Chennai: Periyar Self Respect Propaganda Institution has moved Madras high court seeking ₹1 crore in damages against the authors of a book on delimitation, alleging that they have wrongly attributed certain statements to Periyar in the publication.Admitting the plea on Friday, Justice Govindarajan Thilakavadi directed the authors of the book Gautam R Desiraju, Deekhit Bhattacharya, and publisher BluOne Ink Pvt Ltd, Noida to respond to the suit by Sept 9.According to K Veeramani, president of Dravidar Kazhagam and secretary of the institution, the book titled ‘Delimitation and State Reorganisation for Better Democracy in Bharat’ contains false claims that Periyar had advocated the elimination of Brahmins.Veeramani said that the authors have claimed to have reproduced a passage from an English book titled ‘Collected Works of Periyar’ published in 1981, while factually no such statement was there in the compilation. “It is an intentional, willful, malicious statement made by the authors, which is not only defamatory, but also attracts criminal prosecution,” he said.At no point in his life did Periyar advocate violence or hatred against any community. The manufactured quotation reflects a deliberate attempt by the authors to promote propaganda aligned with contemporary political narratives, falsely attributing them to ‘Collected Works of Periyar’, he said.He added that the actions of the authors are nothing but propaganda material advanced to satisfy the unconstitutional programs of the ruling BJP govt. Therefore, he wanted the court to direct the authors and publisher to remove the alleged defamatory content from the book and ban the publication.
