Following wide anger and resentment all over Tamil Nadu against conferring honorary doctorate to the tainted film lyricist Vairamuthu by a private university in Chennai, Rajnath Singh, Union Defense Minister, who was to be the chief guest for the function cancelled his trip itself to the city scheduled for Saturday.
Hindu Front, an umbrella organisation featuring Sangh Parivar constituents had threatened on Friday morning that it would stage a black flag demonstration against the Minister as well as the university on Saturday.
Later, following assurances from the State BJP head quarters that the Minister had cancelled his trip to Chennai, the Hindu Front leaders called off the proposed black flag demonstration.
Vairamuthu was in the news last year as many female film artistes came out in the open as part of the “Me Too” campaign against him for his overtures and attempts to sexually abuse them offering them chances in films. Though Vairamuthu had denied any such happenings, the number of allegations by artistes increased which put the national award winning song writer in an embarrassing situation. The nation had honoured the writer with Padma Bhushan in 2014 for his distinguished services in “Literature and Education”.
Scathing attack came from leading playback singer Chinmoyi Sripada of Tamil film industry who was the first victim to come out in the open as part of the MeToo campaign against the lyricist. “The Defence Minister of India is conferring an honorary degree to Kavignar Vairamuthu named by 9 women so far for having molestedthem.
Just reiterating — outing KNOWN molesters does NO damage to them. Instead I got banned from working.
Yes, I know this doctorate is for his prowess in the language which is well established.
The way he went on, they might as well add a doctorate for being a serial molester. Also well done, SRM. You couldn’t have chosen a better example for your students on ‘Role Model’”, wrote the singer in her social media.
Besides Chinmoyi, many prominent persons including Prof R Vaidyanathan of the Indian Institute of Management from across the country asked the union minister to keep off from the convocation ceremony.
TR Parivendhar, MP who is the chancellor of the University himself was in the eye of a storm following disclosure by nearly hundred students that they were cheated of Rs 90 crore by his university offering seats for MBBS course. He was in Chennai Central Prison for three months and the case is yet to be resolved.