Syed Ali Mujtaba

Chennai: After Arif Mohmmad Khan’s appointment as Governor of Kerala with a brief to praise and propagate the BJP’s ideology, the new Governor of Tamil Nadu R N Ravi is doing the same to turning the Dravidian land into Sanatanis.

In protest, the ruling DMK government and its allies have drafted a memorandum listing out their grouse and sent it to the President of India demanding the Governor’s recall. Their main plea is Tamil Nadu Governor’s recent statements have caused deep wounds to the sentiments and pride of the Tamil people.

Governor of Tamil Nadu RN Ravi since his appointment in September 2021, has been making public statements praising Sanatana Dharma, saying India has been guided by Sanatana Dharma for several thousand years. He had said, India is dependent on one religion like the rest of the world and that is Sanatana Dharma.

Ravi is reported to have denounced Dravidian heritage Thirukkural, a classical Tamil text consisting of 1,330 short couplets of seven words each which have anguished the Tamil people.

At an event to commemorate the Vellore Sepoy Revolt, Ravi claimed that the British created a false history on the Aryan-Dravidian issue. He criticized the British rule for their theory of the “racial” division of Aryans and Dravidians and termed the Aryan-Dravidian division geographical, not racial.

The DMK drafted memorandum states; Tamil Nadu Governor has been instigating communal hatred and posing a threat to the peace and tranquility of the state. “His speeches are made with a calculated intent to incite hatred and create communal unrest among the people,” the memorandum states.

“Some might even consider his statements as seditious as his statements bring or attempt to bring into hatred or contempt or excite or attempt to excite disaffection towards the government established by law,” the memorandum further states.

The DMK government has alleged that Governor R N Ravi has not cleared at least 21 Bills passed by the state Assembly. This includes the abolition of the National Eligibility Entrance Test (NEET) and the release of the convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

“It is the constitutional duty of the governor to act immediately on the Bills passed by the members of the elected House but the Governor is sitting on the Bills and trying to act as an alternate power center, which cannot be accepted, it is an affront to the constitution,” the memorandum states.

Governor Ravi is also praising the Centre’s policies some of which are actually state subjects and in turn assaulting the federal structure of the country, DMK memo reads.

The other grouse of the state government is, Governor has not consulted the Chief Minister over the appointment of Vice Chancellors of the universities. Most recently, the governor decided to hold the 54th convocation ceremony of Madurai Kamaraj University without “consulting the state government”, leading to state higher education minister K Ponmudi boycotting the event.