In an interview with Sun News, while responding to a question on why he does not promote Periyar as much as he promotes Ambedkar, film director Pa Ranjith said, “My maternal grandfather, VC Panchatsaaram, is a Periyarist and pro-ADMK. It was only through him I knew about Periyar. But my father is a staunch DMK supporter. His body was dressed in red-black veshti and covered with the DMK flag when he died. Even my brother is in DMK now.”
He went on, “During the time when I failed my 12th class, I watched the movie Paraasakthi with my grandfather. One of the main reasons I became an atheist was because of that movie. Despite being a Karunanidhi critic, my grandfather appreciated the film very much. In this context, I’ve seen Periyar several times in my house, but I’ve never seen Ambedkar anywhere.”
He further went on to add,”It was through APLF (Ambedkar People’s Liberation Front) Poovai Murthy who promoted Ambedkar’s words and efforts in my locality as well as throughout Thiruvallur district. Due to his efforts, I got interested in knowing about Ambedkar from my childhood. We began to admire Ambedkar for coming from such a social background and writing the Indian Constitution. What Nehru and Gandhi could not do, Ambedkar did by completing Barr at Law in London. He serves as a role model to us.”
He explained why he liked Jesus so much by saying, “I saw a movie about Jesus in which he was portrayed as a normal human who performed divine acts. It hurt me to watch Jesus Christ crucified. I got connected to him in my childhood upon seeing that he bears the sins and sorrows of others. After that, the other person who I got connected to was Babasaheb Ambedkar.”
He further said, “I began to admire Ambedkar after learning about the societal rejection he endured. But mainstream cinema has not projected Ambedkar like they have projected Periyar. Hence I started projecting Ambedkar in all my movies. Even before the movies, I started promoting Ambedkar to my friends and colleagues. I don’t have any criticism of Periyar but since no one has ever talked about Ambedkar, I started talking about him in my films”
(With inputs from Sun News)
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