Tamil Nadu Diary: Broadside attack on Periyar sets social media on fire

For a man whose avowed idol is the slain LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Seeman (Sebastian Simon) isn’t one to back down from a fight. He made that very clear when he decided that his party, the Naam Tamizhar Katchi (We are Tamils Party) would take on the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in the Erode East assembly by-election in Tamil Nadu on 4 February. In one of his characteristically fiery speeches, the social media-savvy politician thundered: “Only the defeat of the rising sun will harken a new dawn in the state.” He was playing on the DMK’s election symbol—the udayum suryan or rising sun—to convey the message that voters should kick the DMK out.

The major opposition parties in the state, the AIADMK and the BJP, as well as the latest entrant to Tamil politics, actor Vijay’s Tamizh Vetri Kazhagam, had all decided not to contest the election necessitated by the death of veteran Congress leader E.V.K.S. Elangovan. The reasons were obvious: there’s only a year to go for the 2026 assembly elections, the cost of campaigning is high, the by-election is of little consequence, and anyway the DMK would win.

Seeman very likely saw it as an opportunity to gain some mileage for himself and the NTK, given that it would be a straight fight with the DMK for Erode East. Elections generally get a lot of coverage. For an ambitious Johnny-comelately like Seeman, here was a chance to be heard, no matter that results are unlikely to throw up a startling upset. That was the AIADMK’s excuse: in the face of the DMK’s money power, it was futile to contest. Up to this point, it was pretty much standard fare. The plot took an unexpected twist when Seeman launched a broadside against that most hoary of Dravidian icons, E.V. Ramasamy Naicker, a.k.a. Periyar.

This direct attack at the ideological underpinnings of Dravidianism was a stunning about-face. It takes a lot of guts to take on not a man but a revered demigod in the Dravidian pantheon. Seeman had shown no signs that he was going to do so; even if he had harboured doubts about Periyar and his legacy, he had always paid lip service to his ideology.

And suddenly, there he was, casting aspersions on Periyar’s character, accusing him of incestuous relationships, attacking the rationalist leader for his alleged slighting of the Tamil language, and refusing to accept him as a reformer. In a no-holds barred takedown, he said: “This is not Periyar’s land, it is the land of the Tamil kings”, the land of the three great Tamil kingdoms—the Cheras, the Cholas and the Pandians. Seeman rubbished the claim that the Tamil Tigers supremo Prabhakaran had been inspired by Periyar’s ideology; Prabhakaran himself had been quoted as saying he was following in the footsteps of Subhas Chandra Bose, founder of the INA, and the great Tamil kings.

Seeman’s attack on Periyar has quite clearly unsettled the DMK. It is one thing for a party like the BJP to train its guns on Periyar—the DMK can explain that away as something to be expected from a Brahminical party which propagates sanatana dharma, which the DMK equates with a defence of the caste system. It could counter by citing Periyar’s assault on the caste system, especially his attacks on Tamil Brahmins for their oppression. But when it comes from a Tamil nationalist space, it’s an entirely different ball-game. It should be remembered that Dravidian ideology has its roots in a combination of social reform and anti-Brahminism, buttressed by an invocation of the glories of the Tamil language and the Tamil land.

It is this divide now opening up— between the Dravidian narrative and Tamil nationalism—that poses problems for the DMK; for that matter even for the AIADMK, and other offshoots like actor Vijaykanth’s DMDK, Vaiko’s or Y. Gopalaswamy’s MDMK, and Vijay’s TVK, all of which swear by Periyar. For all the talk of a Dravidian culture and a Dravidian politics, it should be noted that this is a uniquely Tamil phenomenon; the Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam-speaking populations do not subscribe to a distinctively Dravidian politics, though they may share many of the concerns of their fellow Tamils. What is ironic is that many of these champions of a Tamil Dravidian politics were not actually Tamil: M. Karunanidhi had Telugu ancestry, as do Vaiko and Vijaykanth, MGR was a Malayali belonging to the Nair community, and J. Jayalalithaa had Kannada blood in her veins.

What must be worrisome for the DMK’s leadership is that Periyar’s legacy was a flawed one. For all his progressive stances and agenda of social reform, his championing of women’s rights and widow remarriage, he was also guilty of transgressing bounds in his attacks on Hindu idols, on the Brahmin community and even the Tamil language (he himself was a Kannadiga). Though this is fairly well known to scholars and those familiar with the history of the Justice Party and its offshoots, it is generally not written or spoken about in contemporary discourse.

It is not clear what caused this volte-face by Seeman. Conspiracy theorists may see him as a lackey of the BJP—some have called him the BJP’s B-team; one writer even suggested that his attacks on Periyar have taken the heat off the DMK in the Anna university rape case, in which a party functionary was arrested.

DMK ministers including prominent figures like Durai Murugan have attacked Seeman for his utterances; even the AIADMK’s Edappadi Palaniswamy has criticised his statements. Social media is now a battleground between the Periyarists and their NTK opponents; there have been several posts drawing attention to incendiary remarks allegedly made by Periyar, inciting murderous hatred against the Brahmin community, and other indiscretions.

However, what is becoming clear is that Seeman is now a growing factor in Tamil politics. His ultra-nationalist Tamil rhetoric finds resonance with the state’s youth, who have been brought up on the diet of a heroic Tamil past and the glories of its language and culture. Attacks from several quarters on the DMK’s allegedly rampant corruption and its promotion of dynastic politics— Stalin’s son Udayanidhi and Udayanidhi’s son Inbanidhi—provide ample fodder for both satirists and opponents. Some thought Seeman would make common cause with actor Vijay and his new party to form a third front with the potential to take on the DMK; but it appears that Seeman has opted to go it alone. The numbers seem to back him— over the last few years his vote share has gone up from next-to-nothing to 8 per cent in the last Lok Sabha elections. A respectable showing in the Erode by-poll will be a shot in the arm, and set the stage for a major realignment of political forces in the state.