The Hindu Publishing Group director N Ram said that the Union government's narrative on sengol is baseless fiction at a press meet in Kamarajar Arangam, Chennai, on Wednesday, May 31. “People often think that it is not important to fact check it (claims of the BJP). But we cannot leave it just like that. We have to research it and check the facts, to tell the truth to the people,” he said. Sengol, a golden sceptre that was installed in the newly constructed Parliament House on May 28, raked up several controversies and raised questions on the appropriateness of a symbol of monarchy in a democratic country’s Parliament.
The Union government claimed that the sengol was given to India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to mark the power transfer from the British. It also stated that Nehru asked C Rajagopalachari, the last Governor-General of India, about the symbolism that should be adopted to mark the transfer of power. It was then Rajagopalachari who suggested that Nehru may receive a sengol, which was used to mark the transfer of powers during the Chola dynasty, from the Viceroy of India, Mountbatten. After Rajagopalachari held a discussion with Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam, a Shaivite mutt in Mayiladuthurai, the sengol was crafted by Ummudi Bangaru Jewellers and given to Nehru, the BJP government claimed. The tradition of handing over sengols was followed by Tamil kings after they captured a country by invasion and war, to mark the transfer of power from one kingdom to another.
BJP also said that the sengol was given to Nehru by an entourage of Adheenakarthars (pontiffs) who were brought to Delhi on a special flight. According to the BJP, the Sengol was first given to Mountbatten by the pontiffs and taken back from him to give to Nehru.
Ram refuted these claims by saying, “Historians like Rajmohan Gandhi, who wrote the biography of C Rajagopalachari, have never mentioned that the latter approached Adheenakarthars regarding the sengol. If it was a historically important event and considered a ‘transfer of power’ ceremony, it would be well recorded.” Historians, journalists, and biographers who recorded the events of India's post-independence era did not call the event of giving sengol an equivalent to the transfer of power, Ram highlighted.
Ram, however, said that it was true that the Adheenakarthars gave the sengol to Nehru and he accepted it, but it was only one of the many gifts that he got that day. “Thus the event was not even recorded as a transfer of power,” he said. Ram also noted that the event took place at Nehru’s residence on York Road, New Delhi, at 10 pm, at which time Mountbatten was not in India but in Pakistan. “He arrived in the late hours of August 14 and it was impossible for the Adheenakarthars to facilitate the ‘transfer of power’ ceremony,” he added.
Ram also recalled the advertisement given by Adheenakarthars to The Hindu daily on August 29, 1947, in which a photograph’s description notes that members of Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam left Central Station on August 11, 1947, with Kumaraswami Thambiran, Manikka Othuvar, KV Ramalingam Pillai, E Subbiah Bharathiar, and Adeena Vidwan (Nadaswara Vidwan) Rajarathinam Pillai. This advertisement itself disproves the BJP’s claim that a special aircraft was arranged for the pontiffs to reach Delhi.
When TNM asked whether this could be read as the BJP’s attempt to sweep the votes of Backward Class and Other Backward Class communities of Tamil Nadu, similar to its attempt to win over the Lingayats in Karnataka, Ram said, “Their attempt in Karnataka was a failed one, but the scenario is almost the same here. Someone might have told them (BJP leaders) that it would give political benefit to the BJP if the leaders of the party invite the Adheenakarthars to the newly constructed Parliament. But it will not give any political benefit to them.”
He also told TNM that installing the sengol in the Parliament is an insult to the freedom fighters who sacrificed everything to earn freedom for this country . This is because the sengol is the symbol of monarchy, against which the people of the country had fought.
Tamil Nadu Congress Committee President KS Alagiri said that the sengol that Nehru received was not used by any Tamil king and that the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam had no role in transferring power to kings. “Nehru did not prostrate before the sengol like Modi did. Sengol was crafted by jewellers and given by Adheenakarthars, and so it is not an appropriate symbol for showing reverence to Tamil Nadu or Tamil culture, as the BJP claims to be doing,” he added further. G Ramakrishnan, Secretary of Tamil Nadu CPI(M), and A Gopanna, head of the media department of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee, were also present at the event.