Governor RN Ravi on Sunday said if Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel had been born in Tamil Nadu, they would have been reduced to caste leaders.

Ravi made this remarka while speaking at the commemoration of the Jambudweep Proclamation, a document to liberate India from colonial rule made public on June 16, 1801, by the Marudhu brothers, the great warrior leaders of Tamil Nadu.

“The freedom fighters are being reduced to caste leaders because when the state abandons them — when the establishment abandons them — the community to which they (the martyrs) belong owns them up. The martyrs and heroes of the Independence struggle are our forefathers. If you read the Jambudweep Declaration, there is no mention of caste. That consciousness was not there,” the Governor said.

He further said people, especially from the political class, make a beeline to the (memorials of) martyrs and heroes of the Independence struggle, offer some flowers and then they forget them. The Marudhu brothers who fought for the country were reduced to caste leaders, he added.

“The Raj Bhavan celebrated the Jambudweep Declaration Day and commemorated the numerous martyrs who gave their life for freedom of the Motherland. Floral tributes were paid to the Marudhu brothers. Some living freedom fighters were felicitated. Lives and works of some 100 unsung freedom fighters of Tamil Nadu documented by over 90 research scholars of state universities at the initiative of Raj Bhavan were released,” Raj Bhavan, Tamil Nadu said in a a post on X.

“Scholars and their mentor professors were felicitated for their painstaking contributions by the Governor. Some other eminent scholars and writers who have researched and published battles for freedom waged by the rulers and people of Tamil Nadu were also felicitated,” the Raj Bhavan added.