For 76 days in a row, in self-imposed solitary confinement in a small thatched hut in the Desabandu ground of Virudhunagar district, Tamil stalwart Sankaralinganar fasted to death to focus attention on renaming Madras as Tamil Nadu. To him, like many others, imposed nomenclatures struck at the socio-culture and political roots of a people. Seeman-led Tamil Nationalist party -Naam Tamilar Katchi will rekindle the flame of Tamil nationalism on 13 October in Chennai to mark the 75th martyrdom anniversary of Thiru Sankaralinganar and also to pass on the legacy of Tamil heroes to the next generation, amidst ethnic nationalities and regional identities from other parts of the Indian subcontinent. WSN reports.

STAUNCH TAMILIST AND INDIAN FREEDOM FIGHTER THIRU SANKARALINGANAR of the Virudunagar district of Tamil Nadu, who was imprisoned for six months in Tiruchirappalli (Trichy) for his involvement in the independence movement had constantly urged the Congress party to fulfil his 12-point agenda, the prime demand of which was to rename the erstwhile ‘Madras State’ as ‘Tamil Nadu’.

As no political body responded affirmatively, he resorted to the last weapon of Satyagraha, launching an indefinite hunger strike in Virudunagar on July 27, 1956.  78-year-old Thiru Sankaralinganar even wrote to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chief Minister Kamaraj, but to no avail.  Though his demand was unfulfilled, political leaders of the 1940s  -Chief Minister K. Kamaraj, P. Kakkan, DMK founder, leader C.N. Annadurai, Communist party leader P. Ramamurthi, Jeevanandam, and M.P. Sivagnanam (MaPoSi) persuaded him to give up the fast, which he relented and passed away at a Madurai hospital on 13 October 1956.  

On October 14, 1956, The Sunday Standard (the Sunday edition of The Indian Express) described the last hours of Sankaralinganar in a report, saying, “He demanded that Madras State should be renamed Tamil Nadu, criticized the lavish expenditure by high dignitaries and wanted the lot of political sufferers improved.” 

“On October 10, 1956, Sankaralinganar was forcibly taken to the Erskine Hospital in Madurai by the authorities only upon his relatives’ request. He was unconscious when he was taken to the hospital and put under treatment at the Madurai Medical College. He was given glucose injections on the first day of his admission and milk and fruit juice on the second day.”

“Though he regained consciousness, he was very weak and died this morning. A large crowd gathered at the hospital here on hearing the news of his death”, the report read. 

Sankaralinganar willed his body to be given to the Communists to bury in a place where Gandhi had stayed during his last visit to Virudunagar. 

It took 12 years after his demise for Sankaralinganar’s demand for a name change to be fulfilled, when the DMK changed Madras to Tamil Nadu, following which the Union government adopted a bill to legalise it in 1968.