Tiruvalluvar’s statue owes its origin to DMK regime’s decision in 1975

The Tiruvalluvar statue in Kanniyakumari, which completed 25 years of its existence on Tuesday (December 31, 2024), owes its genesis to the decision of the DMK regime on the same day exactly 49 years ago.

The Tiruvalluvar statue in Kanniyakumari, which completed 25 years of its existence on Tuesday (December 31, 2024), owes its genesis to the decision of the DMK regime on the same day exactly 49 years ago.

In 1975, the State Cabinet, at its meeting chaired by the then Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, cleared the proposal for installing a 33-foot granite statue atop Minor Rock, about 590 ft west of the imposing Vivekananda Rock Memorial, at the confluence of the three seas in the southern tip of the country.

It was Eknath Ranade who, as the president of the Vivekananda Kendra, had represented to the State government regarding the Tiruvalluvar statue, after which the authorities began taking up preliminary work in 1973. 

The project cost, when cleared by the Cabinet, was a mere ₹10 lakh. To be mounted on a 42-ft pedestal, the statue would be installed on the Minor Rock, about 30 ft. above the sea level, according to a report of The Hindu on January 1, 1976.

At that time, the DMK regime’s pet project of Valluvar Kottam in Nungambakkam — a ₹99 lakh-monument for the Tamil bard in Chennai — was nearing completion. Sculptor S.K. Achar, who had already designed the Rock Memorial, was engaged for the Kottam work, which was inaugurated by Karunanidhi in September 1974. The architectural pattern of the 101-ft-high Kottam was modelled on the lines of the 96-ft-tall temple car (popularly called Aazhi Ther) of Thyagarajaswamy temple, Tiruvarur. 

However, on January 31, 1976, Karunanidhi’s first tenure (since 1969) came to an end with the imposition of President’s rule in the State and the dissolution of the Assembly. On April 15, 1976, the then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed declared open the Kottam. The former Chief Minister had nursed a grievance till the end that he was not invited to the inauguration.

The next three years saw little activity with regard to the statue project. However, it was left to Karunanidhi’s successor and bête noire, M.G. Ramachandran, to revive the project. On April 15, 1979, the then Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who laid the foundation stone for the project, wished the statue had been erected earlier. Even at that time, the idea of building a bridge, connecting the Vivekananda Rock and the proposed Tiruvalluvar statue rock, was mooted.