The kind of political storm that was built up around his single sentence would not have been dreamt of even by Udhayanidhi Stalin, Sports Minister of Tamil Nadu, and son of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. On the face of it, he did not say anything that was against the usual stand of his party DMK.
However, he clearly did not take into account the kind of sledge hammer reaction that the ruling party BJP at the Centre will come out with as it gave the ruling party an excuse to denigrate the INDIA alliance of which the DMK is a part.
Many feel that the INDIA alliance may have to pay a heavy electoral price for this in the coming 2024 elections.
No wonder it is just the kind of statement that the BJP would pick up hoping to polarise votes in its favour.
Almost on cue BJP leader after leader and that too some at the Central level have come out to say how the INDIA alliance is threatening the majority of Hindus who basically believe in Sanatan Dharma.
Obviously, they want to point out that the INDIA alliance is a party that cannot strongly stand or speak for the majority of Hindus whose interests are safe only with the BJP. The DMK is part of the INDIA alliance.
This kind of statements can widen fissures within the alliance and the BJP is not ready to forego any political advantage.
The Congress a leading party of the INDIA alliance has diplomatically just stated that respecting all religions is its ideology, but every political party has the freedom to express their views.
Actually, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader and Tamil Nadu sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin’s “eradicate Sanatan Dharma” remark is not something new and is meant more for DMK’s own constituency as the party had evolved almost since the beginning as anti-Hindu, anti-Brahmin, anti-north, anti-Hindi, grouping voicing the aspirations of those sections supposedly marginalized by the Hindu, Sanatan Dharma system.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party president JP Nadda, are naturally going all guns blazing, charging INDIA alliance partner for “insulting” India’s culture and history.
Trying to corner Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, they point out the fact that despite trying to portray his Hindu credentials by going to temples, he has not come out strongly against the statement of Udhaynidhi.
Udhaynidhi was speaking in Chennai at the Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers Artists meet on eradication of Sanatan Dharma. So it was not just his statement but the entire meet was for the eradication of Sanatan Dharma.
He is supposed to have said in Tamil that, “Few things cannot be opposed, that should be abolished only. We can’t oppose dengue, mosquitoes, malaria or corona. We have to eradicate this. That’s how we have to eradicate Sanatana,”.
If we see the whole issue objectively we will notice how carefully the politics is being played out around it.
Sanatan Dharma is clearly the term used for the belief of the majority of Hindus belonging to different denominations. It is a way of depicting the entire belief system and eternal teachings of Hinduism.
Like many other religions, Hinduism in its ritualistic aspects and later years of its development got accrued with a number of obscurantist practices like rigid casteism, elaborate ritualism, corruption by Brahmanical priests, leading to social evils like sati, dowry,child marriage etc.
Many Social reformers and actions by society and governments over the years have tried to root out many of these evils.
Because of its ills, many spoke against Sanatan Dharma. But what they were speaking against were its evils rather than the ideals of the religion which can be seen in the Upanishads and other scriptures which talked of high philosophy, equality, and the entire world being one.
Periyar was a staunch critic of Sanatan Dharma as he stood for social justice, equality, rights of women.
Sanatan divided people on the basis of caste, he alleged. But that too was a corrupted form of true Sanatan Dharma.
Udhayanidhi Stalin was clearly speaking for those marginalised people who suffer or are oppressed due to rigid casteism and gender inequalities. He blamed Sanatan Dharma for all the ills of caste-ridden society.
Many great leaders like Dr Ambedkar and Mr Periyar in Tamil Nadu had spoken against Sanatan dharma.The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s (DMK) party evolved as a party trying to safeguard the interests of the poor and downtrodden and those supposedly oppressed by the Brahamincal social system of Sanatan Dharma.
It is in that light he talked about eradicating Santan Dharma (evil practices in Santan Dharma to spread human values of equality). One just should not oppose but eradicate Sanatan Dharma like the spread of diseases like COVID-19, Dengue, and Malaria by mosquitoes, he said.
With DMK speaking against Hinduism, comes in the BJP trying to take political advantage by pointing out how they are speaking against Hindus and questioning how they can be elected to seats of power by Hindus.
Indirectly BJP is hitting out at the newly formed opposition INDIA alliance.
The BJP obviously is trying to polarise further by blaming the INDIA alliance for the DMK barb against Sanatan Dharma.
One must keep in mind that Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, evolved with the Self-Respect Movement begun by EV Ramaswamy ‘Periyar’ in opposition to caste and religion. It was against all social evils.
In 1944, when Dravidar Kazhagam was formed it was anti-Brahmin, anti-Congress, and anti north and strove for an independent Dravida nation.
Udhyanidhi’s father. M Karunanidhi later headed DMK which was created by Periyar.
But picking up such stray remarks and blowing it up hoping for electoral benefit does show political bankruptcy and lack of concrete work to show.
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