ARIYALUR: Politics is a subtle art, replete with symbolisms. And to a trained eye, symbols reveal more than they hide. When PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss got a tatoo on his arm, depicting agni kalasam, a war of words on its symbolism was but a natural outcome.
During his recent video conversation with the Vanniyar Sangam functionaries, Anbumani rolled up his t-shirt sleeve to reveal the tattoo. Agni kalasam (fire pot) has been the symbol of the Vanniyar Sangam since its inception. Its members base their belief on agni puranam mentioning that the Vanniyar community was born out of fire. During the conversation, a member asked Anbumani whether he felt any pain while the tattoo was being etched. The reply was, again, symbolic. Anbumani said he felt no pain as he was overjoyed at getting the tattoo.
However, Anbumani and the tattoo got caught in a war of words on July 6 when Dharmapuri MP Senthil Kumar (DMK) castigated the former Union minister for flaunting caste symbols. Kumar took to Facebook to say: “If vaccine was administered in childhood, there would have been a small scar (on the arm). If your parents failed to educate you on anti-caste and social justice ideology, the ugliness in the heart would come out one day as a big scar like this. Treatment is necessary for this social illness, doctor.” Kumar added a picture of Anbumani with his tattoo to buttress his point.
Kumar’s post came in for a backlash from the PMK, which construed the words as an insult to the agni kalasam. Social media turned into the theatre of war of words and in Ariyalur (considered a Vanniyar bastion), posters condemning the DMK became common. The DMK seems to have stirred the hornet’s nest with Kumar’s message, with posters bearing the message that DMK MP and MK Stalin would never be forgiven for insulting agni kalasam setting the political ball rolling.
PMK State deputy general secretary TMT Thirumavalavan, a resident of Ariyalur district, said, “This became the symbol of our successful struggle for reservation in the 1980s. Our community rallies around this symbol.”
Training his guns on Kumar, Thirumavalavan said that Kumar was acting at Stalin’s behest. “He has been repeatedly targeting our leadership on social media. He is doing this on Stalin’s instigation. We will strive to mobilise the whole community against the DMK,” was Thirumavalavan’s message.
However, apart from generating verbal warfare, the tattoo flags some pertinent question: Does this mark a paradigm shift in PMK’s political course? For a party that had hitherto staked claim to being the torchbearer of Tamil people’s welfare, has PMK slipped out of its moorings to embark on Vanniyar assertion politics?
DMK Ariyalur district secretary SS Sivasankar believes so. “In the 2016 Assembly elections, Anbumani was projected as the PMK’s chief ministerial candidate. He claimed that PMK was for all the Tamils. He boasted of being a leader with vision, but the voters rejected him. Now, he has narrowed his vision,” Sivasankar says. He claimed that in the four months of lockdown, PMK leadership was not seen mobilising support for the people. “They did not help the suffering people. Not even those from his community. Now, they are fanning caste sentiments to stay relevant.”