What should have been a proud chapter in Tamil Nadu’s public life has turned into a bitter, high-voltage political battle over corruption, legacy, and the strange fate of a newly built library. At the center of the storm is Periyar Knowledge World, also known as Periyar Arivulagam, a library and science centre in Coimbatore built to honour the memory of Periyar, one of the state’s most towering social reformers. The building, which houses a library, a digital library, and a planetarium, was meant to be a place of learning and rational inquiry. Instead, it has become the site of an astonishing scandal. According to allegations, nearly 1,800 fake, AI-generated books were purchased at inflated prices for the institution. The books reportedly came from a publisher called Agalvilakku Pathippagam and carried fabricated author and publisher details. In other words, books that no human being may have actually written were bought with public money, placed on shelves, and passed off as scholarship. The revelations, which reportedly first came to light through writer and professor Perumal Murugan, have since triggered a political firestorm. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, who leads the ruling TVK, did not wait to weigh his words. He accused the previous DMK government of turning the institution into what he called a “centre of corruption.” He went even further, calling the DMK the “fountainhead of corruption.” His remarks came on the very day he inaugurated the new centre, turning what should have been a celebration into a blistering political indictment.
The person who reportedly exposed the alleged irregularities is Perumal Murugan, a writer and professor whose literary reputation gives the allegations considerable weight. Vijay specifically credited Murugan with bringing the issue to light and said he deserved to be commended. But the issue quickly moved beyond literature and into the messy world of politics. Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Manickam Tagore took up the cause and wrote to Vijay demanding a comprehensive investigation into what he described as multi-crore corruption. Tagore asked for the disputed books to be removed, for those responsible to be identified and arrested, and for similar purchases at other state-run libraries to be examined. His intervention is politically significant because the Congress and the DMK were once allies. The old relationship has long collapsed, but this move means the DMK cannot simply dismiss the scandal as an attack by the ruling party alone. A former partner is now asking pointed questions. For ordinary people, the story is both shocking and strangely easy to understand. Someone was paid for books that were never genuinely written. Someone approved those bills. Someone placed those books on shelves and hoped no one would look too closely. It is exactly the kind of scandal that mixes waste, negligence, and a touch of absurdity. It also raises a deeper worry: if this could happen in a flagship public project, what might be happening in less visible corners of government? Tagore’s demand for a wider audit of other libraries suggests that this may only be the beginning of a much larger investigation.
Vijay’s response was not subtle, and he did not want it to be. Standing before the newly opened Periyar Knowledge World, he used the platform to deliver a sweeping attack on the DMK. He accused the opposition party of engaging in corruption “in a slightly different way” and said it had turned the Coimbatore project into “a world of corruption.” He claimed the DMK had a long history of corruption, including in the awarding of tenders, and argued that the party’s assurances about building the institution after careful scrutiny had been shattered by the book procurement controversy. His most striking warning was that the DMK would not be forgiven by future generations of Tamil Nadu. That was not just rhetorical fire. It was an attempt to shape how the party will be remembered, to place the DMK on the wrong side of history before that history is written. For the TVK, which is still trying to establish itself as a new force in Tamil politics, this scandal offers a perfect opportunity. By linking the DMK to fake books, inflated prices, and fabricated authors, Vijay is trying to convince voters that his government represents a clean break from the old order. There is also a deep irony that cuts across the entire controversy: a library named after Periyar, a fierce champion of rationalism and scientific temper, is now associated with books generated by artificial intelligence and designed to deceive. The planetarium, the digital library, the proud inauguration—all of it is now overshadowed by a scandal that feels both bizarre and deeply damaging.
