Memorandum Submitted to
Dr. Subramanian Swamy Rajya Sabha MP &
Indu Makkal Katchi President
Sri Arjunsampath
Keezhadi Excavations: Weapon for Dravidian Secessionism
Respected Dr. Subramanian Swamy ji,
We submit this memorandum to you for your kind attention in the context of emerging global controversies on Keezhadi, an archaeological site near Madurai in Tamil Nadu . Keezhadi located in the Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu. It was excavated by Archaeological Survey of India under supervision of Amarnath Ramakrishna.
On October 2019, Tamil Nadu State Minister for Tamil Language and Culture, K Pandiarajan, termed the Keezhadi’s heritage “Bharatham’s civilization”. His remark was virulently opposed by Madurai Central DMK MLA PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan who asked how the findings dating back 2600 years could be representative of nationhood formed just 70 years ago and will never accept the idea of India (Keezhadi excavations open age-old debate of Aryans vs Dravidians in The New Indian Express, Oct., 27, 2019).Thiagarajan’s observations are associated with Father Gasper Raj accused by FBI, who
patronizes Keezhadi..
It was reported in Frontline that “On September 24, 2016, Father Jegath Gaspar Raj, founder of an organization called ‘Tamil Maiyam’ and who had organised Sangam 4, a 10-day festival in August 2016 that focused on Madurai’s history, culture and tradition, visited Keezhadi along with Kanimozhi, an advocate. Amarnath Ramakrishna took them around and showed them the trenches”. (Keezhadi treasures caught in a swirl, T.S. Subramanian, Frontline, Jan., 20, 2017)
Fr. Gaspar Raj, Kanimozhi and Keezhadi excavator K. Amarnath Ramakrishna charted out the program. Kanimozhi who is also coordinator of Gaspar Raj’s NGO, Tamil Maiyam, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court with the prayer that the ASI should not be allowed to take the artefacts to Karnataka and that it should not be allowed to close the trenches dug at Keezhadi. In their interim order, the judges restrained the ASI from closing the trenches and shifting the artefacts to any place outside Sivaganga district.
Keezhadi’s patriarch, Fr. Gaspar Raj is officially referred in US crime records as ‘Gaspar Raj Maria Paulian’. Senior national security strategist, Douglas C. Lovelace Jr., Esq., in Terrorism Documents of International and Local Control, Academic, OUP, Vol. 91 (2008) alleged that between 2003 and August 2006, individuals including Gaspar Raj Maria Paulian, Nachimuthu Socrates, Fnu Lnu, and Vijayashanthar Patpanathan were “involved in multiple criminal activities in support of LTTE, a Sri Lankan group designated by the US state department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization”.
Domestic Security and Intelligence analyst, Siobhan O’ Neil, in Terrorist Precursor Crimes: Issues and Options for Congress (2007) pointed out Gaspar Raj’s LTTE connections. Neil stated that Gaspar Raj Maria Paulian along with others such as Nachimuthu Socrates “have conspired to remove LTTE from US state department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list”. Similar charges were made by James J. Tareco, Special Agent of FBI, against Gaspar Raj, Nachimuthu Socrates and others, in 2006, at the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York.
Gaspar Raj was also actively associated with S.P. Udayakumar, Coordinator of the People’s Movement against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), who led protests against the commissioning of the Indo-Russian Nuclear Power Plant at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu (Kudankulam protesters disallow PM Manmohan Singh’s envoy to speak, The Economic Times, Sept. 21., 2011).
In 2010, the CBI raided Karunanidhi and his family in connection with the 2G scam. The media reported that, “the biggest, most prominent raid in Chennai could very well be that of Father Jegath Gaspar Raj, a Catholic priest and the head of the NGO, Tamil Maiyam, on whose board both he and Kanimozhi officiate. A source said the CBI questioned Gaspar Raj on the source of the NGO’S funding and its income” (2G scam: CBI raids rattle Karuna family, India Today, Dec., 16, 2010).
Gaspar Raj keeps close ties with Keezhadi excavator K. Amarnath Ramakrishna. This archaeological-criminal nexus with separatists abroad, unheard of in the history of Indian archaeology, needs investigation by central government agencies..
The enthusiasm shown by Amarnath Ramakrishna in supporting Gaspar Raj and Kanimozhi for filing a PIL to keep excavated artefacts at Keezhadi has to be understood. In 2016, the ASI began a probe into alleged financial irregularities and also unscientific approaches adopted by the KCHR at Pattanam.
Amarnath Ramakrishna who was superintendent archaeologist of ASI, Bengaluru circle was appointed to conduct an inquiry on Pattanam and KCHR. (ASI probe into KCHR’s ‘Pattanam excavations’, Business Standard, Jan. 5, 2016). His findings are not known, but Amarnath Ramakrishna later took up the Keezhadi excavations. Possibly, he prepared a report favorable for left and church historians to prove the historicity of Apostle Thomas.
Zealous efforts are on to make Pattanam a satellite site of Keezhadi. R. Sivanantham, deputy director, Tamil Nadu state department of archaeology, officially facilitated a lecture on
Pattanam by its excavator, P.J. Cherian at Chennai. Cherian claimed that the excavated material from Pattanam and Keezhadi are similar and hence there is a brotherhood (Pattanam, Keezhadi excavated materials similar, says expert, Deccan Chronicle, Oct. 31, 2018).
