Statue of Hindu-baiter installed infront of Srirangam Temple

Periyar’s statue near Srirangam temple draws protest

NT Bureau
Chennai, Nov 26:
http://newstodaynet.com/26nov/ld7.htm

All religions should be equal in the eyes of a secular government. But, as George Orwell should have said, some religions are more equal than others. In Tamilnadu, the less equal is usually Hinduism.

Guess what the secular has done now? Well, it has deemed it fit to instal the statue of E V Ramasamy Naicker – Periyar for the devotees of Dravidianism in front of the Rajagopuram of Srirangam temple.

He was a man who made a life out mocking the Hindu sensibilities and sentiments. But he did that in his individual capacity. By installing his statue where Hindus congregate in large numbers, the government, seems to have given institutionalised legitimacy to his acts.

This is perhaps the secularism of Dravidian vintage.

The installation of the statue of a known Hindu-baiter near a hoary temple has obviously hurt the sentiments of many.

The National Action Group is one among them. Consisting of many eminent individuals, the Group, in a press release, said ‘Indian polity as a whole and the Dravidian Tamil polity in particular have thrived in the conniving climate of pervasive anti-Hindu politics of minorityism. To instal the statue of a person who made Hindu-baiting his life’s mission, in front of a temple immensely sacred to Hindus implies state indifference to Hindu sensibilities if not active State collaboration.’

The release added: ‘The pedestal for the statue was put in position 18 November while the statue was installed in the stealth of the night on 21 November. The State government has not seen fit to respond to this act which can only be termed viciously anti-Hindu.’

The Group also demanded that the Chief Minister, in the interest of communal harmony, intervene in the matter without more loss of time and have the offending statue removed forthwith. Indian polity and the Dravidian Tamil polity would do well to re-think their anti-Hindu ways before Hindus are forced to discard their imposed image of peace and tolerance, the release warned.

The National Action Group is a voluntary, non-profit, non-governmental organisation, whose members include: Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, Radha Rajan, Padma Sundaram, V. Sundaram, Brig. VR Parthasarathy, T Anantha Chari, Shri Srinivan Chari, Capt. Balakrishnan Hariharan, B R Haran, Dr. Jitendra Bajaj, Dr. MD Srinivas, Srinivasan, Kumar Chellappan.

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