Is Tamil Nadu Ruled by Actor or the Governor?

Let Sanatana Fall! Let Social Justice Triumph!

(Full Text of the Speech Delivered at the Anti-Sanatana Convention Organized by Makkal Kalai Ilakkiya Kazhagam - MKIK, Trichy)

— Advocate P.Sekar (Ooran / Tamilmani)

The Political Context: Is Tamil Nadu Ruled by Actor or the Governor?

It was 4:00 PM when I, along with fellow comrades from Vellore, braved the scorching, oppressive summer heat and reached Khadi Kraft near Trichy Junction to participate as a speaker in the Anti-Sanatana protest organized by the Makkal Kalai Ilakkiya Kazhagam (MKIK). Upon arrival, the reality of the situation became instantly clear: there were no flags, no banners, and no microphones. Only a handful of comrades stood there, surrounded by a massive contingent of police personnel and a long line of police vans. It was evident that permission for the protest had been denied.

When I immediately contacted the coordinators, I learned that the comrades had relocated near the Old Bus Stand to garland the statue of Thanthai Periyar and launch a defiant agitation, overriding the state ban. By the time I rushed to the spot, the police were already executing brutal force, intercepting the marching comrades and hauling them into police vans.

Simultaneously, a few reactionary lumpens from the Hindu Munnani stood right in front of the police, shouting provocations against our comrades. The visual of the state police standing as tight-lipped, passive spectators to right-wing aggression, while systematically crushing a democratic protest organized by a progressive cultural front like MKIK, laid bare a grim reality: this state machinery is desperately desperate to shield and protect Sanatana.

This entire episode has proved to the people of Tamil Nadu, for the very first time, that this is not a government run by cinematic actors; it is effectively a regime micro-managed by the Governor. What answers do the apologists of TVK (Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam) have now—those who lent tactical support to this regime under the pretext of preventing a Governor's rule?

Though blocked in the public square, the comrades undeterredly gathered inside a hall to share these volatile, radical ideas among themselves. Today, through social media, that discourse is rapidly reaching the masses. The following is the comprehensive compilation of the speech I delivered inside that hall:

Introduction

"Let Sanatana Fall! Let Social Justice Triumph!"

Greetings to everyone gathered here!

There was a time when I used to thunder from the platforms of the Makkal Kalai Ilakkiya Kazhagam across Tamil Nadu under the pen name Tamilmani, roaring against the ruling class. After a long hiatus, I find myself back on a revolutionary stage in this historic soil of Trichy—the very land where I cut my political teeth. I extend my deepest fraternal gratitude to Comrade Kovan, the State General Secretary of MKIK, and the members of the leadership committee for honoring me with this opportunity.

P.Sekar, Advocate

Comrades, the entire Indian subcontinent is locked in a fierce debate over 'Sanatana'. I must take this progressive platform to register my heartfelt appreciation for the Leader of the Opposition, Udhayanidhi Stalin. Despite losing power in the recently concluded elections, he did not display a shred of defeatism. Instead, on the very first day of the legislative assembly session, he stood tall and resolutely proclaimed, "We shall eradicate Sanatana!" By doing so, he has breathed fresh lease of life into the core Dravidian ideology of anti-Sanatana resistance.

What is Sanatana?

Now, comrades... everyone is talking about Sanatana. But what exactly is Sanatana?

The conservative pandits and apologists define it as: "That which has no beginning and no end; that which is birthless and deathless; that which is immutable, indestructible, and eternally constant." > One infinite, eternal, changeless existence is called Sanatana.

If you confront today's right-wing politicians and Sanatana mercenaries to pinpoint what this 'unchanging, immortal entity' actually means in reality, each cooks up a bizarre, self-serving definition to suit their opportunism.

If you ask Kushboo, she claims, “Wearing a bindi and putting flowers in your hair is Sanatana.” If you ask singer Anitha Kuppusamy, she claims, “Sprinkling water and drawing a kolam—specifically with rice flour—in front of the house is Sanatana.” At least these individuals stretch their imagination to utter some incoherent nonsense.

Then there are those who strategically 'rent' the late poet Kannadasan to defend Sanatana. What do they quote from him?

“A mother’s selfless love, feeding the hungry, forgiving the one who hates you, being calm like Shiva, smiling through adversity like Krishna, conquering desires like Buddha”—this, they claim, is Sanatana!

And the latest addition to this absurdity is our Tamizhisaika (Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan). Recently, she smeared holy ash (vibhuthi) on Minister Vanniyarasu like a maternal figure and instantly spun a new narrative: “The motherly love behind smearing this holy ash is Sanatana!”

Comrades! If you take these comical definitions to a traditional, textually trained Shastric Acharya and ask if this is indeed Sanatana, he would spit on their faces in utter disgust!

Comrades, let me give you the rigorous, verifiable historical data regarding what this 'beginningless, endless, immutable, and eternal' Sanatana truly stands for. Note this down!

