: The name Krishna Jinnah is like forced fusion, if we were to use a term from the realm of music. Sixty five years ago, advocate Krishna Pillai, who was also the president of the Dravidar Kazhagam of Kanniyakumari district, named his son after Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, ostensibly in an effort to achieve syncretism in troubled times.
“My father was a rationalist and when it was a fashion to have names like Gandhi, Jawahar and Bose, he decided to go ahead with the name Jinnah. I added my father’s name Krishna and Krishna Jinnah became my official name though I was known as Jinnah in school and college,” said Krishna Jinnah, an advocate from Nagercoil.
Asked whether he still subscribed to the atheist ideology of Periyar, Mr. Jinnah said he had moved away from it long ago.
Tamil Nadu, which was at the forefront of the independence, communist and social reforms movements, witnessed their impact percolating into families, and parents named their children after the leaders they followed. Leaders of the Dravidian movement changed their original names to assume new names that would not only be Tamil but would also sound secular. Thus, K. Ramaiya became K. Anbazhagan; Narayanasamy became V.R. Nedunchezhiyan; and Thiyagaraya Sundaram became Murasoli Maran. Many Dravidar Kazhagam followers named their sons after Ravanan, the king of Sri Lanka, to express their opposition to Rama.
Writer A. Marx, who is another person to have felt the impact of his name and remembers it well to recount it, says, “My father Anthonysamy, known as Ramdoss in communist circles, was one of the founding members of the Malaysian communist party and named me after Marx.”
He had no clue that the famous name he bore would turn against him while seeking admission in college. “I applied for the PUC course at St. Joseph College, Tiruchi. But the Principal denied me a seat saying that a Catholic could not afford to have the name Marx, the founder of an atheist ideology. I was forced to join King Sefoji College in Thanjavur,” said Mr. Marx.
A hydra-headed problem
Similar trouble befell R. Ravanan, former Additional Director of the Information Department. “I sought admission in American College in Madurai. The principal refused to give me a seat as I had been named after an a sura ,” recalled Mr. Ravanan, whose father Rangasamy was a follower of Dravidar Kazhagam founder Periyar and later joined the DMK.
Fortunately for him, Avvai Duraisamy Pillai, the principal of Thyagaraya College in Madurai, gave a letter of recommendation to Va. Suba Manickam, the principal of the Azhagappa College in Karaikudi. “He hugged me and gave me seat in the Tamil department,” said Mr. Ravanan, who decided to become a believer when he was 23. Today, only his big moustache justifies the name Ravanan.
In Kanniyakumari district, a local communist leader Manickam named his son AKG, a take off on just the initials of A.K. Gopalan, and his daugter Ajitha, after the well-known naxalite leader.
“When late writer Kuthoosi Gurusami requested Periyar to name his daughter, he named her Russia. People wondered whether he could name a person after a place. A nonchalant Periyar asked them what was wrong with Russia if people could have names such as Chidambaram, Palani, Kuttalam and Virudhachalam,” recalled Kali Poonguntran, the general secretary of the Dravidar Kazhagam.
Even DMK treasurer M.K. Stalin was named after Russia’s strongman Joesph Stalin. Mr. Karunanidhi said he decided to name him so because he was born on the day Stalin died.
He was also denied admission in Church Park on the ground that he had a communist name. He later joined the MCC school.
