This story is from June 26, 2015

Memories of a violent movement led by Periyar

The observations made in the article about EVR's liberal ways of agitation against brahmins seem to be onesided and do not take into account the atrocities meted out to the many brahmin families who were targeted in the late 1950s.
Memories of a violent movement led by Periyar
The observations made in the article about EVR's liberal ways of agitation against brahmins seem to be onesided and do not take into account the atrocities meted out to the many brahmin families who were targeted in the late 1950s. Talking from personal experience I can vouch for the physical and mental harassment that the supporters of Periyar resorted to against the brahmin community.
In the late 1950s, my father P K Venkateswaran, who was the owner of “Hotel Murali Café“ on Bharathi Salai in Triplicane, was threatened and our establishment attacked by members of Dravidar Kazhagam because he refused to remove the tag of `brahmin' hotel from the board of the eatery.Following resistance from my father, EVR staged demonstrations on a daily basis for more than a year. They launched a violent, vitriolic attack even on the customers without knowing that the café was actually patronized by non-brahmins and most of the staff were also not brahmins.Ironically it was my father's non-brahmin friends who supported him and helped tide over those turbulent times. My father was drawn into legal battles and the issue was widely covered by the newspapers and even taken up in the Tamil Nadu assembly.
Finally the attacks on the café stopped after intervention from the then Kanchi Shankaracharya but my father also had to remove the word brahmin from the name though at that time the name was used just to mean pure vegetarian and had nothing to do with caste. In this connection I would like to highlight that it was not just business establishments which suffered the brunt of such agitations but `kathakalakshepam' stalwarts like Sengalipuram Anantharama Dikshitar were interrupted as were several temple processions across Tamil Nadu.The author does touch upon the cutting of the sacred thread but he glosses over its rough side which entailed physical assault and chopping of the sacred hair.
`Vinayagar' V Murali, Triplicane, Chennai
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