Iraniyan Allathu Inayattra Veeran – a nefariously hateful Dravidian retelling of Narasimha Avataram

In the new 2022 book The Rule of the Commoner – DMK and the formation of the political in Tamilnadu 1947-1967, Cambridge University Press – Rajan Kurai Krishnan the principal author interprets the play இரணியன் அல்லது இணையற்ற வீரன் “Hiranyakashipu the matchless hero” to an English speaking audience.

I was quite shocked to read how he wielded considerable word skills to appear to discuss the plot of the play but never touching the vile and vulgar anti-brahmin hate propaganda that underlies the play. The author plays down the techniques of the play simply as a Non Brahmin Dravidian response to “Aryan Brahmins re-narrating ordinary events with infusion of supernatural elements”.

The reality is only known to Tamil anti-Dravidians like myself who actually read the original play in Tamil. The play has very little to do with the Hiranyakashipu Prahaladan or Narasimha avataram. The play spreads vile narratives about the guile of Tamil Brahmins who use their women to deploy sexual seduction techniques. This followed by a screed of repeating the usual Anti-Brahmin canards in Act after Act. The anti-Brahmin is not even subtle or insidiously placed as you would find in the Nazi film Jud Suss (1940).

Follow me as I show you what the Play was actually about and the centrality of the play in Dravidian ideology.

Iraniyan allathu inayattra veeran ( இரணியன் அல்லது இணையற்ற வீரன் ) 1934 ; The Matchless Hero Hiranyakashipu

This play was a watershed moment in the Anti-Brahmin / Non-Brahmin movement. Those who are curious about the ideological foundations of the remarkably resilient “Dravidian Movement” never bother to stop and seek to see the sources. This play is one of the fundamental sources of the Dravidian movements argumentation.

This play was first staged on 9-9-1934 in front of Mr. E.V. Ramaswamy “Periyar” in VP Hall in Chennai. This play was written by one of the leading intellectuals of the Dravidian movement Bharathidasan (Mr Kanaka Subburathinam). There is a University named after him today. However, the play was conceived and produced by Mr S. Gurusamy Mudaliar “Kuthoosi”. One of the most energetic , prolific, and creative producer of Anti-Brahmin material in my opinion. From 1927 to 1965 Mr S. “Kuthoosi” Gurusamy wrote over 5000 essays drilling the same canards and accusations in ever different ways. His influence on Barathidasan was considerable.

Mr S. “Kuthoosi” Gurusamy himself played the title role. The supporters and cast features the who’s who of the Non-Brahmin Educated Tamil elite of that era. The play was screened in front of leading intellectuals such as K.M. Balasubramaniam, T.Sambandam, T.N.Raman. It was also staged in front of P.T.Rajan. Mylai Seeni Venkatasami (Naidu) raved about the play as “unsurpassed” for its content tailored to the underclass to rouse their passions.

Before we look into the play – we need to understand the Prahalathan story that is the Narasimha Avataram story.

Narasimha Avatar and the story of Prahalathan

A quick recap of the story of Prahalathan (Prahalad) is in order here for completeness of this article. In my view the Narasimha avatar is one of the most philosophically profound stories in all of Hindu texts.

Narasimha Avatar is the story of the supreme Lord manifesting as a half-lion half-man to put an end to the tyranny of the narcisstic King Hiranyakashipu.

It goes like this. A narcissistic King does great penance to Lord Brahma and obtains a boon. That he cannot be killed in Day or Night, by Man or Beast, indoors or outdoors, by metal or by wood, on earth or on sky, and so forth. Sounds like he has plygged all the holes ! He has a young son by name of Prahalad who is a devotee of Lord Narayana. He refuses to obey his fathers various laws in his Kingdom. Laws were put in place where the people were forced to worship him and the sole God. Various attempts to reform Prahalad failed. Things move towards a spectacular showdown. The King Hiranyan demands to know where the Lord Narayana is – to that the child Prahalathan says “he is everywhere even in this pillar”. It a fit of rage the King kicks the pillar setting in motion the fearsome manifestation of the Narasimha Avatar. All the boons obtained by the King from Lord Brahma are nullified as the fearsome Lion-Man who is neither man nor beast, grabs the King and places him across his thighs neither earth nor sky, plunges his nails – neither metal nor wood – in the twilight. Neither day nor night. Many have expounded on the philosophical and psychological aspects of this remarkable story.

