Tamil Nadu | Rare Case of Hindu-Muslim Polarisation Witnessed in Thiruparankundram, Madurai

Thiruparankundram, a pilgrim town and a suburb of Madurai in south Tamil Nadu, possesses all the elements that could turn it into a communal flashpoint in today’s India: a celebrated temple at the foothills of a hillock, a dargah high up on the hill adjoining another small temple, huge flocks of believers, and majority Hindus and minority Muslims living in close proximity to the temple.

All it needed was a spark: a political outfit looking to exploit these conditions. This spark ignited in February 2025, when a Hindutva outfit, stoking controversy over the ownership of the hillock, claimed that attempts were being made to rename the hill Sikkandar Malai after Sikhander Badshah (a 12th-century ascetic), in whose memory the dargah was built. An inept police force and fumbling district administration just made things worse.

The temple at the foothills is worshipped as one of the six abodes of Lord Murugan and attracts huge crowds of devotees from across the State and beyond. In December, Hindutva outfits protested when a Muslim family attempted to make an animal sacrifice (kandoori) at the hilltop. The ritual was stopped by the police but tensions have been building up slowly since then. To settle the issue, peace talks were held on December 31 between community organisations and the local Revenue Divisional Officer (RDO). The RDO ruled that there were no records of kandoori being practised historically and demanded that it be stopped forthwith. This emboldened the Hindutva outfits and provided fodder to their Whatsapp groups.

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Muslims argue that animal sacrifices are not new. A Abudahir, a local Jamaath member, said kandoori “is an ancient offering being done for generations,” and recalled that it was done during the time of his great-grandfather. “There was never a problem all these years,” he said while admitting that there are some legal cases in courts over other issues. “Even Hindus in our area follow the kandoori practise,” he told Frontline.

Opportunistic politics

Hindutva outfits backed by the BJP saw this issue as an opportunity to gain political mileage in Thiruparankundram, an Assembly constituency where the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is not particularly strong. The other Assembly constituency in Madurai district that the BJP is currently concentrating on is Melur in the northern part of the district, where a tungsten mining project of the Union government was withdrawn after farmers backed by the DMK protested against it.

As tensions rose, Indian Union Muslim League Member of Parliament (MP) Navaskani. K, who is also the chairman of the Tamil Nadu Waqf Board, visited the hillock on January 22. “When I spoke to the Police Commissioner, he explained that there was no ban on transporting food, but that they were in talks on the question of allowing sheep and goat to be taken to the hillock [presumably for sacrifice],” he said.

Navaskani. K expressed confidence that “all restrictions will be lifted soon and measures will be taken to ensure that people can visit the dargah without any difficulty, as was the case in the past”. But matters came to a head when Navaskani. K’s supporters posted pictures of themselves eating biryani on the hillock. Hindutva outfits objected to it and BJP State president, K. Annamalai, even claimed in a post on X that that it was on the premises of the temple that Navaskani. K had biryani. “Navaskani. K went in a group top [sic] the Subramanya Swamy Hill…and ate non-vegetarian food to incite division among two groups of people,” he said.

Navaskani. K shot back that he had not consumed anything near the temple and asked Annamalai for proof. No proof was forthcoming but Annamalai’s post had done the damage; the BJP and Hindutva outfits raised a hue and cry, calling it a deliberate attempt to defile the temple. All these exchanges became widely discussed in Tamil whatsapp messages across the State. 

From the beginning, the local residents of the area have been saying that they want no part in this communal bickering, asserted Dileepan Senthil, a local resident, who said he was deeply influenced by Periyar’s teachings. On January 27, a few of them gathered the courage to submit a petition to the local authorities demanding that outsiders be kept away from religious matters of the temple town.

Yet, on February 4, the town witnessed a massive protest organised by members of the Hindu nationalist outfit Hindu Munanni, after a Court order permitting the meeting. This was followed by the imposition of orders prohibiting groups of people from gathering in the town, under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.

“The speeches of the BJP leaders here on February 4 were extremely inflammatory,” said Thiagarajan, a local resident who sympathises with the communists. “We have not heard such speeches so far, even though there have been some small problems on and off here,” he added. Some of the BJP leaders invoked the wrath of God against the DMK in their speeches. “The 2026 election is between Murugan and Stalin,” a senior State leader of the BJP said. “Murugan will win the election. You watch,” he thundered.

The next Legislative Assembly election is at least a year and two months away. CPI(M)’s State Committee member K Samuel Raj alleged that needless tension was being created in the minds of the people over the temple and its sanctity. “People like H. Raja (BJP leader) and others tried to create an atmosphere of fear here on February 4. No one from Thiruparankundram was involved in creating this fear,” he said. Raja has been booked for his speeches.

When this correspondent went around the Girivalam path (path of circumambulation around the hillock) on February 6, people blamed outsiders for all the trouble. At each of the points where this correspondent stopped to interact with people, many asserted that they had always lived here in peace with all communities. A testament to that was the sparse police presence on the Girivalam path, in the temple, and in the nearby jamaaths. A few barricades placed on the main roads had been removed and kept on the side.

On February 11, the Thai Poosam festival, an important event in the temple’s calendar, passed off without any incident and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Local leaders are of the opinion that the police and the district administration are to be blamed for the initial lapses that led to the protests on February 4. They also warned that if the district administration did not change course, Tiruparankundram would soon witness more such flashpoints.

Common practices among Hindus and Muslims

Meanwhile, S Yuvaraj, vice-president of an outfit called Bharat Hindu Munnani, North Chennai sought government permission to hold a rally of more than 100 people on February 18 in Chennai over the issue. With no response from the government, it approached the Madras High Court. The State government on February 12 argued that the protest would only accentuate the communal divide across the State. It also told the Court that animal sacrifice was common even in some Hindu temples in the State. In fact, a few kilometres from Thiruparankundram, in temples such as the one in Alagarkoil, this is a standard practice. Special Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohamed Jinnah informed the Court that in the Madurai district, animal sacrifice was common in the Malayandi Karuppasamy temple, the Pandimuneeswarar temple and the Pathinettampadi Karuppasamy Temple.

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Though the communal tensions in the Thiruparankundram are relatively new, the dispute over who owns the hillock has a history that dates back to more than a century ago. There are records that indicate that the dargah wanted to add facilities on the hillock in 1915 and was prevented from doing so. On March 9, 1916, The Hindu had published that “the dispute was centred on a path that diverges [on the way up the hill], with one side leading to the dargah and the other to the Hindu shrines.”

Both sides submitted the proof they possessed at that time. The Collector ruled that the Muslim group should have sought approval before attempting any construction. A compromise was sought to be worked out, but with both sides remaining intransigent, no progress could be made. To this day, there is barely any facility atop the hillock for staying overnight—though many believers do spend the night there as part of a vow or act of devotion. Two cases relating to the ownership of the dargah and lands adjoining it are still pending before the High Court.