RELIGION - ATTACK ON HINDUISM - PART 2

The Indian National Congress in the then Madras Presidency was almost ruled entirely by brahmins.  There was a resentment among a few of the non brahmin leaders among the congress people then and this resulted in formation of the Justice Party in 1916 which fought the election to the assembly of the Madras Presidency and supported the efforts of the British government in Delhi and opposed whatever that INC stood for, which incidentally included Freedom of the country.  However, one of the founding fathers of the Justice Party, EVR Naicker, had a different take in that he was anti Tamil though he himself was born in an interior Tamilnadu town. Once the freedom was wrested from the British, the Justice Party did not have much say in the post independent India and the party was slowly going into oblivion.  EVR expanded his Self Respect Movement and started his Dravida Kazhagam from the ashes of the Justice Party.  The party was able to get some firebrand youngsters like C N Annadurai, M Karunanithi etc. into its fold.  The party, though the founder had a deep rooted hatred for Tamil, had started on its plank of anti Brahmin sentiments.  EVR Naicker was fondly called Periyar due to his age when compared to other members of the party. It was more a respectable honorific than having any meaningful definition for that word.  However, Periyar and his band of DK followers went around spewing venom against the brahmins in the state which was getting reorganized in the aftermath of the independence.  Now Periyar and his followers had their role cut out as they had to agitate only against the brahmins in the then state of Madras (later rechristened as Tamilnadu).  Despite the professed anti Brahmin stand of the party, the hatred of the founder to the Tamils kept rearing its head frequently in most of his speeches and writings.  He called the Tamil language as barbaric and the Tamil speaking people as barbarians.  However, with the vitriolic and cinematic outpouring of speeches by his followers like Annadurai and Karunanithi (both of whom were excellent orators in Tamil), the anti brahmin sentiments of the party was well established and the professed anti Tamil feelings of the founder was well masked.  With the founder well advanced in age deciding to marry a girl who was almost 50 years younger to him and nominating her as his successor, broke the party as the young turks of the party like Annadurai and Karunanithi felt that the corpus of the party will go to the widow in the event of the demise of the founder; the new party was floated by the five tall leaders of the DK.  Thus the parties of DK and DMK were founded on the principles of anti Tamils and anti Brahmins by the leaders of both DK and DMK respectively but with eye on the money and power.

The nascent party fought the election to the assembly and won 15 seats polling just over 13% of vote share in 1957 elections.  When Annadurai rose to speak in the assembly the then CM of the state and a tall leader of the congress in the state K Kamaraj asked the members to remain silent and listen to the speech of the opposition member.  The matinee idol M G Ramachandran joining the DMK in 1953 made the matters better for the party.  Both Annadurai and Karunanithi wrote stories which were made into films featuring MGR and espousing the cause of the party.  The common man was swayed by the antics on the screen of MGR and support to the party swelled. From 15% of seats in 1957 the party went onto capture power in 1967 winning almost 140 seats out of 233 seats and capturing about 40% of the vote share.  The party supported the increased attack on Hindus in the guise of anti Brahmins. The DK continued its anti brahmin and anti Tamil stand in the subsequent years.  Periyar and his party DK, and its fledgling breakaway party DMK and its leaders professed their idea of, self respect, atheism and anti Brahminism.  They continued with their idea of 'Self Respect' in the place of the theism and brahminic values which are the core ideals of HInduism. Here when brahminic values are stated, it does not necessarily mean the values professed by Brahmins alone but in general by all people who are theists, like belief in God, probity in public life, importance of education, accepting contrary view points, respecting the beliefs of others etc.

The emergence of DK and DMK and wresting the power of governance by DMK in 1967 saw emergence of a new breed of people in the state, who are totally atheistic, no respect for age old wisdom, no respect of others beliefs etc.  This was amply demonstrated by Periyar in Salem in 1971 when he took a procession with the pictures of Lord Ram and other Gods who are revered by millions of HIndus across the country with garlands of chappals and slogans on banners demeaning the said Gods. The then state government was a mute spectator and facilitated the procession with police protection to the procession.  The majority of the population of the state was in deep anguish; they could not do anything against the state supported organized onslaught against the majority. The media (only the print and the sole government controlled radio in those days) were prohibited from publishing/ broadcasting anything from the procession.  All the copies of the only magazine which published pictures from the procession were confiscated in the guise of controlling tension in the state.  

