Honour for martyr who fasted to death for TN

CHENNAI: Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Wednesday announced that a ‘Manimandam’ would be constructed to honour Sankaralinganar, who died in 1956 while on an indefinite hunger strike to rename the erstwhile ‘Madras State’ as ‘Tamil Nadu’.A staunch Gandhian and a freedom fighter, Sankaralinga Nadar or Sankaralinganar hailed from Virudunagar district. Urging the then Congress government to fulfil his 12-point agenda - including renaming the State- he launched an indefinite hunger strike in Virudunagar in 1956. All alone, in a thatched shelter, he fasted for 77 days in the district’s Desabandu grounds and later died at a Madurai hospital in October 1956. Stalwarts who dominated Tamil Nadu’s political scene in the 1950s including then Chief Minister K Kamaraj, P Kakkan, DMK founder leader CN Annadurai, Communist party leader P Ramamurthi, and MP Sivagnanam (Ma Po Si) requested Sankaralinganar to give up the fast. However, he refused to move from his agenda and died for his cause. On October 14, 1956, The Sunday Standard (the Sunday edition of The Indian Express) ran a Madurai datelined report describing the last hours of Sankaralinganar. The Gandhian was 78 years old when he launched the indefinite fast on July 27, 1956. He even wrote to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chief Minister Kamaraj. The Sunday Standard report had said: “He demanded that Madras State should be renamed Tamil Nadu, criticised the lavish expenditure by high dignitaries and wanted the lot of political sufferers improved.” It is ironic that he was forcibly taken to the Erskine Hospital in Madurai by the authorities only on the ‘request of his relatives’ on October 10, 1956. He was unconscious when he was taken to the hospital and put under the treatment of Dr MD Ananthachari, Principal of Madurai Medical College. He was given glucose injections on the first day of his admission and milk and fruit juice on the second day. “Though he regained consciousness, he was very weak and died this morning,” the report states, of October 13, 1956. He had willed his body to be given to the Communists to bury in a place where Gandhi had stayed during his last visit to Virudunagar. “A large crowd gathered at the hospital here on hearing the news of his death. The police held an inquest,” the 1956 report continues. Sankaralinganar’s demand for a name change, which was echoed by Tamil enthusiasts including Sivagnanams’s Tamilarasu Kalagam was fulfilled when the DMK captured power for the first time in 1967 under the leadership of Dravidian icon CN Annadurai. In 1968, a Bill approving the name change was adopted in the Parliament. Tamil scholar and veteran Congress leader Kumari Ananthan welcomed the present government’s move and said: “Sankaralinganar fought for a just cause. However, the government of the day could not accede to it.” When CPI MLA V Ponnupandy, mooted a memorial to commemorate the Gandhian, Jayalalithaa immediately said: “His plea is accepted. I would like to state that the government will quickly build the Manimandapam.”