Thiyagu
| Thiyagu | |
|---|---|
| Born |
30 January 1950 Tamil Nadu, India |
| Occupation |
|
| Spouse | Thamarai |
Thozhar Thiyagu (born 30 January 1950), also known as Comrade Thiyagu, is a social activist, politician, writer from Indian state of Tamil Nadu. He is also the General Secretary of Tamil National Liberation Movement and is well known for his proficiency in Marxist ideology.
The native of comrade Thiyagu is Nallampur, near Chandrasekarapuram. His father worked as a teacher at Thiruvarur. He was born and brought up in Thiruvarur. He grew up listening to the speeches of Periyar, Annadurai, Jeevanantham and Kamaraj at the general meetings held at Thiruvarur. He had a habit of reading all the DMK, Congress and Tamil National journals.
In 1965 his family moved to Valangaiman. There, Comrade Thiyagu joined a typing school where he met Mr. Ameerjohn, who ran the typing school. Ameerjohn, who was against the caste system not only changed Comrade Thiyagu into an Atheist but also influenced his way of thinking. At that time, leaders like Kuthusi Gurusamy who had split up from Periyar's self-respect movement. When Comrade Thiyagu attended the first convention organised by them with Mr. Ameerjohn, they bought books written by Karl Marx and Lenin. It was at this time when, Comrade Thiyagu was first introduced to Marxism.
While Comrade Thiyagu was getting impressed by the thoughts of communist books he was reading, he delivered his first speech at the Indian National Congress general meeting in 1965. Since Congress lost the election held in 1967, National Students’ Tamil Development Team was formed under the motivation from Kamaraj. To speak in its general meeting, Comrade Thiyagu went to Madras for the first time. In that meeting, he spoke out his ideas with clarity and without any fear even though Kamaraj, Kannadasan, Jayakandan and other popular people were present on the stage. This incident impressed Kamaraj and he ordered Comrade Thiyagu to deliver introductory speech wherever the convention was held thereafter.
Comrade Thiyagu who was completely impressed by communist ideology realized that Congress is a bourgeois party and it would never allow communism or equal rights. In an interview published in Liberation, the leader of Naxalite movement and the General Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist), Charu Mazumdar had said "Students have to quit studies, renounce family, and move to villages to create an armed revolution. Annihilation is our only slogan". The annihilation policy of the Communist party of India(Marxist–Leninist), which rejected by the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist), impressed Comrade Thiyagu. At that time, the Keezhvenmani massacre also made a big impact on him. In order to destroy the oppressors who were upper caste zamindars, he quit his college and left his home in 1969 to join the Naxalite movement.
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