CHENNAI: Leftist author Kovai Gnani and indologist and Padmashri awardee Iravatham Mahadevan were awarded the Tamil Literary Garden Lifetime Achievement Award 2009 at a function here on Sunday.
These awards are given by the Canada-based organisation Tamil Literary Garden to writers, scholars and critics who have made significant contributions to the growth or study of Tamil literature.
Kovai Gnani, a Tamil author credited with bringing Marx to the masses, spoke of his tryst with religion and thereafter, Marxism.
He said that anyone who understands and believes in religion will also be a Marxist, as both propagate the same world vision - that everyone is equal.
At the event attended by Eelam Tamils who have been displaced to Canada in the wake of the war in Sri Lanka, Gnani said he did not attend the World Classical Tamil meet as he was ashamed. The other awardee, indologist and epigraphist Iravatham Mahadevan took the audience on a journey of his life’s work. He said that until 1960 there was no evidence of the existence of the Sangam era except in Tamil literature. Mahadevan reiterated his findings - that the literacy rate of people living in the Sangam period was very high. The awards were given away by Tamil Literary Garden founder Chelva Kanaganayagam.