When politics shook hands with religion in Dravidian soil: Thiruparankundram turmoil and its after-math

The Murugan Bakthargal Aanmeega Maanadu (Murugan Devotees’ Spiritual Conference)that took place in Madurai, Tamil Nadu on June 22, 2025 has successfully garnered theattention of the majority, with the Hindu Munnani boasting around a lakh participants. Butthe genesis of it and what it envisions tells a tale that is unbecoming of the progressivesocial justice model of Tamil nadu, a state steeped in its Dravidian ideology.

The prefix to Murugan Conference

The Murugan Conference was primarily built on the controversy of theThiruparankundram hill, a place of communal harmony which snowballed into acommunal tension as a result of the Hindutva outfits obstructing islamic practice in theregion in December 2024. The right wing extremist group in order to intensify the tensionorchestrated a demonstration in February 2025 in which a senior leader of the BJP, H.Raja said “The first war, like Ayodhya, has already begun at Thiruparankundram which isLord Murugan’s first army camp”, insisting on the relocation of the Dargah to another site.