The destruction of the Tamil Nadu government records, including those connected with the anti-Hindi agitation during the final days of the Congress government in 1967, came to the fore recently with the publication of an article in this newspaper last month. However, what has been overlooked in the public discourse is the version of the then Chief Minister, M. Bhaktavatsalam (1897-1987), at whose behest the documents were destroyed. When the DMK stormed to power for the first time in 1967, the last Chief Minister of the Congress in the State, who held the post from October 1963 to March 1967, lost in Sriperumbudur. Five of his Cabinet colleagues, too, were defeated. As an administrator, he had earned the reputation of being stickler for rules.
Within weeks of the DMK assuming office, the issue of destruction of files cropped up in the Assembly. During the debate, the DMK’s first Chief Minister, C.N. Annadurai, said that “probably”, Bhaktavatsalam thought he [Annadurai] would feel pained to read about the bad treatment meted out to his colleague, M. Karunanidhi, which the latter himself had not disclosed to him, according to a report of The Hindu on March 30, 1967.
‘Police threatened’
