Chief Minister Karunanidhi Dances on the Graves of Anti-Hindi Martyrs
TAMIL TRIBUNE, April 1998 (ID. 1998-04-01)
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On March 13, 1998, DMK President Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi opened a memorial for former Chief Minister Bakthavathsalam in Chennai and praised him as a great leader. The memorial monument was built by the Tamil Nadu government at a cost of 2.5 million rupees (25 lakh rupees). Fifty demonstrators belonging to various Tamil organizations protested the opening of the memorial and were arrested by police.
Who is this Bakthavathsalam and why are these Tamil organizations protesting the opening of the memorial?
Bakthavathsalam (Congress Party) was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu during the anti-Hindi-imposition agitation of 1965. This was a genuine mass uprising spearheaded by Tamil Nadu students. (It was not sponsored by any political party.) To please his Hindi masters in New Delhi, Chief Minister Bakthavathsalam ordered the police to fire at peaceful student protest marches if they fail to disperse when ordered to do so. The first firing and death happened at Annamalai University on January 26, 1965. Police fired on the peaceful student marchers (they were unarmed and they were not throwing stones or destroying property), killed one student and seriously injured another. This first martyr in the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation was Rajendran. The seriously injured Nedumaran recovered after a long hospital stay and is now a teacher.
Angered by the bloodshed, students of Tamilnadu announced an indefinite strike. There were again protest marches, demonstrations in front of central government offices and one-day fasts. The general public came in support of the students and joined them in their protests. At Chief Minister Bakthavathsalam's request, the central government sent the Indian army and the central reserve police into Tamil Nadu to put down the agitation. Again and again Bakthavathsalam gave orders to shoot at unarmed protesters even though tear gas and other non-lethal methods could have been used to disperse the protesters. As shootings continued and death tolls mounted, demonstrators turned violent; they threw stones at the security forces and burned post offices and railways stations (both of them symbols of Hindi imposition).
All in all, by the time the demonstrations ended by the middle of February 1965, few hundred Tamils, most of them young men, many of them students, were shot and killed. Many more were wounded and many maimed for life. (The precise number of the dead, maimed and injured will never been known because Chief Minister Bakthavathsalam is said to have destroyed all key government documents relating to the shootings. This writer has seen a lowest estimate of 50 to a high of 500. Truth may never be known; the very fact the government destroyed all documents may indicate fairly large numbers of death.) It is this Bakthavathsalam, the "murderer" of anti-Hindi protesters, that Chief Minister Karunanidhi is honoring by erecting a memorial.
No other people, no other country, would raise a memorial to such a butcher voluntarily. Do we see monuments for Hitler in Poland or Ukraine where his army murdered unarmed people? Do we see memorials for General Tikka Khan in Bangladesh where he carried out a blood bath during their freedom struggle? Do we see monuments in Punjab for Governor O'Dyer who was responsible for the Jalion Walla Bagh massacre of peaceful protesters against the British rule? (Note that the number of people killed in Jalion Walla Bagh was much less than the number of people killed during the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation.)
Then why Karunanidhi, the champion of anti-Hindi-imposition, erect a memorial monument for Bakthavathsalam? The reason lies in politics and Karunanidhi's desire to stay in power at any cost, even if it means erecting a memorial for one who was responsible for the "murder" of anti-Hindi protesters.
Karunanidhi's party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), allied with the Tamil Manila Congress (TMC) during the 1996 elections, won handsomely and came to power in the state and also became a coalition partner in the central government of India. The DMK-TMC alliance was a marriage of convenience; they needed each other during the 1996 elections. Their relationship was not at all cordial after the election. Karunanidhi wanted the alliance to continue because he was afraid to go it alone in the next election. Herein comes the reason for the Bakthavathsalam memorial.
Ms. Jayanthi Natarajan is a senior member of TMC. Who is this Jayanthi Natarajan? She is the grand daughter of Bakthavathsalam. The Bakthavathsalam family has been lobbying for a memorial for some time. Karunanidhi erected the Bakthavathsalam memorial to get in good favor with Ms. Natarajan and thus have a good friend at the senior level in TMC.
Chief Minister Karunanidhi may think now that staying in power is worth erecting a memorial for Bakthavathsalam even though he was directly responsible for the death of hundreds of anti-Hindi martyrs. But Chief Minister Karunanidhi should not forget his past. On what is the DMK rule in Tamil Nadu founded? The DMK rule in Tamil Nadu is founded on the dead bodies of those who were brutally shot and killed by Bakthavathsalam for protesting Hindi imposition on Tamil Nadu. But for the blood of these martyrs that spilled on Tamil soil in 1965, DMK would not have come to power in 1967. Ask any political analyst, they will tell you that but for the events of 1965, DMK would not have won the 1967 election and come to power in Tamil Nadu.
Chief Minister Karunanidhi erecting a memorial monument for the man responsible for the killing of the anti-Hindi martyrs is tantamount to insulting and mocking the sacrifices of the very martyrs on whose blood and body his government is founded. Having set his throne on the dead bodies of these hundreds of anti-Hindi martyrs, how can he spit on their graves and dance on them?
Long live the memories of the anti-Hindi martyrs of 1965!
Chief Minister Karunanidhi may betray your sacrifices but we, the ordinary people of Tamil Nadu, will remember and honor you forever and ever!
RELATED ARTICLE
More Articles about Hindi Imposition including DMK's Role in Opposing it
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