CHENNAI: PMK founder S Ramadoss raised the issue of an inaccurate detail in the Tamil medium Class IX history textbook, which names Thillaiaadi Valliammai as the first martyr of the Satyagraha movement.
He said, that honour should go to Swamy Nagappan Padayachee, who belonged to the Vanniyar community, in which Ramadoss’s party has its roots.
Ramadoss pointed to the fact that MK Gandhi, the ideologue of Satyagraha, had himself time and again acknowledged Padayachee as the first martyr of the Satyagraha movement.
Padayachee died in 1909 at the age of 18, out of double pneumonia he had contracted when he was imprisoned.
Valliammai, who belonged to the Mudaliar community, was the first woman Satyagrahi to die.
Ramadoss demanded that the error in the textbook be corrected with immediate effect.