In fact the great Tamil poet Kamban goes one step ahead of the others in describing the scene. In one of the famous verses of the Kamba Ramayanam he goes

“சாணினும் உளன்; ஓர் தன்மை, அணுவினைச்
சத கூறு இட்ட கோணினும் உளன்; மா மேருக் குன்றினும் உளன் ;
இந் நின்ற தூணினும் உளன்; நீ சொன்ன சொல்லினும் உளன் ;

In response to his fathers demand to know where this Lord exists Prahalathan says “He lives in the span of a hand, also in that tiniest of particles that is a result of split the tinest of particles into a hundred parts, he is in Meru mountain, in this pillar and also in the words that you just spoke” Surreal Kamban! I say this to indicate that the legend of Prahalathan is deep in Tamil psyche for millenia. This is not something recently infused that the Dravidian Anti-Tamil-Brahmin vanguards sought to demolish. They want to rollback to a checkpoint 2500 yrs ago, not merely 200 years. In the process they steamroll and destroy all that is worthy in Tamil such as Kamban.

Lets move on to the actual play.

Kamba Ramayanam 6312 – a famous verse

The plot of Iraniyan .. Chitrabanu the Aryan Brahmin (TB) seductress

As per the lore, Prahalathan was merely a 5 year old boy. The first thing the elite Dravidian playwrights did was to ignore this. It is hard to overlay a story of female seduction on a boy. This is a feature on can observe in Dravidian arguments to this day. An appeal to the prurient. They figured out quite correctly early on that the uneducated masses could not be presented a nuanced or logical narration. The vulgar and the prurient mixed with vile stereotyping of an identifiable group would serve the purpose.

Enter the real protagonist of Iraniyan. A fictional seductress named Chitrabanu. The main character.

The story goes like this.

Hiranyan was a just Dravidian king who believed in self respect. In preparation for his coronation he sends Prahalathan to visit neighboring kingdoms to learn the systems in place there. Accompanying the prince is his Tamizh Brahmin schoolmate and close friend Kangeyan. While taking rest in a beautiful garden the friends come across a damsel in distress Chitrabanu. Using her beauty and sweet talk she makes Prahalathan fall in love with her. The prince is then secretly married by the Aryan Brahmin clan leader and Chitrabanu’s father Gajaketu.

The prince Prahalathan is blissfully unaware of the treacherous ways of the Aryan Tamil Brahmins. In reality, the beautiful Tamizh Brahmin woman Chitrabanu is the sister of his close friend. The brother and father deployed the beauty to ensnare the prince. The friend pretends to not even know his own sister. True to the nature, the women has also seduced the commander of the King Hinranyakashipu.

Meanwhile there is turmoil in the Kingdom as Aryan Brahmins (Tamizh Brahmins) have waylaid the highway and are raising slogans in praise of their Lord and putting down the Dravidian. The enraged king orders mass arrest of all and issues various orders to punish them. Such a gouging out the eyes, chopping the hand, beheading, etc. The Tamizh Brahmin (Aryan) seductress Chitrabanu who has also entrapped the Dravidian commander in her beauty, manages to free all of the convicts.

On the day of the coronation, the prince Prahalathan revolts and mentions the name Lord Narayana. Guided by Chitrabanu in mans clothing. The enraged King Hiranyakashipu gives the boy a day to recant. This leads to the final act where all the actors are mixed up in a chaotic melee. Prahalathan says the Lord Narayana is also in the pillar , then he kicks the pillar and out jumps a clown wearing a Lion costume. He is none other than the brother of Chitrabanu ,the student Brahmin friend of the prince. The King laughs at the clown and kicks him hard. The costume flies and the brother dies. The king haughtily asks in a Punch Dialog “If I kick the Pillar – Narayana appears, If I kick Narayana will a pillar appear”!

