The maiden Swami Anandatheerthan Award was presented to writer Perumal Murugan by critic M.K. Sanoo at a simple event at Changampuzha Park on Tuesday.
Organised by Prabodha Trust and Anandatheerthan Samskarika Kendram, the event was also an occasion to recall the stupendous efforts undertaken by Swami Anandatheerthan in Kerala and Tamil Nadu to fight caste bias.
Pushpavathy, singer and vice chairperson of the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi, rendered the reformative poems of Poikayil Appachan and Perumal Murugan, among others, to set the tone of the event.
Mr. Murugan recalled how he learnt about the contributions of Swami Anandatheerthan to freedom struggle and the fight against caste after being asked over email whether he was willing to accept the honour. Anandatheerthan, he said, worked for six years in the 1950s in Madurai in the service of the Dalits. Working across some 30 villages, he adopted a unique path to help the Dalits tide over the oppression inflicted on them by caste hierarchies, Mr. Murugan said. If in Kerala, he renamed people in such a way that their caste would not be identified by their names, in Madurai, he sought legal recourse to address issues of caste discrimination.
“It wasn’t the Gandhian way. But if you look at it, Periyar fought caste in a way that was in total disagreement with Gandhiji. Sree Narayana Guru had his own way of fighting caste. While they all undertook their own separate ways, the goal was the same,” Mr. Murugan said, urging scholars to study the contributions of Anandatheerthan.
The cover of a book written on Anandatheerthan by Dayal Paleri was released at the event which was also attended by CPI State secretary Binoy Viswam and veteran journalist N. Madhavankutty.
