Tiruvannamalai is the district of Tamilnadu where lies the Arunachalam Parvat, whose height is 814 m. In Tamil tradition, it is regarded as ‘Gyanprakasha se deept parvat’ (‘The mountain illuminated with the light of wisdom’). Maharshi Raman chose the same land to spend the life of austerity. Local inhabitants say that in the mountain once there had been as many as 40 temples of the god Vishnu; and, 63 of Mahadeva. But ever since the evil-eyes of Christian missionaries lay on this mountain its cultural landscape has begun to undergo distortion. Missionary had already encroached upon 5 acres of land and built the Church, ‘Carmel Mountain Matha Temple’, here sometimes back. But now the encroachment has been reported to have extended to a vast area as large as 27 acres! Thus, one needs not to be shocked by Udyanidhi Stalin’s recent diatribe against Sanatana Dharma.
Son simply went on emulating his father, moreover. Just see yourself. MK Stalin was also notably there in the opposition-led first meeting in Patna, where he proclaimed before others to be organized to save ‘Secularism’, to save the Christian-Muslim minority. But the reality of the state of TN and Stalin might shock your secular sensitivities.
In the last election of 2020, the Church declared open support to DMK. Since Stalin’s government formed in the State, the entire government machinery itself has set out to track the path shown by the Church in return. After winning the election Stalin was reported to have paid a curtsey visit to a church and said that his government had been formed only by them (Christians). Of late one self-proclaimed woman Christian activist and writer has created a sensation by saying that if the growth of BJP has to check in the state the activities of conversion to be run by missionaries have to be geared up more. The result of all this is there for all to see!
Nagapatanam in particular and many other districts of Tamilnadu, in general, are the places where the worship and other rituals in the number of temples have come to stop, and people avoid visiting there. Engaged in the protection of the temples, the Temple Worshipping Society reports that like Tanjabur’s historic Shiv temple and Ganesh temple, many of the religious sites have either been encroached upon or allotted by the government itself to the different educational institutions, govt. outfits and such others. On the contrary, no such courage the government tries to show when it comes to Muslim and Christian religious places. Things, more notably, have got to be so worsened that even the lands of Hindu faith, Kanyakumari and Rameshwaram, are no exception to encroachments and religious conversions today!
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.