Then a scuffle ensues as the cowardly brahmin crowd stabs the King from the back. He dies, The Dravidian queen commits suicide. The commander on seeing Chitrabanu weeping for her brother finds a note. He discovers he is being two timed by Chitrabanu and Prahalathan. He stabs Prahalathan who dies. Then he commits suicide.

Play in acts

Now plays are not narrated in the way I just described the parts. The dialogs, songs, emotions, costumes, and the way they are delivered are the key to reaching inside the audience’s minds. Now let us see actual dialogues and songs from the play. You can see that the play itself is only a vehicle to transmit vile Anti-Tamizh-Brahmin thoughts and seed them deep into the Tamil working classes.

Since they are in Tamil,let me translate them for you.

Disambiguation of Aryan as Brahmin. A redirection technique.

For a hate propaganda to work the disgusting evil has to be traced to an actual contemporary proximate living group. Aryan does not sufficiently do that. Are Mudaliars or Naidus or Vellalas Aryans ? Are they talking about Trump, Biden , Churchill, Napolean as Aryan. Or even Nehru, Rahul Gandhi , Sachin Pilot. Of course not.

So while the play uses Aryan in most places there is a clear disambiguation provided in the first act itself when the treacherous friend Kangeyan introduces himself as a timid Aryan Brahmin.

Aryan clearly disambiguated as Brahmin by Kangeyan. That makes his sister a Tamizh Brahmin too.

Our bravery is to use women to seduce

In the act where the secret marriage of Prahalathan takes place with Chitrabanu, the play features a dance to this song.

Drunken Aryans.. spreading web of seduction is our bravery !

The song says “to spread the web of sexual seduction is our bravery” , “after drinking the soma rasa – there are no relations” ; This is a way to seed a stereotype of the Aryan (redirected from Tamizh Brahmin) as a promiscuous drunken rave community who use their women. Chitrabanu’s own father does not think twice about deploying his daughter in such a sleazy double affair seduction. Neither her brother who uses his sister to seduce his friend.

Dogs .. those who fattened themselves

Remember the act where the Dravidian Non-Brahmin Hiranyakashipu sentences loads of Aryans (Brahmins) to various sentences. That is nothing but a stage for propaganda. The propaganda here is to use the mouth of the leader of the Dravidians “Iraniyan” to state his preferred solution to the Brahmin (Aryan) problem.

Dogs.. parasites.. etc..

Daily those who have grabbed and stolen and fattened themselves. These dogs who are sticking to the nation and sucking and blooming.. these dogs.. take a sword and chop off their two arms.

This is how the story so innocuously narrated by the Dravidian interpreter Rajan Kurai Krishnan actually sounded and was taken to the people. Dogs, parasite memes..

Eradicate every root of Aryans from this land ..

In the same act,, the thoughtful Dravidian minister says how to go about dealing with the Aryan (redirected to Brahmin) threat.

Minister : Eradicate to the root all Aryans..

The Minister to the King Hiranyan: At this very moment, we need to eradicate to the root Aryans from this land.

The King concurs : You are right Minister

In the final act, the commander does a monologue. That calls for outright eradication of Tamizh Brahmins from this land and turn the land into “For Tamils only”. Once again keep in mind the redirection technique I explained earlier. Aryan here has been disambiguated. Failing which the actors or support staff can simply whisper into the crowd who they actually mean by Aryans .. it isn’t Churchill or Joe Biden they are talking about.

Eradicate the Aryans !!! Turn Tamilnadu into Land of Tamils !! Do not surrender your brains or your manhood to Aryans !!

Eunuchs.. Cunning foxes.. by birth unmanly.. goes on..

The play attacks Aryans once again a proxy for Tamizh Brahmins as Eunuchs, without male parts, fox crowd..

