Chennai: Tamil Nadu minister and DMK leader Udhayandhi Stalin’s call for elimination of ‘Sanatana Dharma’ was a call for eradicating “caste-hierarchy-based society”, according to Congress MP Karti Chidambaram, who has been at the forefront of defending his party’s ‘INDIA’ ally against the storm caused by his statement.
“It was not a call for elimination of practising Hindus or for a genocide,” Karti said in an interview with ThePrint.
The ‘Sanatana Dharma’ controversy has taken centrestage in political debate since 2 September, when Udhayanidhi likened ‘Sanatana Dharma’ to diseases and called for its elimination.
The furore was almost immediate, with the BJP — which has been looking to make inroads in Tamil Nadu — terming it an insult to Hindus, and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi weighing in.
Karti, 51, who represents Sivaganga and is the son of former Union minister P. Chidambaram, was one of the first leaders to defend Udhayanidhi, and he continues to reiterate his argument that the Tamil Nadu Minister for Sports and Youth Welfare was “erroneously” interpreted.
Sanatana Dharma, he told ThePrint, has different connotations in the north and south.
In Tamil Nadu, he said, Sanatana Dharma refers to a caste-hierarchy-based society, and not practice of a religion. “You ask any average temple-going person in Tamil Nadu, the term will be alien to them. In northern India, there is a different connotation and meaning and a deep theosophical and philosophical meaning and it is not part of our understanding or heritage here,” he added.
“Because of this dichotomy in the understanding of the term in the two parts of the country, there is a conflict,” said Karti, who described himself as a “deeply religious, ritual-observing, astrology believing, and temple-going Hindu, and secular”.
Talking about the remarks made by former Union minister A. Raja amid the ongoing controversy — the DMK leader said in a TV news debate that “Hinduism is a menace not only to India, but to the entire world” — Karti said the comment might be based on the social background that he comes from.
“They have been discriminated against for centuries and he might be talking from that experience,” he added.
In the interview, Karti not only took potshots at state BJP leaders over the row, but also sought to promote INDIA — an alliance of 28 Opposition parties — as an alternative to the BJP’s “Hindi-Hindutva agenda”. He made his ambitions to lead state Congress clear as well, and made light of the investigation against him and his father in the alleged INX Media money laundering case, saying it will fizzle out.
The raids and following actions against him were complete “targeting and absurd”, he said. “It was done to send a signal. If we can humiliate P. Chidambaram, then we can do this to anyone,” he added.
Also Read: ‘Confronting Sanatana Dharma an old tradition’ — why Udhayanidhi remark hasn’t shocked Tamil Nadu
‘A term only for political stage’
Karti said the furore over the Sanatana Dharma comment raised questions for state BJP leaders — Tamil Nadu party chief K. Annamalai and Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, who is also the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry.
“I want to ask Annamalai [if] he is batting for the north Indian interpretation of Sanatana Dharma,” he said. “When he was growing up, did his parents or grandparents — when they took him to a place of worship — did they say ‘come Thambi (a term for a younger person), let’s practise Sanatana Dharma?’”
Tamilisai Soundararajan, he added, comes from the Tuticorin region. “She should also be asked if this was part of her practices there,” he said, adding that “Sanatana Dharma is a term used only on the political stage”.
“No family in Tamil Nadu would have used this term in their worship,” he said
While stating that caste-based discrimination needs to be eradicated, the INDIA bloc, at its Delhi meeting this week, batted for a caste census in India.
Karti said he does not personally associate with any caste, but added, “Without proper data, social programmes can’t be brought about, it will be like stabbing in the dark. But will this also become a tool for political posturing as caste numbers will become more apparent, this is the double-edged sword that we are facing now.”
Karti said the India bloc is very strong in TN. “DMK is the leader of the INDIA bloc in TN, then you have the Congress, Communists, MDMK and VCK, and there are more parties likely to join. We are going to win all 39 seats including Sivaganga,” he added, talking about the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
He said the bloc was strengthening itself with every meeting. “This is a large political grouping and we will be a formidable opponent and will give an alternative to the Hindi-Hindutva agenda of the BJP,” he added.
Karti said in the nine years of the Modi government so far, there had been “no dialogue” between the BJP and the Opposition. The current BJP, he said, was no longer like the BJP under Vajpayee, which was a “collective leadership”. Now, it is completely focused on PM Modi, he added.
Apart from accusing the PM of treating Parliament like a “rubber stamp”, Karti also said the BJP’s goal was to “create a Hindutva-Iran in India”.
“There is an over-Sanskritised-upper-caste Hindutva push. That is their version of Hindutva as well. Everything is being unified and codified exactly like how the Ayatollahs do,” he said.
Congress in TN
In the interview, Karti also weighed in on why the Congress was no longer doing well in a state where it once had a strong presence.
“We [Tamil Nadu] have had three larger-than-life CMs — M.G. Ramachandran, M. Karunanidhi and J. Jayalalithaa and, if you include C.N. Annadurai, then four. People voted for them, candidates were irrelevant. People voted for their leadership. The Congress was never able to offer a leader who could match up to them,” he said. “The Congress tried it once with [G.K.] Moopanar [the late stalwart politician and MP] in 1989 but we did not persist with it and gave up the idea in 1991.”
Lack of cadre and organisational strength — unlike the Dravidian parties — was another factor, Karti said, adding that the Congress “is a little coy and shy in airing its view forcefully and articulately”.
He said there is room for a national party in Tamil Nadu, and added that the Congress is a natural choice for the people. “BJP is trying to eat into that space. But the BJP’s brand of politics is poisonous to Tamil Nadu. People in Tamil Nadu have a pushback against the Hindu-Hindutva agenda of the BJP.”
Karti made no bones about his aspirations to lead the Congress in the state, amid talk of a new Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president being appointed.
“I am not shy about saying this and I have made it clear (to AICC) that please give me the opportunity, I have the will and I have the capacity to lead the party for the next three or four years,” he said. “The thing I would do immediately is to strengthen the organisation at every level and will be more articulate about issues in the state.”
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
Also Read: No longer just a Tamil dynast—Sanatana Dharma row got Udhayanidhi Stalin national attention