Pulavar Kaliyaperumal, the Vathiyar in Viduthalai-2, who nurtured Naxalism

Emblematic of his times: Pulavar Kaliyaperumal of Pennadam recalls his life as a revolutionary in his memoir, Makkal Thunaiyodu Maranathai Vendren.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Viduthalai-2, a film by director Vetrimaran, has brought back memories of the period when many districts in Tamil Nadu were in the grip of Maoism-inspired Naxalbari movement over five decades ago. Vijay Sethupathy, in the role of Perumal Vathiyar, the hero of the film, has resurrected Pulavar Kaliyaperumal of Pennadam, the Naxalite leader-turned-Tamil nationalist, who was sentenced to death with his son Valluvan in a case of murder. Five other members of his family were awarded life sentence.

According to The Hindu Archives, District and Sessions Judge T.N. Singaravelu awarded death penalty to Vathiyar alias Kaliyaperumal, the noted Naxal leader, and Valluvan. The other accused in the case were Nambiar, another son of Kaliyaperumal; Rajamanikkam and Arumugam (his close relatives); Masilamani and Ananthanayaki (his brother and sister-in-law).

Slogans hailing Mao

As Kaliyaperumal and the others were brought to the court hall, he shouted slogans hailing Mao Zedong, the Chinese revolutionary, and calling for an agrarian revolution and an armed revolt. Immediately after the judgment was delivered, he shouted, “Long Live Naxalbari movement,” reports The Hindu. The case was related to the killing of Ayyamperumal, whom Kaliyaperumal had accused of being a police informer in his memoir, Makkal Thunaiyodu Maranathai Vendren, or Vanquishing Death with People’s Support (Senthee Publishers). Pulavar’s version is that he sent Tamilarasan, an engineering college student-turned-Naxalite, to kill Ayyamperumal with a big knife (pitchuva). “Ayyamperumal was still alive when the police arrived at the scene. But they allowed him to die so that they could implicate my family in the murder,” he writes.

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court confirmed the death sentence of Pulavar, but commuted that of his son Valluvan on the ground that he was only 21, he committed the crime at the instigation of his father, and he might develop respect for the law in course of time. The Bench refused to alter the life sentence awarded to the other accused.

Pulavar’s death sentence was commuted by President V.V. Giri, thanks to the efforts of former Mayor Krishnamurthy. Pulavar, as he was known since he was a Tamil teacher, was released at the age of 60 after he spent 13 years in jail. He died on May 16, 2007. But in the film, Pulavar falls to the bullets of the police after he comes forward to surrender so that his comrades could escape.

Kaliyaperumal studied the Pulavar course (Tamil course) at the college run by the Veera Saiva Mutt at Mailam. When the college authorities insisted that the students smear holy ash on their forehead, Kaliyaperumal and his friends attended the college with Vaishnavite symbols to express their protest.

Starting out as a teacher

After working as a teacher for some time, he quit the job to plunge into full-time political activities. He was part of the CPI and later CPI(M) and worked among the sugar mill workers at Pennadam. “I was expelled from the CPI(M) for reading Puratchi Puyal, a magazine of the Naxalite movement. Already, comrades like Appu advocated an armed struggle at the CPI(M) conference held in Madurai 1965 and urged the party to lead the anti-Hindi agitation,” writes Kaliyaperumal, who joined the Naxalite movement and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). He became the deputy secretary of the party’s Tamil Nadu unit in 1969.

The visit of Charu Majumdar, founder and general secretary of the CPI-ML, two times to the State and his advocacy of annihilation of landlords, moneylenders, and those who had appropriated public land had goaded Naxalites in Tamil Nadu into direct action.

As the film depicts, Pulavar was a respected figure who posed a challenge to the government and the police as the policy of the Naxalites to annihilate class enemies resulted in a series of deaths. The incidents also echoed in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. The then Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, said his government would not tolerate violence from any quarters. Pulavar is highly critical of the DMK government and Karunanidhi in his memoir.

It was a time of Naxalite upsurge. Three persons — Churchill, a native of Thoothukudi, Ganesan, a chemical engineering student of Annamalai University, and Kanniappan of Udumalaipettai — were killed when the bombs they were making at the coconut grove of Kaliyaperumal went off accidentally. Pulavar, who was monitoring the movement of strangers, was severely injured. “I told them that bombs were not necessary. But they insisted that they needed them since Ganesan was facing a threat from students affiliated to the DMK,” says Kaliyaperumal. They were buried in the sugar cane field. When the issue was raised in the Assembly, Karunanidhi said the bodies had been exhumed and the police were investigating the case. Pulavar recalls in his memoir that before dying, Churchill requested him not to experiment with bombs. In the film too, the Vathiyar says he has decided to quit the path of violence after the death of three of his comrades. Kaliyaperumal continued to follow the policy of violence and annihilation. The killing of Ayyamperumal was in accordance with this policy. But it was done by Tamilarasan, who was killed later during a bank robbery at Ponparappi.

‘Untold repression’

In his conversation with writer S.V. Rajadurai, Kaliyaperumal had said he and his family had turned approvers in the killing of Ayyamperumal so that Tamilarasan could continue to work among the people. “I underwent a lot of torture and repression. I escaped from the gallows. My family had to put up with untold repression for the sake of my political conviction. As a revolutionary, I feel that they are just ordinary issues,” Kaliyaperumal writes in his memoir.