In the year 1898, the 'Central Hindu College' was founded in Kashi (Varanasi). When it was later upgraded into the 'Banaras Hindu University' (BHU) in 1916, a foundational textbook was officially prescribed. Do you know the name of that book?

"An Elementary Sanatana Dharma: Hindu Religion and Ethics".

This textbook, originally preserved in the University of California library, was digitized and archived by Microsoft in 2007. What does this authentic document explicitly state?

“Sanatana Dharma is that code of life given to humanity thousands of years ago, solely based on the Vedas and sacred texts.”

Historically, during that era, neither the nomenclature 'Hindu Religion' nor the geopolitical entity called 'India' existed. It was purely an 'Aryan Religion' anchored in an Aryan racial construct, and the land was called 'Aryavarta'! This is the unvarnished historical truth!

The Roots of Sanatana Sustained through Rituals

What constitutes the foundation of this Sanatana Dharma?

The four Vedas, categorized as Shrutis, form the absolute foundation.

The 18 Smritis—including Yajnavalkya, Parasara, Narada, and Manu—are the structural walls that prop up Sanatana. Among these, the wall called Manusmriti is exceptionally rigid and formidable. 

The 18 Puranas and the two Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharata) serve as the external buttresses securing these walls.

The legal codification of our daily existential duties is what comprises the Manusmriti Shastra! Whatever is decreed within the Manusmriti is what constitutes genuine Sanatana. Everything else uttered by modern apologists falls completely outside its purview.

Spanning 12 chapters and containing 2,685 verses composed somewhere between the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, this code continues to actively breathe inside our households today. Looking at this longevity, a chilling doubt crosses our minds: is Sanatana truly indestructible?

How does it manage to persist seamlessly in our contemporary lives? It survives precisely through the domestic rituals, superstitious customs, and practices of ceremonial pollution ( தீட்டு) injected into our families! From menstruation, weddings, baby showers, naming ceremonies, tonsuring, housewarming parties, to death, funerals, and annual death anniversaries (thithi)—we are blindly executing exactly what Manu decreed centuries ago!

Many of us have never read Manu. Yet, how do we practice it so flawlessly without reading it? Because it is systematically spoon-fed to us from childhood under the benign mask of "tradition and cultural habit"!

Why were these endless rituals engineered in the first place? It is a calculated system of economic exploitation devised by the Brahmin priesthood to secure their perennial revenue and professional monopoly!

Priesthood, comrades, is a highly lucrative corporate factory! It operates not on a 'work from home' model, but on a 'work from others' home' basis—accumulating massive wealth through the existential vulnerabilities of others. 

They weaponize fear: “If you skip this ritual, it will ruin your family; it will curse your lineage.” They manipulate you into taking high-interest debts just to perform elaborate funeral rites and annual obsequies.

The core life-force of Sanatana resides entirely within this industry of priesthood! When the forces of Sanatana are aggressively dismantling public sector enterprises to safeguard their hegemony, why shouldn't we systematically dismantle the priestly profession to eradicate Sanatana? The responsibility to sever these ritualistic Sanatana roots creeping inside our living rooms rests squarely on our own shoulders.

Look at the film Shyam Singha Roy. When a Brahmin priest rabidly defends the oppressive Devadasi system, the protagonist violently hurls him into the ceremonial fire, roaring: “You burn widowed women alive in the name of Sati; now go ahead and burn to death in this very fire!” Similarly, the Brahmin priests who orchestrate casteist cleansing rituals in the name of housewarmings (Grahapravesam) and temple consecrations (Kumbhabhishekam) must not only be prosecuted under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act but must be physically driven away from these venues before they initiate the ritual.

Let us call a spade a spade: a housewarming ritual is fundamentally an act of untouchability! The rationale behind it is that during construction, 'Chandala' laborers—meaning the Parayar and other Dalit working-class communities—would have touched the structure, thereby polluting it. To 'cleanse' this supposed pollution, cow urine (gomiyam) is sprayed. Even in the late 1940s, certain reactionary films featured dining and feast scenes where characters openly spewed Sanatana arrogance, directly insulting and demeaning the Parayar community. Today's priestly 'purification' rituals are nothing but a sophisticated continuation of that identical casteist malice!

To boycott this, we do not require decrees from Delhi or the patronage of ruling politicians. We must consciously abandon these regressive domestic rituals. We must transition toward priest-free, rationalist 'Self-Respect' (Suya Mariyadhai) alternative formats. 

Preparing the masses for this cultural shift is the immediate duty of progressive organizations.

The Untouchability Jungles of 'Oor' and 'Cheri'

The ultimate, most vicious manifestation of Sanatana is caste-based pollution. This involves the policing of varna-mixing (varna sankara), the enforcement of hereditary occupations, restrictions on food, clothing, and mobility, and the geographical segregation of spaces into the dominant village (Oor) and the marginalized Dalit ghetto (Cheri). Sanatana thrives inside these deep-seated jungles of territorial untouchability. We can weaken this monster only by razed-down the traditional 'Oor-Cheri' spatial dichotomy and replacing it with universal, integrated public housing complexes.

