Madurai: In Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, a single hilltop pillar at the Thiruparankundram Subramaniaswamy temple has pushed a long-standing multi-faith space into the centre of a charged political and legal battle.

In the first week of November 2025, the Hindu Munnani, Hindu Makkal Katchi, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Hindu Tamilar Peravai approached the Madras high court’s Madurai bench, seeking permission to light the Karthigai Deepam (a sacred lamp-lighting ritual observed annually in Tamil Nadu) on a stone pillar near the Sikandar Auliya dargah, claiming it is the traditional ‘deepa sthambam’ – the place where the light should be lit. Justice G.R. Swaminathan agreed and ordered that the lamp be lit there, with police protection.

The Tamil Nadu government refused, arguing that lighting the lamp so close to the dargah would disturb communitarian harmony. Protests by Hindu organisations followed and clashes broke out. Section 144 restrictions were imposed and the dispute quickly escalated into a political flashpoint. (Section 163 of the BNSS, which replaced the older Criminal Procedure Code, provides the equivalent power to restrict gatherings.)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and groups claiming to represent the Hindus accuse the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government of denying Hindus their rights for what they call is “minority appeasement”, while the DMK and Muslim stakeholders of the dargah say Hindutva outfits are provoking communal tension on what has been a historically shared hill.

This explainer centres on how Murugan, one of Tamil Nadu’s most beloved deities, has become a recurring political tool in the state.

A court order, a government’s refusal and a hill under Section 144

For many Hindus in Tamil Nadu, Murugan is a cultural anchor, and Thiruparankundram – the first of Arupadai Veerai, the six sacred abodes of Murugan – holds special significance. The hill is unusual: at its summit, the Subramaniaswamy temple stands alongside the Kasi Viswanathar shrine and the Sikandar Auliya dargah.

Traditionally, the Karthigai Deepam lamp has been lit at a mandapam in the hilltop Pillaiyar temple, not at the pillar near the dargah. Hindu Tamilar Peravai leader Rama Ravikumar petitioned the Madurai Bench claiming the pillar near the dargah is the rightful lamp pillar. Justice G.R. Swaminathan inspected the hill and, on December 1, 2025, ordered that the lamp be lit there.

This is the order the Tamil Nadu government has declined to follow. On December 3, the lamp was lit as usual at the Pillaiyar mandapam.

Protests by Hindu organisations followed, clashes broke out when their members tried to march uphill, and there were injuries. Finally, Section 144 was imposed. Ravikumar filed a contempt petition, accusing officials of defying the court order.

Justice Swaminathan then directed that Ravikumar himself could climb the hill with ten others to light the lamp under Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) protection. The state police again declined, citing law and order concerns.

The District Collector, Police Commissioner and temple officials challenged the order before a division bench, which dismissed their appeal on December 4, allowing contempt proceedings to continue.

That evening, Ravikumar, BJP state leader Nainar Nagendran and other leaders and supporters once again attempted to reach the hill but were stopped and several were detained. The Tamil Nadu government has since moved the Supreme Court against the judge’s directions.

While the Hindu outfits, the BJP and the AIADMK have turned the issue into a political weapon, accusing the DMK of defying a court order to “appease minorities”, DMK leaders, including Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, have said that the hill would not be allowed to become a “Hindutva laboratory”. The Chief Minister has asserted that all rituals were carried out in their rightful, traditional locations despite political attempts to provoke unrest.

In the ongoing winter session of parliament, Members of Parliament belonging to the INDIA bloc submitted an impeachment notice to Lok Sabha speaker Om Birla, seeking the removal of Justice Swaminathan.

DMK MP Kanimozhi said on social platform 'X' that the justice's recent orders "have been viewed as disruptive to social harmony and detrimental to the integrity of the judiciary".

A century of conflicts over a multi-faith site

The latest episode is only one chapter in a long line of legal battles over Thiruparankundram hill, dating back to the British era, a multi-faith sacred site and a monument protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

However, in terms of the current issue, the dispute began around December 2024, when one Abuthahir, from Rajapalayam, climbed the hill along with some goats and chickens to be sacrificed as a vow offering at the dargah. Climbing the hill has historically been permitted, and both communities have used the space for decades. But, police stopped Abuthahir, saying animal sacrifice was not permitted, even though no formal ban existed at the time.

Soon after, then Waqf Board chairman Nawaz Kani M.P. and others visited the hill, triggering controversy when photos circulated of them, along with allegations that they had consumed meat on its steps. Muslim stakeholders insist the allegation was used to trigger outrage, and meat consumption was not barred by custom or law. Hindu outfits, backed by BJP cadres, staged a mass protest and Vel Yatra in response.

A series of petitions followed. Hindu Makkal Katchi, Hindu Munnani and Hindutva-aligned outfits, known for frequently filing petitions on temple and religious issues, sought a ban on animal sacrifice. Another petitioner sought a ban on Muslims offering prayers at Nellithoppu, the area leading to the dargah.

One petition challenged using the name of “Sikandar malai” for the hill, demanding it be called “Kandhar malai/Thiruparankundram malai”, while another pushed to recognise it as “Samanar kunru” to highlight its Jain heritage. "Sikandar" is a word believed to be derived from Alexander, often seen as a later or Islamic-influenced name, while Kandhar is another name for Lord Murugan and Samanar means Jain. "Malai" means hill, while "kunru" means hillock.

In June 2025, a division bench delivered split judgments. Justice S. Srimathy ruled that the hill should be known as “Thiruparankundram malai”, and said animal sacrifice and offering namaz in certain areas required civil court permission; until such permission was given, she barred goat and chicken sacrifice.

