Congress president Rahul Gandhi has heaped praises on renowned hatemonger EV Ramasamy, aka Periyar, after saffron paint was spilt on one of the latter’s statues in Tamil Nadu. In a tweet on Saturday, the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi Parivar commented, “No amount of hate can ever deface a giant.”
எவ்வளவு தீவிரமான வெறுப்பும் ஒரு மகத்தான தலைவனை களங்கப்படுத்த முடியாது
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) July 18, 2020
No amount of hate can ever deface a giant. pic.twitter.com/Y5ZBNuCfl2
For the former Congress president, it was not enough to condemn the apparent act of vandalism. He had to go the extra distance and glorify the individual who is widely recognised as a rabid anti-Hindu ‘intellectual’. And it is understandable given the fact that the Congress party managed to cross the 50 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections due to support from Periyarists in the South. Thus, Rahul Gandhi was only returning the favour.
Furthermore, as the long history of the Congress party under Sonia Gandhi shows, there is not a single anti-Hindu activist or intellectual that the party will not support. During the years of UPA in power, Sonia Gandhi stacked up its National Advisory Council with activists that received foreign funds from abroad and drafted the virulently anti-Hindu Communal Violence Bill.
It also needs to be remembered that the Congress party under Rahul Gandhi has only carried forward the proud tradition of disrespect towards the Hindu Community that Sonia Gandhi had carefully cultivated. For instance, during Rahul Gandhi’s tenure as Congress president, Congress workers in Kerala slaughtered a calf in broad daylight to demonstrate their opposition towards an apparent beef ban somewhere in the country.
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising at all that Rahul Gandhi has chosen to glorify Periyar. The hatemonger from the South shares at least one daunting similarity with the Congress party under Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. Like the Congress party, Periyar harboured a deep seated antipathy towards Shri Rama as well.
Periyar has spread numerous canards about the Ramayana. All his lies were directed towards slandering the God who is considered Maryada Purshottam by Hindus. His lies ranged from accusing Shri Rama of being casteist to claiming that he killed and mutilated women. According to Periyar, the Hindu Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata were written by ‘cunning Aryans’ to erase the ‘Dravidian identity’. If one were to believe Periyar, Rama was part of a conspiracy to deny the throne to Bharata, who, according to him, was Dasaratha’s rightful heir.
Periyar also claimed that no ‘North Indian Brahmin’ died in the war against Ravana. He had further claimed that Rama had married women other than Sita for his sexual pleasure. He had also claimed that Lankan King Ravana was, in fact, a Dravidian King from South India. None of Periyar’s claims about the Ramayana has any truth in them, of course, but he made them anyway. The origins of most of these claims lie not in the Ramayana but in the virulent hatred that he harboured towards North Indians and Brahmins.
Apart from his hatred for Rama, Periyar also broke statues of Lord Ganesha. He had also burnt pictures of Shri Rama. Following his death, Periyarists also attempted to make ‘Ravana Leela’ an annual event, to coincide with Dussehra celebrations in rest of the country. Incidentally, Indira Gandhi had rebuffed the demands of Periyarists to abandon Ram Leela and urged them to avoid arousing sectarian sentiments.
However, the grandson of Indira Gandhi is siding with the very people Indira Gandhi had opposed throughout her life for mere petty politics. It also reflects the shift in the mindset of the Congress party under Rahul gandhi and his mother Sonia Gandhi, where the party actively supports everyone who speaks ill of Hindu Gods and Goddesses and hurts the sentiments of Hindus.
