In the heart of Bharatiya culture, our lives were deeply intertwined with temples and the foundational principles of Dharma. However, in the last millennia with advent of brutal Islamic invasions and subsequent colonial influence forced our Hindu society to undergo massive changes. While many of these temporary or forced adjustments transformed into permanent fixtures, challenging and often overshadowing the original way of life. Addressing these profound challenges became a monumental task and a lifelong mission for many social reformers. Among them, one remarkable, multifaceted person stands out Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy (1886-1968). Breaking through the barriers of her time. Her life, tireless efforts, and unwavering dedication transformed societies and brought a positive and permanent change, particularly in women, who remember her efforts in abolishing the Devadasi services of young girls.
Her journey from a small town in Tamil Nadu to be a medical doctor, then to power and social circles during pre- and post-Independence India, and the subsequent sidelining of her greatness in the last few decades by the so-called Dravidian ecosystem, caught my attention. This compelled me to reintroduce her to this generation and fact-check the distortions in the interest of ‘Satyameva Jayate’.
Muthulakshmi, the promising little girl
Dr Reddy was born to Sri. S. Narayanaswami Iyer and Smt. Chandrammal on July 30, 1886, in the princely state of Pudukkottai. Sri. Narayanaswami Iyer was the Principal of Maharaja’s College in Pudukottai. He was keen on educating all his four children. As was the practice then, she went to a Pial school1. In a subsequent rollercoaster of a learning ride, Muthulakshmi was taken off school by her mother, put back in school because one of her teachers pleaded with her mother and again pulled off school when she was 13. Homeschooled, she matriculated in 1902 as one of the ten out of the 100 students who appeared from schools and privately. After a long, protracted struggle and an intervention by the ruler of Pudukottai, she was finally given admission to the pre-university course in the local men’s college. Here, Sri. S Satyamurthi was her classmate. He famously appears in an episode cooked up by vested interests.
In Madras, as a student
Coming to Madras in 1907 to join Madras Medical College, she passed the MB & CM degree with many medals and accolades as number one in her batch. Those days, a senior professor and surgeon in the Obstetrics department, Col. Giffard2, wouldn’t let women sit in his lectures. He would have an assistant professor lecture the women instead. When the prize and medal exams were thrown open to the women, Col. Giffard was so impressed with Muthulakshmi’s knowledge that he allowed women to sit in his classes. She finished her MB & CM course with flying colours, scoring a cent per cent in her final year surgery course.
She became acquainted with the freedom movement and its stalwarts during her student days. She became a favourite of Mahakavi Bharatiyar, who asked her to contribute articles for the ‘India’ magazine and invited her to speak at his home meetings. Young Muthulakshmi also got to know Smt. Sarojini Naidu, Dr Annie Besant, and many other leaders of the freedom movement.
Busting the Dravidian white lie
The Dravidian discourse ignores everything about Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy’s greatness, focusing only on her moving the legislation to abolish the Devadasi service in the temples and prevent girls from being dedicated to temples. There are two versions here: (1) What Dr Reddy says in her autobiography and while chronicling her legislative years. (2) The carefully cultivated Dravidian falsehood3, built on a speech supposedly delivered by someone during an anti-Brahmin roadside trade.
Falsehood 1: E V Ramaswamy mentored and inspired Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy to move the bill.
Dr Reddy moved this bill in 1926, when E V Ramaswamy, having resigned from Congress, was between jobs. EVR was probably busy contemplating his visit to various nations worldwide on a learning tour (1929-32). Most of us also know about his visit to Germany as part of this tour and his learning expedition to ‘certain’ beaches. So, no documentary evidence draws even a remote connection between EVR and this bill.
Falsehood 2: When Dr Reddy moved this bill in the legislature, many prominent Brahmin members, including S Satyamurthi, vehemently opposed it.
