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

Viduthalai-2 film by Vetrimaran revisits the Naxalbari movement in Tamil Nadu through the story of Pulavar Kaliyaperumal.

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).

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.

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.