Chennai: On September 13, 54-year-old Prabhakaran’s colleagues were getting ready for the inauguration of the ‘Thanthai Periyar Unavagam’ at Karamadai in Coimbatore, when a group of about 15 people barged in.
“The inauguration was scheduled for the next day – September 14 and I had just stepped out for some work. When my colleagues asked them who they were, they said they belonged to ‘Hindu Munnani’ and they wouldn’t allow an eatery in the name of Periyar. They called it an affront to the existence of their movement in the region and hurled vulgar abuses at our employees.”
Over the next 30 minutes, the group ransacked the place, allegedly assaulted Prabhakaran’s colleagues, and warned them of “consequences if they went ahead with the name.”
The interiors of the restaurant after the alleged ransacking by a Hindutva group.
But Prabhakaran, a Periyar follower since the time he turned 20, refused to give in.
“How is it wrong to have an eatery named after Periyar when we still have Arya Bhavans and Iyengar bakeries? Five decades ago, we had Brahmanal cafes which served only Brahmins. When I decided to start an eatery, the only choice I had for the name was that of Thanthai Periyar,” he said.
For Prabhakaran, the name was representative of the cornerstones of Tamil Nadu today – “self-respect, women’s liberation, the annihilation of caste, social justice, and so on.”
The name also has personal significance for Prabhakaran. “My father studied up to the fifth standard, my grandfather was illiterate and so were his previous generations. But I have got MSc and BEd degrees and my son is studying journalism. Periyar, I believe, is the reason,” he says.
So Prabhakaran went ahead and filed a police complaint, despite threats and later, offers of compromise. “People from the same outfit which ransacked the place visited us again and said they will renovate the place for us and not go ahead with the threats. But I was not convinced,” he says.
Acting on the complaint, local police arrested six persons.
Thanthai Periyar Unavagam was inaugurated on September 17, the birth anniversary of Periyar, and Dravidian ideologues including Suba Veerapandiyan and Ku Ramakrishnan attended the event. Suba Veerapandiyan also heads the state government committee to monitor social justice.
The attack on an eatery named after Periyar was one of three such incidents in a week. Many feel these incidents owe their beginnings to the growth of right-wing mobilisation in Tamil Nadu.
On September 16, Muslim students were attacked in two different places across the breadth of Tamil Nadu.
In Uthamapalayam of Theni district, a group of Muslim school students was threatened by members of the same group, Hindu Munnani, on their way back to school after offering Friday prayers. These attackers were identified as office bearers of the group.
“Uthamapalayam Hindu Munnani union secretary Vel Sivakumar, Hindu Youth Munnani district coordinator Ram Selva and few others were involved in this incident,” says M.H. Jawahirullah, MLA and president of Manithaneya Makkal Katchi. “The students were threatened not to go back to school after prayers. The teachers were abused for sending the students for prayers,” he added.
On the same day at Ashok Nagar in Chennai, a Muslim student studying in the eighth standard and returning from an Arabic school was threatened and assaulted by a 40-year-old man, who made particularly insinuating remarks against the child’s skullcap.
Jawahirullah says these incidents cannot be seen in isolation.
“In Uthamapalayam, the perpetrators have been arrested and then released. In the Ashok Nagar incident, the police claim the perpetrator was drunk…but he was still able to abuse the skullcap. Taking into account the assault on the eatery and targeting of rallies on Periyar’s birth centenary, I feel there is a concerted attempt to target Muslims and progressive voices, to disrupt the peace and communal harmony in the state under the DMK government. The government has of course taken action. Arrests have been made. But if the Sangh Parivar is planning on unleashing violence, the government should not just react but act to stop the violence. If these efforts to disrupt the peace of the state are concerted, then the government’s actions should also be coordinated,” the MLA said.
The Tamil Nadu People’s Unity Front, a coalition of several organisations standing for secularism, has called for stringent action against perpetrators of communal crimes and has termed the crimes an ‘assault on the secular fabric of the state.’
Jawahirullah points out that while “random attacks on Muslims” have taken place in the state in the past, this time they appear coordinated and for the first time, target students. “The government needs to take cognisance of these facts.” he said.
Suba Veerapandiyan, president of the state committee on monitoring social justice, says the rightwing has always employed such “tactics”, hoping to win some votes.
“Before the assembly elections, they undertook a Vel Yatra from Tiruthani to Tiruchendur. DMK won in both places. The DMK government today is immediately acting on any act of violence as soon as it is reported,” Veerapandiyan says.
As head of the committee, he says that he had got in touch with the police officials in Coimbatore and followed up on the issue of the attack on the Thanthai Periyar eatery. “We will also certainly take cognisance of the attacks on the Muslims; it is within our terms and references to ensure that communal harmony is maintained. We will make sure that any attempt by the rightwing to use violence as a way forward for them will be thwarted,” he adds.
