- Murali Ramakrishnan-
They say that when a narrative is becoming a norm, counter narrative is imperative for wisdom. Effort to Baptise Lord Murugan through a hijacked narrative is the thorn which was ignored and it is high time that it was addressed. Recently, there have been umpteen efforts to hijack Murugan into the Evangelical narrative which aims to divide the society in the State. Foremost among such efforts is from Patrick Harrigan, a self-proclaimed scholar working at the behest of Christian Missionaries. There are many transcripts of Patrick Harrigan which are surfacing online and have given away the dirty game of his ilk. He also seems to be running various sites with the only motive to distort the understanding of Lord Murugan.
Kartikeya, as Murugan or Subrahmanya, is found as a primary deity in temples wherever communities of the Tamil people live worldwide, particularly in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and Réunion. Three of the six richest and busiest temples in Tamil Nadu are dedicated to him. The Kataragama temple dedicated to Lord Murugan in Sri Lanka attracts Tamils, Sinhalese and the Vedda people. He is also found in other parts of India, sometimes as Skanda. Skanda Purana which is part of Shaivite literature, depeicts Skanda as a son of Shiva and Parvati, and is also known as Kartikeya and Murugan. Adi Shankara too has described Lord Murugan in various hymns as Agni Roopam.
Their first target is the belief in divinity of Lord Murugan by various communities in Tamil Nadu. Once they are separated by these nefarious minds, who are moving the pawn by distinguishing belief and divinity in the name of research, they will then move to kill the very identity of Lord Murugan. There are large scale efforts to portray that Lord Murugan and Lord Skanda, Karthikeya, Subramanya are different from each other.
One of the websites run by the likes of Patrick Harrigan is www.murugan.org. The site is a source for ‘atrocity literature’ on Hindutva and of particular interest to us is a paper titled ‘Murugan versus Skanda—The Aryan appropriation of a Tribal Dravidian God’. This paper concludes that Murugan and Skandha are different Gods but the forces of Vedic religion equated Murugan and Skandha. Kamil Zvelebil, a Czech scholar had written a book titled ‘Tamil Traditions on Subrahmanya Murugan’ few decades ago in which he had accused Tamil Brahmins for forcefully appropriating Tamil culture into Aryan culture. Likewise, John Samuels from the Institute of Asian studies furthered this idea and conducted various conferences on Lord Murugan, where papers were presented saying that Murugan is not a Hindu God but a separate God for Tamil/Dravida people.
There are many sites on Lord Murugan like www.palani.org, www.tiruchendur.org, www.ratnagiri.
org which seem to be official websites but are not. The sole aim of such sites is to misinform, misinterpret and hoodwink the gullible into falling for their narrative. The efforts to hijack Murugan into the Dravidian narrative is the latest in the long list of attempts to distort Tamil Culture by the likes of Dr M Deivanayagam. Deivanayagam is the author of ‘Thiruvalluvar Christuvara?’ which suggests that the revered Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar could have been a Christian! He has also conducted various seminars which falsely propagated that Tamil/Dravidian culture has its roots in Christianity.
There has been a recent spurt in their efforts to appropriate Murugan. We need to understand the need for the evangelical forces to renew their efforts in recent times to distort and divide the society in Tamil Nadu.
The Thevar and the Mukkulathor Communities from southern part of Tamil Nadu are ardent devotees of Lord Murugan. My observation and interaction with these communities for the last 3 years, has shown that they are tightly integrated with other communities for generations. The Thevar community is adherent of Kshatriya Dharma and is in the forefront to protect the society from external divisive forces. Their Devotion to Lord Karthikeya/Murugan and the guidance of their tall leader Late Pon. Muthuramalinga Thevar have been keeping this community motivated to serve the society. It is this community that the Evangelical forces aim to disintegrate as the day that happens, it will be the day that Dharmic forces will further dwindle in the state.
The Thevar community and many other followers of Tamil roots still follow the tradition of Maha Sthapanam events of Lord Murugan, Skanda, Kadhirvela, Kadamba and Subramanya. Their practices are intertwined with the traditions of many other communities in the Tamil society. It is this inherent bonding which is the target of the Evangelical forces through subversion of the identity of Lord Murugan.
However, the Thevar and Mukkulathor Communities also
suffer from various issues that the divisive forces are aiming to exploit. These communities are now strained by unemployment problems due to lack of avenues in irrigation, agriculture and farming. The lack of opportunities in their traditional vocations was being exploited by the Dravidian parties for their politics and now the evangelical forces are targeting them by separating them from the larger Tamil society.
Tamil Nadu is presently undergoing a heavy onslaught on its cultural integration because the fringe elements realised the vacuum in political leadership and administration. External Breaking India forces use them as handlers to create disruption. There are clear evidences of how Communists’ agenda influences the whole objective of Breaking India groups. The latest attempts to hijack Lord Murugan is a boon for politicians like Sebastian Seeman, leader of a fringe group called “Naam Tamilar Katchi”. Seeman follows this same strategy for his own political benefits. He is working to separate Murugan from Hindus. As a devout Christian, it is but natural for him to link Murugan with Christianity in future. He has also built a new statue for Murugan which looks like a man with Lord Murugan’s weapon (Vel) rather than the divine form which is traditionally worshipped by people.
Today there is a need to find a strong leader among the the Thevar and Mukkulathor communities who can unite them for larger cause by staying within their traditional Dharma. It is only then that the political and evangelical forces aiming to separate the communities from the Hindu pantheon can be kept in check. Meanwhile, such efforts to appropriate our culture and tradition need to be called out and exposed regularly. There is a need to create an intellectual band of people in Tamil Nadu who can keep a tab on such forces and take them head-on.
(The writer is a Blogger and entrepreneur)
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