P.T.R. Palanivel Thiagarajan, the Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu who had earlier called Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev a ‘publicity hound’ and a ‘charlatan’ in an interview to The Hindu has once again gone on to provoke the Yoga icon by calling him names.
Digging up an old tweet of Sadhguru that was posted years ago, Palanivel Thiagarajan resorted to taking jibes in bad taste.
Sadhguru in June 2015 had tweeted that Hindu is a geographical identity and implied that every living being born in this land is Hindu.
Palanivel Thiagarajan, who is supposed to be busy preparing the budget for the state, posted a screenshot of this tweet and wrote in his caption “Multi-DIMENSION-al” charlatan.
He wrote that the word ‘Hindu’ refers to a religion and faith and not the geography unlike claimed by Sadhguru.
Africa = Continent
India = Country, Republic (assuming “this land” implied India)
Hindu = Religion, FaithElephant = Vertebrate, Mammal
Earthworm = Terrestrial InvertebrateCharlatan = a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill
Multi-DIMENSION-al Charlatan pic.twitter.com/QhXkhHR5Qe
— Dr P Thiaga Rajan (PTR) (@ptrmadurai) June 30, 2021
While the current usage of the term ‘Hindu’ refers to the identity of a person who consider themselves to be adhering to the cultural, and religious aspects of Hinduism, historically, the term was a geographical identifier to denote people living in the Indian sub-continent across the Indian side of the Sindhu River. For the Persians, ‘Sindhu’ became ‘Hindu’ which has since acquired various facets.
While many DMK sympathizers on the Minister’s timeline can be seen appreciating him for this tweet for provoking Sadhguru, others commented saying that the supposedly ‘highly educated and accomplished’ Minister lacked even basic knowledge of history.
The word Hindu is actually geographical identity referring to Land of river sindhu or the Indus river later religion practiced by the people of that land called Hinduism. pic.twitter.com/u2POwyuaIk
— Nrusimhan Seshadri (@Nrusimhan1) June 30, 2021
Palaniel Thiagarajan has been making headlines for matters unrelated to the portfolio ever since he became Finance Minister. He has made a number of contentious statements against different public personalities and later issuing statements to clarify his position.
Very recently, he had unleashed abuses and made personal attacks on Coimbatore South BJP MLA Vanathi Srinivasan who had called out the former for insulting Goa during the 43rd GSR Council meeting. Before that, he had picked fight with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev over the latter’s demand for freeing temples from state control. This had led to spat with two other public personalities namely former Infosys director Mohandas Pai and The Hindu’s Malini Parthasarathy.
Many on social media say that the Finance Minister keeps boasting about himself and his family and acts like a troll to whoever disagrees with his point of view.
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