Without manhood.. you were born in Aryan Fox Group..

You .. Scheming foxes.. eunuchs.. using your cunning you are trying to bring the entire world under your control

You can notice the accusation is eerily similar to Anti-Semitism .. accusing a group of trying to bring the entire world under their control.

Brahmin (Aryan) women f.. multiple partners

The Dravidian-Tamil king informs his people about the qualities of Aryan (i.e. Tamizh Brahmin) women in a fiery monologue thus:

Aryans !! They let one girl have sex with multiple men and they enjoy that also..

Curious sexual elements of Chitrabanu

Since the play is the product of the finest brains of the Non-Brahmin elites, I was pretty sure there would be hidden meanings. One of the curious elements I noticed was the odd behavior of Chitrabanu (the Brahmin seductress of Dravidian Prahalathan and the Commander)

She never really put out !! But she was a tease.

Her tease is carried in a titillating manner in the play itself. Using a Vratam

Denial of physical relationship using some religious excuse

You see Brahmin women are not even proper seductresses rather just teases.

Chitrabanu takes a Viratham (Vrat..) Vow that denies actual sex to both her Dravidian lovers.

During her interaction with the commander, she seduces him with hugs and offers another Kiss. During the most desparate times she even declares her temporary vow of abstinence to be over! In order to save her clan. This is to show the the piety of the Brahmins is bogus. They will discard it in a moment if push comes to shove.

Kisses and hugs ..

I think this is what happens. It is brilliant !

If Chitrabanu was shown as actually marrying and copulating with a Dravidian-Tamil prince. Then it turns the present day Dravidian Non-Brahmin elites into a mixed race. What could be worse than that. You see the lack of logic ! The obvious way would simply be for Chitrabanu to feign Tamil-Dravidian and then marry Prahatlthan and then become the queen. There is no need to murder Hiranyan cause an uproar! But it is irrelevant – the purpose of the play is to transmit the laundry list of vile canards on Tamil Brahmins using the Aryan redirection technique explained above.

The Dravidian-Tamil weakness for fair skin women..

The final part : the Dravidain Queen Lilavathi asks the Dravidian-Tamil King Hiranyakashipu innocently. /i

The Aryans use their women to entrap our young men..

The Queen Lilavathi asks innocently : I am unable to understand why Tamilians are falling for Aryans words !

The King Iranyan (Played by Kuthoosi Gurusamy himself ) would then say : Aryans use their women to entrap young Tamil men. The Aryan women are fair skinned. They go after the Kings using cunning..

Conclusion

The play Iraniyan Allathu Inayatra Veeran is the vilest example of Anti-Tamizh-Brahmin propaganda. This is not merely a random play but a trend setter. Even before C.N. Annathurai used the medium of plays for propaganda Kuthoosi S. Gurusami and Bharathidasan wrote and staged this play all over Tamilnadu. Several of the tropes I find on Tamil social media such as “பெண்களைக் கூட்டிக் கொடுத்தல்” (sending their women) can be traced to this play.

In 1948, the Governement banned this play and the book. The Dravidian interpreter Rajan Kurai Krishnan calls this a ‘repressive measure”. The ban was lifted the moment DMK came into power in 1967.

The play lacks nuance, logic, any philosophical message, or social justice imperative. It is not even true to the original story it wishes to rebuke. The chief trick being the need to turn the five year old child Prahalathan into an adult in order to overlay a amorous story. The chief character is Chitrabanu a completely fictional creation. None of these matter – the Prahalathan story is merely a canvas or a medium to propagate toxic Anti-Brahminism. If not this story, some thing else – just replace your favorite demon say Surapathman. The story can be readily adapted.

In recent years, there is renewed effort to stage this play across Tamilnadu. It has been staged in Cuddalore and other places. The play is available in book format all over the internet. Online the Tamil Virtual University features it. In 2019, The Hindu ran a feature about the renewed push to reintroduce this play.

Moral of this blog : Always double check and triple check the Dravidian English interpreters. Check in Tamil directly.