Sanatana Dharma According To Udhayanidhi Stalin
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-09-04 04:13:15
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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There is no doubt that Sanatan Dharma means different things to different people. To most Hindus, it is the way of life as set out in the Hindu religion and hence it is to be followed religiously. To others, it is the way of life that perpetuates the caste hierarchy in Hinduism and hence it is to be opposed in order to treat all castes as equals. To still others, guided more by political considerations, it is the brand of Hindutva being propagated by the BJP and its satellite organizations.
When Udhayanidhi Stalin talks about eradicating Sanatan Dharma, his call is guided more by the second and third meanings stated above as he belongs to a party (DMK) that was born to ensure social justice and remove caste prejudices in the system. And when K Chidambaram jumps to his defence, he is guided purely by the political view.
To be fair to Stalin, he had earlier also talked about eradicating caste oppression in the DMK. In July this year, Stalin had tweeted "a century-old struggle for equality against sanatana of thousand years remains and unfinished one still" although it was in response to film director Pa Ranjith commending him for his role as a Dalit legislator hounded by upper caste politicians in the Tamil film 'Mamannan'. But Stalin had used the word 'sanatana' then too. Hence, it can be said that to him, 'sanatana' means the caste system embedded in Hinduism.
But being an actor and talking as a character in a film and being a politician and talking in political terms are two different things. When Stalin talks of eradicating Sanatana Dharma from a political platform, he must take the commonly-understood meaning into consideration as he is speaking to an all-India audience and many Hindus not affiliated to the BJP or not subscribing to the views of Hindutva organizations still consider Sanatana Dharma as a way of life. It is because of this that Stalin's statement is offensive and provocative.
