This is the second part of our story on Thiruparankundram — Ayodhya of the south. Read the first part here.

Murugan (Inter)nationalism

Murugan is the supreme deity of Tamil Hindus — rising above the religious and political contests that have shaped Tamil society — Saivite vs Vaishnavite, Brahmin vs non-Brahmin and now, Dravidian vs Hindutva.

He is known also as Kanda or Skandar, Kumara, Karthikeyan or Karthigai, Dandapani, Palani, Muthu or Muthukumar, Shanmukha or Shanmugam, Saravana and Subramanya. These are also some of the most common names of Tamil men today.

Hindutva leaders, who are mobilising in the name of Murugan, are unhappy with being portrayed as ‘outsiders’ trying to spread an ideology that’s alien to the land of the Cholas, Pandyas, and Nakayakkars. Indeed, they see the history of this land as Tamil and Hindu in equal measure. They have billed themselves the true legatees of this Tamil Saivite heritage. 

They are bent on challenging the narrative that the neighbourhood around the Thirupurakundram hill in Madurai is a site of religious harmony. They claim they are vanguards of a historic struggle to reclaim a relic central to Tamil Hinduism.

Professor Raama Sreenivasan, the Madurai-based general secretary of the Tamil Nadu BJP, who met us after the Murugan Maanadu, said that his party and the Sangh started the campaign because Murugan devotees are crying out for help. 

“The most aggrieved devotees are those who live around the hill in Thiruparankundram. They’re the people who have to witness gory animal sacrifices and desecration in one of the holiest sites in Tamil Nadu. They are the custodians of our history. Speak to them.” 

“Ask them about what we have done in the last few years to build statewide support for their cause,” Sreenivasan said. “Ask them, how many centuries it’s been since Murugan devotees had this kind of support.”

A PhD in rural management who once taught post grad students at a business school in Madurai, Sreenivasan has a reputation as a Tamil Hindutva intellectual. He was the BJP’s Madurai MP candidate in last year’s Lok Sabha elections and stunned everybody by emerging second in that contest. 

The nominee of the DMK led alliance — CPI(M) leader S Venkatesan — won by a margin of more than two lakh votes. But despite the massive gap that separated him from the winner, Sreenivasan and the BJP made an emphatic statement by pushing the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) to third place.

“Find out what happened during the rule of the Madurai Sultanate,” Sreenivasan said when we met him and referred us to two of his comrades working on the ground in the town of Thiruparankundram: Guruswamy Sivalingam, the BJP’s aggressive district secretary, and an RSS pracharak.

When we met him on March 12, the pracharak requested anonymity and revealed that he was deputed by the RSS to live and work in the Thiruparankundram area several years ago. He has seen many upheavals in this time. Following the Christmas incident, he said, he became the local guide for journalists and Sangh leaders who have made a beeline to the hill.