Justice J. Nisha Banu dismissed all petitions.

The matter went to a third judge, Justice R. Vijayakumar, who emphasised on the hill’s ASI-protected status – 172.2 acres under the 1959 Rules – which prohibits taking or sacrificing animals without permission. Animal sacrifice was stopped, though the dargah has challenged this in the Supreme Court.

It is on this contested terrain that the demands surrounding the lamp have arisen. Murugan has long been used politically by Hindu groups through Vel Yatras and mass Kandar Shashti (a festival dedicated to Murugan) events, a trend that intensified after the court halted animal sacrifice at the dargah. Vel Yatras have become a key Hindutva mobilisation strategy in Tamil Nadu, often accompanied by confrontations with police.

On June 22, these groups organised a “Murugan Conference” in Madurai with mutt heads, jeeyars, Sivacharyars, BJP leaders and Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan, featuring attacks on the DMK, Dravidian ideology and Periyar, drawing police complaints for inflaming social tensions.

The dargah’s version: ‘It is a British-era boundary stone.’

Althaf, executive committee member of the Sikandar Auliya dargah, says the structure is not a deepa sthambam at all. From the time of his earliest memory, and those of his 56-year-old mother, the Karthigai Deepam has always been lit at the Pillaiyar temple mandapam, not on the pillar near the dargah. He says this has been the case for at least 50 years.

“The pillar stands just 20-30 feet behind the dargah’s flagpole, on land recognised in earlier court orders as belonging to the dargah. In 2023, when the same outfits had demanded removal of the dargah’s flagpole, revenue officials had inspected the area. They reportedly found round boundary markings carved into the rock, 20 or 30 feet from the pillar, and suggested that similar marks might be at the base of the stone as well," he says.

According to Althaf, officials told them these markings and the pillar were likely British-era survey markers used to demarcate boundaries.

To support this claim, Althaf has shared photos of the rock markings and earlier images of the area. He argues that the court has now granted new rights to a petitioner Hindu group on the basis of a misidentified structure, while stripping Muslims of practices they have followed for generations.

He stresses that relations between Hindus and Muslims on the hill have historically been close and cooperative. “Hindu devotees seeking child blessings or wealth routinely visit the dargah and offer donations. The Murugan’s Vel procession on festival days passes by the dargah. Dargah members join major temple events, temple-side families attend dargah gatherings.”

On Ramzan and Bakrid, he says, Muslims have long prayed near the dargah and sacrificed goats and cows, cooking and eating meat there. This, he claims, predates his own birth and has been a continuous practice.

Now, with the court’s orders on sacrifice and the new lamp directive, Althaf says, “The court that has given rights to Hindus has abandoned us.” Muslim groups have appealed the sacrifice ruling and are preparing their legal strategy on the lamp issue.

“We are not against Hindus or their worship. We have never blocked their rituals,” he says. “But why do they insist on placing the lamp at a point right next to our dargah, when they have been lighting it elsewhere for decades? The reason is not devotion; it is politics and hatred.”

On the other side stands Solaikannan, the Hindu Makkal Katchi’s Madurai district president and one of the petitioners in the case. He claims that, in 1994, it was decided by a court that the Karthigai lamp could be lit at a point at least 15 metres away from Nellithoppu, and that the pillar – 60 metres from the dargah’s compound wall – allows that.

Solaikannan argues that the pillar is the agamic and traditional spot for the lamp. Agama rules, he says, require the lamp to be lit on the hilltop deepa sthambam. The Pillaiyar temple site, he claims, is meant for lamps dedicated to the dead, not for the main Karthigai Deepam.

But Althaf contests this, pointing to older civil cases from the 1930s that recognised Nellithoppu, the graves near it, the dargah and the flagpole as belonging to the dargah, followed by a 1958 map. Any route to the pillar, he says, necessarily passes through dargah-owned space.

A judge’s order under scrutiny

Madurai-based high court lawyer and Matha Nallinakka Makkal Koottamaippu (Interfaith People’s Forum) activist Vanchinathan argues that Justice Swaminathan’s intervention in the lamp matter is legally unsound and procedurally problematic.

He says, “The 1996 order did not specifically direct that the lamp be lit on a pillar near the dargah; it only gave broad guidelines on distance from Nellithoppu. A 2014 petition challenging the existing lamp site as non-agamic was dismissed by Justice Venugopal because the petitioners failed to provide evidence. A 2017 division bench of Justices Kalyanasundaram and Bhavani Subbaroyan explicitly noted that, for decades, the temple and dargah administrations had jointly agreed to the current lamp site and that it should not be disturbed.”

“In such a context,” Vanchinathan says, “A single judge [bench] reopening the same issue and directing a new lamp site, using the CISF to escort a private individual to perform a ritual, is highly questionable. The CISF is a security force, not an implementing agency for religious orders.”

He argues that instead of resolving long-standing land demarcation issues through civil court procedures and a proper survey, the order plunges the hill into further litigation and tension.

Vanchinathan says, “Hindu outfits are trying to create a Babri masjid-style confrontation at Thiruparankundram to position themselves as protectors of Hindu spaces. Every year, this same lamp issue is raised near the dargah to generate a crisis.”

The temple administration, police officials and petitioner Rama Ravikumar declined to comment, citing the matter now pending before the Supreme Court.

For now, Thiruparankundram is becoming a frontline in Tamil Nadu’s contest over religion, law and electoral politics. However, for ordinary residents and devotees, the concern is less about legal details and more about whether their shared hill can return to peace.

Prasanth Shanmugasundaram is a multimedia journalist based in Tamil Nadu.

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