MGR came out of the party within two decades of his joining to start his own outfit called Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1972.  Once MGR came out of DMK the charisma of the party suffered and it lost the subsequent elections to the ADMK.  However, the policies of the party be it DMK or ADMK did not change much.  Though MGR later proved that he was not against worshiping in temples, the party followers continued to display their anti brahmin sentiments and atheism.  The demise of MGR brought J Jayalalitha to the forefront in ADMK and after a struggle she was able to consolidate her hold over the party.  Hailing from a devout Brahmin Vaishnavite family,  from the beginning, she displayed her belief in God and visited the temples.  Howsoever, the policies of the government were more aligned against the brahmins.  The exchange of power between DMK and ADMK in the post MGR scenario saw that the policies getting strengthened against the brahmins in the state.  

The demise of Jayalalitha in 2016 and the patriarch of DMK, Karunanithi being bedridden, made the fringe elements coming to the fore with their shrill anti brahmin slogans.  The culmination of the same was in the DMK follower and an atheist to the core, the cinema song writer calling a devout Sri Andal names and justifying his statements with a non existent research paper in a foreign university. One fringe group self styled leader claims that Shiva is not a IHndu God. Another fringe group leader is talking of destroying the Hindu temples in the state despite he being a Hindu (?).  Another prominent leader of DMK is questioning the security for the hundi in the much revered Tirupati temple.  However, the emergence of the Hindu Munnani Front in the past thirty years and the right wing BJP ruling in the central government, the people of the state came together to condemn the speech of the song writer, who claims to be a saviour of the Tamil language.  Still the Hindus in large numbers did not participate in the agitation against the song writer. However, there was not even muted response to the other issues of trashing by the political leaders. When a French paper published a cartoon in that country about the revered religious figure of Islam, the Muslims in far off Tamilnadu, India rose as one to condemn it. When an English novel by a celebrated author was made into a movie by Hollywood,  the entire Christian community in the state got the movie banned by the government claiming the film was disparaging the Christ. Even today the film Da Vincy Code cannot be screened in the state.  This solidarity is seen missing among Hindus. The writer feels the reasons may be many but chiefly the following.

Traditionally, Hinduism in the state had been associated with Brahmins.  The Shankara Matam in Kanchi and its pontiffs and also various other Vaishnavite seats of power had been associated with Brahmins; the pontiffs themselves, though hailing from brahmin community, in these seats never professed to support only brahmins among HIndus; despite there are many Shiavite matams established with many non brahmins heading such seats. The large number of devotees to these pontiffs, be it Shaiva or Vaishnava sects, being predominantly brahmins, made other HIndus see these matams being associated only with brahmins and not supportive of other non brahmin Hindus.  Added to this in the last forty to fifty years, the open trashing of brahmins by many atheist organizations benignly supported by the  ruling dispensation in the state resulted in many of the Hindu practices and places of worship are identified only with brahmins.  Though this trend has started changing with the emergence of Jayalalitha as CM in the state, the frequent switching of power between her ADMK and DMK did not make much of a difference.  Added to that the brazen arrest of Kanchi Kamakoti peetam's 69th and the 70th pontiffs by her administration made matters worse. The scandals involving a few self appointed religious leaders of Hinduism also did not help much.

The coming together of the Hindus mostly brahmins and that too vaishnavites among brahmins on this issue of Sri Andal is an eye opener to the fractured HIndu community in the state and to the strong anti brahmin sentiment running deep among other HIndus.  Of course there had been stray incidents of other HIndus, than just Brahmins, joining the protest in many places but their numbers were not in consonance with the population demography.  The last 60+ years of Dravidian party rule by different brands/ clans of the movement, has resulted in the HIndus themselves speak against the idols of the Hinduism and not condemning the same and instead a few start supporting such actions.  The few fringe leaders with their religious identity masked and their original names changed to HIndu names adding to the confusion among the common man that it is only the brahmins who are against and not all the HIndus.  

This calculated attack on HIndu idols of reverence is only due to  the deep rooted psyche of anti brahmins that has been cultivated in the past 60+ years of orchestrated hatred against the brahmins by the ruling dispensation be it DMK or ADMK. Most of the temples, rituals, Gods, practices, or persons in history of such temples etc. are seen to be associated with only Brahmins by most of the population in the state, thanks to the steep anti brahmin hatred cultivated by the DK, DMK and their cronies in the past many years.  But for such a development of anti brahmin sentiments, no one would have ventured to denigrate the much revered Sri Andal or any other such person or even God.