NGOs in Tamil Nadu have direct access to excavated artefacts. P.J. Cherian runs an NGO named ‘PAMA’, and through its new project, ‘Rediscovering the ancient sites in Tamilakam’, he links Pattanam, Keezhadi and Kodumanal sites in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. He claims he “had an on-hand documentation of excavated materials from many archaeological sites under the custody of Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department” (Do ancient Tamilakam sites deserve rediscovery, The Times of India, Nov 30, 2018).
Gaspar Raj’s NGO, Tamil Maiyam, which includes Catholic priests such as Lourdu Anandam and Vincent Chinnadurai, filed a PIL demanding that the Keezhadi artefacts should not be transferred to Karnataka for study. Such demands show that these NGOs have, or find ways to have direct access to excavated artefacts from these sites to manipulate them conveniently to determine the past.
NGOs operating out of Tamil Nadu received the maximum foreign funding of about Rs.547 crore in 2013-14, according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (T.N. NGOs received maximum foreign funds in 2013-14’, The Hindu, Nov., 26, 2014).
Mathew Cherian, Chairperson of Voluntary Action Network India says southern states top in foreign funding due to presence of Christian organizations (Foreign funds pour in; 3,000 Ngo’s get over Rs. 22,000 cr., The Hindu, Aug. 3, 2016). NGOs in Tamil Nadu got significant percentage of funding, with maximum of 33% flowing in from USA (Rajnath Singh launches online tool to monitor foreign-funded NGOs, The Economic Times, Jan. 2, 2018).
The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court permitted the ASI on November 24, 2016 to shift the finds at Keezhadi to its chemistry branch headquarters in Dehradun or any other
laboratory in the country. The judges based their decision on ASI Director General Rakesh Tewari’s submission that “all the required examination of the excavated materials cannot be carried out” at the ASI’s chemistry laboratory in Chennai because it “is not equipped with the necessary and advanced facilities for proper examination and analysis” of the artefacts’ (More excavation only after report in Frontline, Jan., 20, 2017).
The delay in submitting reports to ASI on Keezhadi excavations by Amarnath Ramakrishna obstructed granting of excavation license and funds for third field season, a fact concealed by the excavator and NGOs. Asked in 2017 whether the ASI would give Amarnath Ramakrishna the license to excavate for the third field season, the Director General said: “The license for the third year will be given after the completion of the documentation of the excavation and the artefacts found during the first two years. Otherwise, the report never comes (More excavation only after report, Frontline, Jan. 20, 2017).
Later, ASI Director General Rakesh Tewari clarified that Keezhadi excavator Amarnath Ramakrishna had submitted only “brief” and “sketchy” reports about the first two years. Permission would be given to him after he wrote “a detailed report” (Keezhadi dig to continue, Frontline, March 17, 2017).
We accuse that the Advisory Committee of ASI has influential persons such as Prof.K.Rajan of Tamil University, Tanjavur who helps the Keezhadi episode.ASI is under the Union Ministry of Culture, Government of India.
The ASI has recently granted license to P.J.Cherian’s Ngo PAMA to excavate Mathilakam in Kerala under its Ancient Tamilakam Project. Professor Istvan Perczel of Central European University controlled by multi millionaire leftist George Soros, is associated with this project . Controversies started after Amarnath Ramakrishna was transferred to Guwahati circle of ASI. The Left parties, grateful to Amarnath Ramakrishna for
salvaging the scandalous Pattanam excavations in Kerala, protested (CPI-M) flays Centre’s direction on Keezhadi excavations, The Hindu, Oct. 6, 2018). After controversies erupted on Keezhadi, currently, the Tamil Nadu State department is conducting Keezhadi excavations.
In April 2018, the Federation of Tamil Sangams in North America (FeTNA) invited Amarnath Ramakrishna to deliver a lecture on the Keezhadi excavations. The ASI denied him permission to participate as guest of honor at this event, possibly because FeTNA publicly supported the cause of ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils in the Sri Lankan civil war.
Commenting on Tamil groups in Sri Lanka, Gaspar Raj unambiguously stated in an interview that, “We had a homeland and we have a homeland, and we will have the right for a homeland, since we have our own history, language, culture and way of living, and hence have the right to self-determination” (Tamil Eelam not a lost cause: Fr. Jegath Gaspar, TamilNet, Nov. 3, 2009). FeTNA has honoured Gaspar Raj for Christianizing Tamil culture.
The tenth World Tamil Conference, mainly sponsored by FeTNA, was held in July 2019 at Chicago. Its central theme was “Keezhadi nam Thai madi” (On our Tamil mother’s lap – Keezhadi excavation), dedicated to Tamil scholar Rev. G.U. Pope on his 200th birth anniversary (10th edition of World Tamil Conference in Chicago from July 4, The New Indian Express, June 26, 2019). Bishop Robert Caldwell launched the Dravidian ideology in Tamil Nadu.
Caldwell was assisted in his Dravidian studies by an array of missionaries such as G.U. Pope, J. Brigel, J. Clay, J. Dawson, E. Diez, F. Kittel, F. Metz, A. Graeter, C. Graul, and H. Gundert.
In this context we request you to do the needful in Keezhadi before it is jointly used as a weapon for secessionism by Dravidian outfits, Church and left parties.
SATHYANARAYAN (9840316449)
IT WING – INDU MAKKAL KATCHI
