Why a conference on the deity Murugan has drawn flak for the DMK – even from its allies

Murugan became the focus of another controversy this month as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-run Tamil Nadu government organised a two-day conference about the deity on August 24-25.

Four years ago, the Bharatiya Janata Party was accused of attempting to appropriate Murugan to gain a foothold in the state by organising a yatra to sites associated with the God of the Tamil People.

This fortnight’s conference put the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under fire as it appeared to be using the deity to help it shed its image as an anti-Hindu party. It was not only the Tamil party’s political rivals that voiced their objections to the evemt. Even the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam allies noted that the idea of such a conclave was contrary to the party’s secular ideology.

After all, they note, the party has its origins in the Self-Respect Movement championed in the early 20th-century movement by EV Ramaswamy “Periyar”. It was a rationalist movement that championed atheism and opposed caste.

“We are not against worshipping of any gods,” K Balakrishnan, the state secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) told The Hindu. His party had fought the Lok Sabha elections as an ally of the Dravidian party. “But, the government should not directly organise such events.”

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