Kamal Haasan backs Vetrimaaran’s ‘Raja Raja Cholan not Hindu king’ remark

Actor Kamal Haasan has backed national award-winning Tamil director Vetrimaaran’s statement that Raja Raja Cholan wasn’t a Hindu king, and has said that the term ‘Hindu religion’ didn’t exist during the Chola period.

At a recent event, Vetrimaaran had called out the alleged appropriation of Tamil symbols and heroes. He had alleged that Tamil poet and philosopher Thiruvalluvar was being saffronized and constant attempts were being made to project Chola ruler Raja Raja Cholan as a Hindu king.

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Interestingly, his remarks came a day after the theatrical release of Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan that is based on Kalki’s historical novel by the same name.

Vetrimaaran’s remarks were slammed by the BJP which asked the director to show proof from history to back his statement.

“I am not well versed with history like Vetrimaaran, but let him point out two churches and mosques built by Raja Raja Cholan. He called himself Sivapadha Sekaran. Wasn’t he a Hindu then?” Tamil Nadu BJP leader H Raja said.

Actor Kamal Haasan, however, came to Vetrimaaran’s aid and said no such religion as Hinduism existed during the Chola period and that the British were the first to coin the term ‘Hindu’.

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“There was no name called ‘Hindu religion’ during Raja Raja Cholan’s period. There was Vaishnavam, Shaivam and Samanam, and it was the Britishers who coined the term ‘Hindu’ since they didn’t know how to refer to it collectively. It is similar to how they changed Thuthukudi into Tuticorin,” Haasan said.

Haasan on Wednesday watched Ponniyin Selvan with the cast and crew at a special screening in Chennai and had told the press that he couldn’t wait for the second part of the movie to release.

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