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India: Noted social activist Traffic Ramaswamy passes away

Chennai - Ramaswamy was known for single-handedly taking on powerful politicians.

Taking on powerful political leaders by pulling down their posters, blocking traffic, sneering at bigwigs – all these were part of the daily life for K.R. Ramaswamy, better known by his moniker Traffic Ramaswamy, for well over half a century.

Ramaswamy, who was 86, suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died in a Chennai hospital on Tuesday night. But most of his life he had virtually, single-handedly taken on powerful politicians across the spectrum and faced their ire. He was also a judicial activist, who had filed over 600 public interest litigation (PIL) cases mostly relating to illegal hoardings and structures in Chennai.

And the activist had no political bias: whether it was Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Ramadoss, Vijayakanth…no political leader was spared, as Ramaswamy would go about tearing their posters, put up illegally by supporters, across Chennai.

About 10 years ago, Ramaswamy was pulling down posters of then chief minister M. Karunanidhi in front of the Chennai headquarters of the party, when a convoy of M.K. Stalin (the new chief minister of the state) was passing by. Stalin was then the deputy chief minister of the state.

He stopped his convoy right besides Ramaswamy, who was tearing off the illegal posters of his father pasted along the busy Mount Road. Stalin waved at him, went to his office, and directed the local officials to remove all such illegal posters.

The activist also removed a hoarding of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Trichy, which had been put up by a local BJP leader. A few years ago, he was kept in police custody for four days for blocking traffic and removing posters of Jayalalitha, the former state chief minister and AIADMK leader.