Reacting to the recent controversy surrounding the religious identity of King Rajaraja I of the Chola dynasty, Tamil Nadu BJP president K. Annamalai on Saturday said Hinduism as a way of life had existed for millennia.
Addressing party cadre online from the U.S., where he is on a visit, he said the claim by a section of people that there were only religions like Saivism and Vaishnavism in the past and Hinduism came into existence only after the arrival of the British was wrong.
Referring to the famous address of Swami Vivekananda in Chicago, Mr. Annamalai said Hinduism was a way of life. He said the British, who could not comprehend the diversity in the way of worship and the deities in the Hindu way of life, tried to understand it by defining it as a Hindu religion. He said the word ‘Hindu’ was found in the accounts of travellers like Megasthenes and Al-Biruni, besides many ancient Hindu religious texts. To a question on the recent allegation against some Ministers of the ruling DMK for making ‘patronising’ and ‘arrogant’ speeches, he said this was the true face of the DMK and people were getting to know this now because of the prevalence of social media and mobile phones.
Terming the bureaucracy in the State to be the finest in the country, he alleged that the DMK ministers were, however, ‘incapable’ of effectively guiding the bureaucrats to put the State on the path of further development.
