The local authorities started peace initiatives, summonsing the author to participate in them.
This “sexual permissiveness” became the root of agitations against the novel, which was regarded as falsely representing the history of the practices of the community and generally, failing the test of obscenity.
Eventually, Ponna is taken to the festival without Kali’s consent and she consents to having sex with one young man. This is recommended to the husband in the novel, Kali, as a means of ensuring that his wife, Ponna, gets pregnant and disguising his impotence. Certain portions of the novel describe the historical temple chariot festival at Tiruchengode, an ancient Hindu temple, depicting it as one where the rules of sexual conduct are relaxed for one night and all consenting men and women may engage in sexual activity irrespective of their marital status. The case concerns the novel, Mathorubagan (One-Part Woman), written by Perumal Murugan, which describes the travails of a childless couple and the ensuing social stigma. The local administration’s Peace Committee had ordered the author to issue an unconditional apology and separately, petitions had been brought seeking criminal action against the author and against the publisher. The case had come about because members of a religious community were offended by passages in a book which depicted a festival as sexually promiscuous. The Madras High Court held that the findings of a ‘Peace Committee’ of a local administration, which had ordered an author to issue an unreserved apology, were not binding, and that criminal charges should not proceed.
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