Dr Reddy is supposed to have retorted sharply, saying, “Don’t you have sisters and womenfolk in your family? Don’t you have wives? Will you send any of them to this profession?” There is said to have been a stunned silence in the legislature, and this argument clinched the bill in Dr Reddy’s favour.
Satyamurthi indeed opposed certain sections of the bill. In 1929, He spoke during a discussion about certain amendments to the bill. He pointed to how the word ‘Devadasi’ had been defined in the bill. He feared it might include any other unmarried woman worker in the temple, like a sweeper and hinder the service they rendered to the temple. Therefore, he asked for this definition to be dropped.
Satyamurthi never spoke about this issue beyond this one instance. Interestingly, there is a positive reference where Dr Reddy talks about how he and Rajaji wanted her to contest the 1937 legislative elections on a Congress ticket.
The bill was finally passed as Madras Act XXXI of 1947, making the dedication of women to temples illegal.
Documentary evidence exposes the story cooked up by the Dravidian ideologues, making it a white lie. Three things are clear – (1) Satyamurthi was not part of the house when the bill was first moved. (2) Satyamurthi spoke once about an amendment to the bill. (3) Satyamurthi passed away much before this bill was passed.
The pioneer of the Indian Women’s movement
In July 1936, speaking at the International Conference of Women in Paris, where women from 42 countries participated, she said she belongs to the land that celebrates women as Sakthi and God depicted as Ardanareeshwara. According to her, these examples show the influence of women in Indian society.
Talking about the Devadasi system, she said, “Foreigners seem to be under the wrong impression that it is an institution sanctioned by Hindu religion. The old religious idea was one of service. That is, girls were given away to temples by all communities for pure religious service.”
Delivering her address to the International Congress for Women in the USA, she said that practices like Child Marriage and the Purdah system are outcomes of the turbulent and warlike period in the past to protect them from the hands of invaders.
Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy – The multifaceted pioneer
1. Went to London for her post-graduation on a government scholarship. There, she studied the advancements in cancer treatment and maternity and infant care
2. Became the first lady to sit in the Indian legislature and serve as the Deputy President of the Madras Legislative Council
3. Founding member of the Women’s India Association that was founded in Adyar, Chennai, in 1917
4. In 1928-29, she successfully moved a bill for the prohibition of child marriage and to raise the year of consent. Her active discussions about this issue made some women members of the legislature start talking about raising the marriageable age of women to 18
5. 1931, launched the Avvai Home to shelter, protect and educate orphan girls. Here, she also ensured that they trained as teachers, midwives, nurses, health visitors and Grama Sevikas
6. 1930, she successfully moved the Act for the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Children. She was the founder of the Vigilance Association of Madras and their rescue home, Sree Sadhana
7. Was also instrumental in passing legislation about the urgent need to establish a Children’s hospital in Madras
8. It was a time when cancer was called a disease of the old. As someone who lost her young sister of only 25 to rectal cancer, Dr Reddy resolved that she would find a remedy for this human scourge. She took it upon herself to ensure that a specialty cancer care hospital was built in Madras. In 1952, the then-prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, laid the foundation for this great institution that continues to provide yeoman service
9. In 1936, Avvai Rural Medical Service, a free medical dispensary, was started
10. She was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in 1956.
The Dravidian propaganda machinery effectively constricts great leaders as leaders representing one caste or as anti-Hindu, Brahmin-hating people. Predictably, they have applied this age-old trick to Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy.
This Thirukkural seems to fit the legacy of Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy
தோன்றின் புகழொடு தோன்றுக அஃதிலார்
தோன்றலின் தோன்றாமை நன்று.
Thondrin Pugalodu Thondruga Akdilar
Thondralin Thondramai Nandru
– Tirukkural, Chapter 24, Kural 236
If men must need to be born into the world, let them earn glory: as to those who earns it not, it were better for them not to have been born at all.4
– The Kural or The Maxims of Thiruvalluvar by VVS Iyer.
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