On Wednesday, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya, many people in Tamil Nadu took to Twitter to talk about Ravana. Hashtags #LandOfRavana, #LandOfRavan and #TamilPrideRavana began trending on Twitter since morning.
Demon king Ravana, the antagonist in Ramayan who abducted Sita, was hailed by many Twitter users in Tamil Nadu. The Tamil version of Ramayan, known as Kamba Ramayanam (Ramavataram), believed to be penned by poet Kambar eulogizes Ravana for his valour and courage. The tweets too praised Ravana, his prowess, his valour, and had pictures of the demon king with his ten heads.
A few tweets even had the old videos of late chief minister M. Karunanidhi in which he is heard asking, “Who is Ram? Was he an engineer? There is no historical evidence to say that Ram existed or he was an engineer.” Karunanidhi had made these comments in 2007, during a huge rally opposing Ram Setu, which was believed to have been built by Lord Ram across Palk Strait.
Twitter saw at least 23,000 mentions and 33,000 tweets on Ravana. “LordofRavanan is trending on Twitter, When the whole country is silently witnessing the circus. There is still a group of committed hearts down south who will fight the injustice to the end,” wrote former IAS officer Sashikantk Senthil on Twitter.
Tamilians on Twitter had been against the national trend many times. It may be recalled that it was the Tamil Twitter which went to trend hashtag GoBackModi in 2018 when Modi was in Chennai to launch open the Defence Expo then.