outdated idea”, Su. Venkatesan, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artistes Association, contended that Periyar had defined non-Brahmins as Dravidian….”.
UNQUOTE
You can read more in this 2019 report at …
Reading the entire report, you will not fail to appreciate the clear message that anyone can easily derive from this entire R-Day tableaux incident.
It is obvious that the revivalism of Periyaarist ideas of Tamizh secessionism was what the TN Govt was seeking to symbolise and cleverly broadcast through the affixing of the Periyar figurine right at the forefront of the State’s R-Day tableaux. Hence, if one were to put two and two together, and connect all the dots, it’s so easy to see too why the Union Government therefore refused the TN tableaux permission to participate in the R-Day parade.
Periyaar, as far as the Modi Government is concerned, had always been anti-India and had stood for a separate Tamil Nadu … So, why on earth then would he and his plaster-of-Paris idol be allowed to be showcased and exhibited to the entire nation during the Republic Day celebrations of the Union of India?
Inside my mind the penny falls neatly now into the slot …
I am able to now understand what the insidious political theatrics played by the TN Govt. was all about …. And I for one am convinced the Central Government of India did right in what it did in the matter … It denied permission to the TN tableaux and averted what surely would have turned out to be a national embarrassment for itself in the eyes of the nation… a monumental faux pas in parading a secessionist like Periyaar in the R-Day national pageant! … That figurine erected atop the TN “float” would surely have offended the sentiments and sensibilities of all patriotic Indians across India.
Thank God indeed that what might have turned out to be an abomination to the eyes of the rest of the Republic of India on R-Day was firmly and skilfully avoided.
Jai Hind! Bhaarath Maatha ki Jai! Vande Mataram ! 🇮🇳
Sudarshan Madabushi