On Tuesday night in Kumbakonam, the leader of a Tamil pro-Hindu group was arrested for posting a poster showing BR Ambedkar dressed in saffron. On the poster, BR Ambedkar is depicted with holy ash on his forehead and a saffron shirt.
The Hindu Makkal Katchi’s Gurumurthy, district secretary for Kumbakonam, has been identified as the arrested leader. Thol Thirumavalavan, the leader and MP of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), tweeted a picture of the poster in question and expressed his condemnation of it.
According to Thirumavalavan, Ambedkar was saffronised on the poster because he refused to pray to Vishnu or Brahma. ‘Such religious fanatics who portrayed Ambedkar with a saffron shirt and holy ash on his forehead should be arrested immediately,’ Thirumavalavan wrote.
A leader of the Hindu Makkal Katchi, however, claimed that the organisation had saffronised BR Ambedkar in order to raise awareness.
‘Ambedkar was a saffron lover as he embraced Buddhism, of which saffron is the symbol. We saffronised Ambedkar to create awareness against Thirumavalavan trying to Periyarise Ambedkar,’ Hindu Makkal Katchi leader Arjun Sampath stated.
Gurumurthy, the Hindu Makkal Katchi’s district secretary for Kumbakonam, was arrested for the incident and charged under the appropriate sections of the Indian Penal Code.
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