Following Tuesday’s landmark verdict by the Madras High Court which dismissed a petition seeking criminal proceedings against him, eminent Tamil author Perumal Murugan has said he would take up the pen again and start writing. Murugan, author of the celebrated Tamil novel Madhorubhagan had declared last year in a social media posting that he was giving up writing as some fringe caste groups took cudgels against him for some references
about Thruchengode village in Tamil Nadu.
A group of people claiming to be the residents of the village had approached the High Court with a plea to initiate criminal proceedings against the author for allegedly hurting the sentiments of the villagers and the local residents. The First Bench of Madras High Court consisting of chief justice SK Kaul and justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana on Tuesday dismissed the petitions and ruled that the freedom of expression of authors and artists should be fully protected. “The choice to read is always with the reader. If you do not like a book, throw it away,” the judges said in their ruling.
Wednesday saw Perumal Murugan, who has been a reclusive for the last one year issuing a statement hailing the verdict and expressing his happiness. “The judgment gives me much happiness. It comforts a heart that had shrunk itself and had wilted. I am trying to prop myself up holding on to the light of the last lines of the judgment; let the author be resurrected to what he is best at. Write. I will get up. It is just that my mind wishes to spend a little time in the joy of this moment. My thanks to friends who stood by me. My thanks also to friends who stood against me,” Murugan said in the release.
last year, taken aback by the attitude of some of the caste groups and the local district administration who forced him to sign a “peace treaty” dictated by officials of the district collectorate, Murugan had penned down his literary obituary and announced that he would not write again. Thanks to the CPI(M) promoted Tamil Nadu Progressive Writers and Artists Association, who took up the cudgels for the writer, Tamil Nadu got back its leading literary figure.
While Perumul Murugan got justice, another celebrated Tamil novelist in Chennai is waiting for justice for more than two years. Josephine Jayashanthi, who won many prestigious awards for her novels and an equally respected writer has been dismissed from loyola College in Chennai citing flimsy reasons. The charge against her is that she complained to the management about sexual advances made by one of the college higher-ups. Though a committee which probed her complaint concluded that she has been mistreated, the college management threw her out of job under some false charges. Though Jayashanthi had approached the Madras High Court with her woes, she is yet to get justice. “The college management claims that since it is a minority establishment, nothing could be done against them,” Jayashanthi told The Pioneer.