Today marks the second remembrance day of R. Nagaswamy who passed away in 2022. He was a doyen of South Indian archaeology, epigraphy, and history who passed away on this day in 2022. He was the first person to undertake the archaeological research under the sea at ‘Poompuhar’ in Tamil Nadu, an ancient city lost to the sea. Not only that, but he has also had taken part in activities to preserve ancient inscriptions from the Chola and Chera periods.
However, he will be fondly remembered for the key role he played in bringing back the Chola era bronze Nataraja idol that was stolen from India and sold to a Canadian collector. The lawsuit began in 1986 in a special court in London and ended in 1990 during which the testimony given by R. Nagaswamy in the court was the key to swaying the judgement in favour of India to retain the idol. The judge Ian Kennedy described R. Nagaswamy as an unequalled expert in his subject and an acknowledged expert on Chola bronze sculptures.
The Padma Bhushan award-winning archaeologist rubbed the wrong side of the Dravidian stockists in 2019 when he said that Thirukkural had Vedic roots. This went against the dravidian stock ideology of ‘independent Tamil culture’ which supports their idea of separatism. Hence, the statement was not well received and R. Nagaswamy was on the receiving end of a coordinated attack. DMK Chief MK Stalin demanded the removal of the scholar from a committee of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) for being ‘anti-Tamil’ and ‘distorting Tamil culture and history according to his whim’. He also went on to say that R. Nagaswamy has belittled Thiruvalluvar by claiming that the Thirukkural had its roots in the Vedas. However, R. Nagaswamy was unperturbed by these comments and replied to the DMK Chief in a statement as follows: “It is amusing that Stalin says I have belittled Thirukkural by asserting it was rooted in vedic tradition. This is not just my view, but the views of great scholars before me for the past 1,000 years. Parimelazhagar and other traditional commentators and western scholars … have said in no equivocal terms that Thirukkural has roots in the Vedas.” He further said, “I don’t think Stalin is even aware of 300 years of Tamil historical studies, thereby exposing himself and his ignorance of Tamil language among world Tamil scholars. I suggest he revise his appeal to the Government of India to save himself the embarrassment.”
His passing away was a great loss to Tamil Nadu and PM Modi expressed his condolences in English and Tamil posts on X. DMK MP Kanimozhi posted a condolence message as well, riddled with errors, and re-posted it with corrections.
We are indebted to doyens like R. Nagaswamy who have saved history from malicious distortions and presented it to the current generation as it is.
Symbianian is a freelance writer and a political buff.
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