New Delhi: Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi installed the sengol in the new Parliament on 28 May, Sriram [who only goes by one name] has been flooded with requests for the sceptre.
Owner of Om Sairam Silver Shop Jewellers in Chennai’s T. Nagar, Sriram said that the requests are specific: They want an exact copy of the sengol placed in Parliament.
“Since the installation of the sengol in the new Parliament, I have received over 20 enquiries for the replica of the same made in silver,” he told ThePrint.
On 28 May, Prime Minister Modi marked the inauguration of the new Parliament building in Delhi with the installation of the sengol (Tamil for ‘dharma danda’ or ‘religious staff’). According to experts, the sengol is a “symbolic representation” meant to remind royals of their dharma, or duty, to provide good governance to their people.
But the event was mired in controversy — while the Modi government claims it was a symbol of transfer-of-power from the British at the time of Independence in 1947, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh called this claim “bogus”.
Meanwhile, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader T.K.S. Elangovan has reportedly called it a symbol of “monarchy”.
Although the sengol has hit national headlines only lately, shops like Sriram’s Om Sairam Silver Shop Jewellers have always stocked the sceptre — while Facebook and Twitter posts by the shop offering the product date back to May 2021, there have been several new replies on these posts after the new Parliament’s inauguration.
“We have always stocked sengols as it is common for us to sell them to political parties whose workers give it to a party leader in Tamil Nadu,” he said.
According to Kovai Sathyan, spokesperson for the opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in Tamil Nadu, politicians gift sengols to each other.
“Sengol does not represent any religion. It’s a symbol to uphold justice, given to people in power to remind them to ensure justice,” he told ThePrint, adding that it has been part of Tamil culture for 3,000 years.
“Chief ministers and even mayors in Tamil Nadu have been given Sengols in the past. It’s common to remind them that the sengol does not bend, but remains straight in its pursuit of justice.”
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‘Popular during election season’
The original sengol that’s now in Parliament was crafted in Madras (present-day Chennai) by Vummidi Bangaru Chetty & Sons — one of Chennai’s renowned jewellers. Its cost in current times is estimated at around Rs 70 lakh to Rs 75 lakh.
Sriram told ThePrint that sengols are especially popular during election season.
“All political parties in the state have contacted us at some point in the past for a sengol for one rally or another. Whether chief ministers, mayors, legislators or local leaders, every one would have received a sengol at some point,” he said.
Despite its recent spike in popularity, however, not everyone approves of its use in the modern context.
Several leaders of the DMK told ThePrint that their view of the sceptre was the same as founder C.N. Annadurai’s — in an article he wrote on 24 August 1947 in Dravida Nadu, the Tamil weekly he founded and edited, the Tamil icon cautioned the then Prime Minister Nehru about the socio-political implications of the sceptre.
But according to Sathyan, sengol is a “lifestyle choice” in the state.
“Similar to how one would commonly find people carrying the spear of Lord Murugan in the state, to protect against evil, a sengol is a part of Tamil Nadu’s lifestyle,” he said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)