Amid the ongoing row over whether Chola king Raja Raja was a Hindu or not, BJP leader H Raja said actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan is not a Hindu, his whole family is evangelised. The BJP leader also shared a video interview of Kamal Haasan where he once worked with the Christian Arts and Communication Centre, ‘spreading the word of Christ to the world’.
The controversy erupted after Kamal Haasan supported Tamil director Vetrimaaran’s statement that there is an attempt to take away the identity of Tamil cultural icons as it happened with Tamil saint-poet Thiruvalluvar and Raja Raja Chola. Vetrimaaran said Chola was not a Hindu king, unlike what has been portrayed in Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, which is based on author Kalki Krishnamurthy’s historical fiction depicting the story of Arulmozhivarman, who came to be known as Raja Raja Chola later.
Kamal Haasan said there was no Hindu religion during Raja Raja Chola’s period. There was no name called ‘Hindu religion’ during Raja Raja Cholan’s period. “There was Vainavam, Shivam, and Samanam, and it was the British who coined the term Hindu since they didn’t know how to refer to it collectively. It is similar to how they changed Thuthukudi into Tuticorin,” he said.
“Kamal Haasan has a habit of not reading deeply about anything. But it cannot be denied that he said to Karan Thapar that he sold the Bible for money, that his brother Chandra Haasan was buried in the Christian way,” BJP’s H Raja said.
The controversy raged on with BJP leaders slamming Vetrimaaran and Kamal Haasan’s comments. Even Congress leader Karan Singh on Friday said that to say that Raja Raja was not a Hindu but a Shaivite is like saying that someone is a Catholic but not a Christian.
“This is absolutely ridiculous. Shiva is the primordial Hindu deity, focus of intense devotion for millions over the millennia from Srinagar down to Rameshwaram. The emperor built one of the greatest Shiva temples which are marvels of architecture, specially the great Brihadishwara Temple in Thanjavur, where I have worshipped many times,” Congress leader Karan Sing said in a statement.
A researcher on the cultural history of south India who was reached out by Mani Ratnam’s team for the movie said Raja Raja Chola was a Saivite and a Hindu king and the word ‘Hindu’ is not found in the records of the Cholas. “Though Raja Raja was a staunch Saivite, he built not just Siva temples but he also built Vishnu temples,” he said adding that they worshipped Durga, Shakti and Kali as well as Murugan and Ganesha.