Rarely does Kollywood pay a tribute to defence personnel who lay their lives in combat. And ‘Amaran’, a biopic on Major Mukund Varadarajan, released on Diwali has become a box office hit. But, many Tamil Brahmins (Tambrams) and a section of the Hindutva brigade are outraged at the movie ‘erasing the Brahmin identity’ of the army officer and see it as a Dravidian conspiracy.

Kollywood heartthrob Sivakarthikeyan is playing the lead as valiant Mukund who lost his life fighting terrorists in Kashmir, and Sai Pallavi is the female lead as Indu Rebecca Varghese, his wife. Mukund was posthumously awarded Ashok Chakra, the fourth to receive it from Tamil Nadu. The film, narrating the story through the wife’s eyes, is running to packed houses across the state.

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Directed by Rajkumar Palanisamy, the movie is produced by Raj Kamal International of versatile actor Kamal Hassan and distributed by ‘Red Giant Movies’ of Deputy Chief Minister and ruling DMK’s Youth Wing Secretary Udhayanidhi Stalin. The Hassan-Udhayanidhi combo is enough for the critics to see a Dravidian conspiracy. Despite Hassan himself being an Iyengar, he being a part of the INDIA Bloc is what troubles them.

Apart from television debates, social media is awash with heated arguments on why Mukund’s identity has been hidden. Right wing news outlets have fanned the controversy further. Besides the film’s director, Raj Kumar Palanisamy and distributor Udhayanidhi, they have not spared Hassan as well. While Indu, a Christian from Kerala, is shown sporting a cross around her neck and keeps a portrait of Jesus in their apartment, the cultural markers for Mukund have been ingored, but for a scene where Lord Ayyappa is shown as Mukund’s personal (ishta) deity.

Mukund’s parents are Tamil Iyengars and his father had worked in a public sector bank in Kerala. He was born on April 12, 1983 in Kozhikode district. After his graduation in commerce from the Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Viswa Mahavidyalaya at Enathur in Kancheepuram district, he completed his PG Diploma in Journalism from Madras Christian College, Chennai, where he meets Indu. The film starts from his days at the MCC.

After his training, he was inducted into the Rajput Regiment and was on deputation at ‘44 Rashtriya Rifles’ and posted in Jammu and Kashmir. While Mukund’s parents agreed to his marriage with Indu after initial hesitation, it was the latter’s family which put up a resistance. However, their love succeeded. In Kashmir, he becomes a larger than life hero after he neutralised a most wanted terrorist. In another counter-insurgency operation in Sophian district in April 2014, he sustained three gunshot wounds and died on the way to hospital. But, he had killed a Hizbul Mujahideen Commander.

While BJP state president K Annamalai was effusive in his praise of the film crew and the producer for coming up with such a patriotic movie, many Hindutva supporters do not share his view. Even Ananthakrishnan Pakshirajan, a former IAS officer who had served in the Defence Ministry, says “In Tamil Nadu where Nazi annihilation rogues are hailed as scholars it is not surprising that Major Mukund Varadarajan’s Brahmin identity has been hidden. Here contemporary history had to be first baptized in the Periyarist gutters.”

However, Hindutva ideologue BR Sreenivasan Ravichandran says, “Those who are out to find caste have been wearing the mask of Hindutva and nationalism. The mask has fallen.” He is being abused by fellow Hindutva travellers for hailing the film as an honest portrayal.

Responding to the criticism, director Rajkumar Palanisamy said the Brahmin identity of Mukund was not avoided with any intention. “His parents told me that their son Mukund was an Indian and Tamil first. Neither had they asked for my caste when I visited them. He used to address his father as ‘naina’ (Father in Telugu) and his mother as ‘sweety’. They asked me to show him as an army man.”

“Indu said that Mukund was a Tamil and her only request was to cast an actor with Tamil roots for his character. She was particular about that Tamil identity,” he explained at an event, putting an end to the orchestrated controversy.