Shame! Perumal Murugan tragedy exposes AIADMK and DMK's empty politics - Firstpost

When Tamil writer Perumal Murugan, who had been hounded by caste and Hindu outfits for his now controversial book Madhorubhagan (One Part Woman), declared on Tuesday that the writer in him is dead, what also goes down are the hollow rationalist promises of Dravidian politics.

With tall leaders such as Periyar EV Ramasamy, who founded the self-respect movement and Dravidar Kazhagam and took on the caste system and irrational beliefs, Tamil Nadu has pride of place in the country’s rationalist tradition. His ideals served as the leitmotif of Dravidian politics, but when it came to a situation of caste and religious zealots taking on a writer, its leaders kept quiet. Not a single DMK or AIADMK leader spoke a word in support of Murugan, who stood completely vulnerable to communal rage. There were some stray voices - from the CPM, the VCK and the Congress -, but too insignificant in a state dominated by Dravidian politics.

“Perumal Murugan, the writer is dead. As he is no God, he is not going to resurrect himself. He also has no faith in rebirth. He will live as an ordinary teacher, P. Murugan,” the novelist wrote poignantly on his Facebook page.

Perumal Murugan. Image courtesy Facebook.

The portion that the Hindu and caste outfits were incensed was the depiction of a traditional ritual that apparently existed a 100 years ago at the Kailasanathar temple in Tiruchengode, Murugan’s hometown. As depicted in the book, apparently, childless women could sleep with other men on the car festival night at the temple to conceive. Ponna, the main character of Murugan’s novel, decides to participate in the ritual against the wish of her distraught husband.

The RSS and the BJP said that the book, although first published in 2010, portrayed the Kailasanathar temple in Tiruchengode and women devotees in bad light. The wanted the book to be banned and the author arrested. Trouble started brewing in later December.

The tragic death of a living author came at the end of a four hour peace meeting between Hindu outfits and the writer convened by the district authorities on Tuesday. Murugan agreed to tender an unconditional apology, remove the controversial portions in the book, not to write on subjects that will hurt the sentiments of people, and to withdraw unsold copies from the market. Obviously distressed by the development, he decided to stop writing altogether. The author has asked publishers not to sell any of his books and promised that he would compensate for their losses. He also asked readers to burn his books.

The Dravidian parties’ silence stems from the fact that the caste outraged by the book - the Kongu Vellalars - form a formidable vote bank in the western part of the state. Doing anything against their wish is bad electoral politics. More over, since the BJP has taken the cudgels against the book, the only recourse not to alienate the community is to keep quiet. So what, even if it meant the death of a progressive writer and an accomplished Tamil professor, who has written seven books and a dictionary of Kongu dialects?

What’s disturbing is the inability of the administration in enforcing rule of law. Murugan had complained to the police regarding his safety when he started receiving personal threats. Instead of protecting him, the authorities facilitated his defeat. Periyar wrote in 1969 (Viduthalai): “The foremost task of a patriotic or humanistic government, public service organisation or individuals with social consciousness is to make the people of this country intelligent and awaken their rational thinking.”

On religious and scriptures, he had said: “Religion and scriptures are instruments solely created for the purpose of destroying intelligence and freedom and making people a set of fools and slaves. These came into vogue when people were living as savages, leading an animal existence. Just as the people were terrorised by tales of ghosts, ghouls and spirits, so were they instilled with fear by religion and scriptures.”

It’s such a tragedy that the state failed to uphold reason and the founding principles of its politics. This is also the tragedy of Hindutva and caste politics overtaking our progressive spaces.