The DMK, unsurprisingly, did not take the attack lying down. Party president and former chief minister M.K. Stalin visited the centre on Wednesday, accompanied by Dravidar Kazhagam president K. Veeramani. The visit was carefully designed to reclaim ownership of the project. Stalin expressed satisfaction over its completion and urged students and young people to visit the facility to understand the principles and ideals of the Dravidian movement and of Periyar himself. He pointed out that 99.75% of the work had been completed and then delivered a pointed jab at the current government: had the project been left halfway, he suggested, the present administration would have simply dropped it and closed the chapter. That remark framed the Vijay government as indifferent to the DMK’s legacy and perhaps to public institutions in general. Stalin also expressed hope that other library projects would be completed and opened to the public, so that reading and reformist ideas could reach younger generations. His larger argument is that the Periyar Knowledge World is not just a building; it is a monument to the so-called Dravidian Model of governance. For the DMK, the centre represents welfare, identity, and social reform, all poured into concrete and shelves. But the book scandal has put the party in a difficult position. No matter how proudly Stalin speaks of completion, he cannot escape the question of content. Real libraries are built on trust, and trust is hard to restore once people discover that part of the collection was never authentic. By standing at the centre, Stalin is trying to say: look at what we built, not at what allegedly went wrong. But the two cannot be separated so easily.
The most combative response came from Leader of Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly, Udhayanidhi Stalin, who took the fight back to the ruling party with obvious relish. He welcomed the inauguration of the centre but immediately alleged that the name of the DMK’s flagship ‘Naan Mudhalvan’ scheme had been covered up at the premises. He reminded everyone that the facility had been built at a cost of Rs 290 crore under the previous government and accused the TVK of taking credit for projects conceived by the DMK. His language was scathing. He spoke of a “cheap” chief minister obsessed with sticking labels on other people’s work. He accused the government of running a “circus” by covering up names, cancelling schemes, and then performing U-turns by “cancelling the cancellations.” He even referred to the chief minister as a “dummy.” At the heart of his complaint was the word “Mudhalvan,” which roughly translates to “I am the first” or “I am the leader.” The Naan Mudhalvan scheme was a youth empowerment initiative, and for Udhayanidhi, removing its name from the centre was an attempt to erase the DMK’s fingerprint from a project the party had funded and built. He asked whether the word “Mudhalvan” reminded the ruling party only of DMK leadership, or whether it simply did not want students to become leaders. The questions were provocative, but they also revealed how high the stakes have become. A dispute over a signboard might seem trivial when placed next to allegations of fake books and inflated invoices, but in politics, symbols are never small. For Udhayanidhi, the covering up of the scheme’s name is part of a larger pattern: the new government wants to erase the DMK from every public achievement. By calling it out, he is asking voters to see the TVK not as a reformer but as a usurper.
At its core, this row is no longer just about books. It is a proxy battle over three things: corruption in the previous regime, ownership of a prestigious public project, and the legacy each party wants to claim. The Congress, once the DMK’s ally, has inserted itself into the story as a voice demanding accountability, a move that may help it seem independent and principled. The TVK is using the scandal to cast itself as the true inheritor of Periyar’s rationalist tradition and the DMK as a corrupt custodian of that legacy. The DMK, meanwhile, is fighting for its reputation, for the projects it built, and for the very vocabulary of development in Tamil Nadu. Between these competing narratives, it is easy to lose sight of the actual institution. Periyar Knowledge World was supposed to be a place of learning, curiosity, and scientific temper. Instead, it has become a courtroom of allegations and counter-allegations. There is a painful irony in the fact that a library named after a champion of rationalism is now associated with AI-generated fake books, fabricated authors, and inflated prices. For ordinary citizens, the hope is that the truth will be established, that the responsible officials will be held to account, and that the centre will eventually live up to its name. But the fight over the library is unlikely to end soon. Every party has a reason to keep the issue alive: the Congress wants to prove its relevance, the TVK wants to undermine the DMK’s credibility, and the DMK wants to protect its legacy. In the meantime, the shelves of a new institution may serve as a reminder that public trust is not something to be taken for granted. A government can inaugurate a building, but it cannot force people to believe in it. That belief must be earned, through honest administration and genuine accountability. If the coming investigation delivers that accountability, the library might still become what it was always meant to be: a place where ideas are real, and where the love of knowledge, rather than the politics of power, guides the way.