Look closely at our history. Under the socialist economic model, the establishment of public sector giants like BHEL during the eras of Nehru and Indira Gandhi gave birth to integrated 'Township' colonies. Similarly, the creation of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) quarters during Kalaignar Karunanidhi's regime, the development of urban integrated neighborhoods like Anna Nagar, KK Nagar, and Thillai Nagar, and the subsequent rural network of Periyar Ninaivu Samathuvapurams (Periyar Memorial Equality Villages) were exceptional structural body-blows to the heart of spatial untouchability.

These state-funded spaces forced human beings belonging to vastly diverse caste groups to live as next-door neighbors. Consequently, the historical caste animosities bred in segregated villages were effectively neutralized, paving the way for class solidarity, trade union camaraderie, and genuine human brotherhood to flourish.

However, the neoliberal economic policies and aggressive privatization unleashed after the 1990s systematically crippled our public sector units. The Union regimes calculatedly liquidated these egalitarian 'Township' spaces. Following Kalaignar's era, subsequent state administrations progressively sidelined and neglected both the Housing Board initiatives and the Samathuvapurams.

Let me sound a note of warning: the working-class struggle to defend public sector enterprises is structurally inseparable from the battle to protect integrated public housing—which is, in essence, the struggle to annihilate Sanatana! 

The state must aggressively expand public housing networks, upgrade their infrastructure, and make them highly attractive for mass migration.

Concurrently, as a strategic counter-measure against spatial segregation, the government must systematically taper off state funding and infrastructural concessions to traditional caste-stratified 'Oor-Cheri' habitations. 

This will economically incentivize and compel people to migrate toward modern, egalitarian, integrated townships.

The 'No-Caste' Classification

Finally, we must break the ideological leg of Sanatana. I utilize this platform to propose a concrete, radical alternative model to achieve this.

We must consolidate individuals who opt for inter-caste marriages and citizens who voluntarily renounce their caste identities into a legally recognized, distinct institutional category called the "No Caste Category" (சாதியற்றோர் தனிப் பட்டியல்). Telangana has already pioneered a template for this, where roughly 3.4% of the population has officially registered under a 'No-Caste' classification.

Citizens opting into this 'No-Caste' registry must be granted a dedicated, exclusive quota within education and public employment! While we must fiercely implement caste-based proportional reservation to match current population metrics, we must simultaneously institute this 'No-Caste' separate list and distinct allotment to incentivize the systemic dissolution of caste. To lay the empirical groundwork for this, the Government of Tamil Nadu must immediately execute a comprehensive state-wide Caste Census.

Comrades! Boycotting priests in our domestic lives, obliterating the 'Oor-Cheri' residential apartheid, and enforcing a 'No-Caste' statutory category are monumental, grueling challenges. 

But if we look at this as a long-term war to eradicate Sanatana, we must commence our march this very day, from this historic soil of Trichy! Let us forge these demands into our central ideological slogans and make them echo loud enough to pierce the ears of the Ministry of Social Welfare!

We can achieve this, comrades! Yes, we can! Just like the ancient anti-Vedic Siddhars, Mahatma Jyotirao Phule, Vallalar, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Thanthai Periyar, and Muthamizharignar Kalaignar—we possess the ideological lineage to chop down the roots of Sanatana. The weapons currently available in our hands might look like small, modest knives; let us wield them regardless! As we sharpen them on the anvil of field struggles, they will transform into mighty battle-axes. When that day arrives, the total uprooting of Sanatana—along with its deeply entrenched soil—is historically inevitable!

Let me conclude with one final observation. Atrocities like the horrific caste-poisoning witnessed in Vengaivayal can be structurally prevented only through the aggressive expansion of integrated public housing.

Furthermore, the masses must completely marginalize and cast away the caste-mobilizing political outfits that mushroomed post the 1990s. It is only when the working class rallies behind Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organizations that endogamy (சாதிய அகமண முறை) will crumble, paving the way for smooth, mass inter-community marriages (புறமண முறை).

Only when the masses mobilize under a revolutionary banner will Tamil Nadu cease to produce battlegrounds of caste fanaticism like Naikkankottai—the toxic laboratory that consumed the lives of Ilavarasan and Divya. Instead, this soil will transform into a network of egalitarian communes, reminiscent of the glorious class uprisings led by Comrades Appu and Balan!

The annihilation of caste envisioned by Babasaheb Ambedkar can be actualized only by politically fortifying the Naxalbari politics of this country! With this firm conviction, I take your leave.

Long live the anti-Sanatana struggle! Let the spirit of Naxalbari reverberate across the nation!

Thank you. Vanakkam!

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P. Sekar

Advocate