Bharathiraja, the Tamil Nadu filmmaker known as Iyakkunar Imayam, died at his home in Chennai on 10 June 2026. He was 84. He is survived by his wife Chandraleela and his daughter Janani, having already outlived his son Manoj, who died of a cardiac arrest in March 2025.
The tributes that followed his death have recognised a career that transformed Tamil cinema. His debut, 16 Vayathinile (1977), took cameras out of the studio and into rural Tamil Nadu. Over nearly five decades, he directed close to 40 films, won six National Film Awards, and worked with Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and the generations that followed. The title Iyakkunar Imayam — the Himalaya of directors — was not a critical designation but a popular one, earned film by film.
Alongside that career, Bharathiraja sustained a record of public solidarity with Eelam Tamils that stretched from the ceasefire years to the final period of his life. It expressed itself as physical presence, political speech, open letters and legal demands, and it ran across more than two decades without interruption.
'The Eelam Tamils must stand firm and attain their final goal'
In November 2004, Bharathiraja travelled to Jaffna. The ceasefire between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was then two years old, and the north was briefly accessible to visitors from across the Palk Strait. Bharathiraja's visit was arranged by S. Thiyagarajah, managing director of Richo Holidays. He went for Maaveerar Naal, the annual commemoration held on 27 November to honour the fighters who had died in the Tamil Eelam liberation struggle.
He attended the Heroes' Day ceremonies and walked through the Maaveerar cemetery, where the tombs of 17,800 fallen fighters stood in rows. In an interview with a popular Tamil daily in Jaffna shortly afterwards, he described what he had seen.
"When I was in Jaffna in its natural surroundings and what I saw and heard there made me feel very homely. I am fascinated by the people of Jaffna. However I was badly shaken by the scars of war I saw. I became heavy hearted by the thought that this much of wound has been inflicted on this soil which thrives with valour, heroism, militancy and martyrdom."
"It is really the pride of this soil that its people have withstood all the trials and hardships forced on them. The Tamils of Tamil Nadu too have performed great things and made great achievements. But they are all dwarfed by the greatness of the achievements of Eelam Tamils. Whichever part of the world you may go to and look for Tamil intellectuals, it is the Eelam Tamils that you see."
"I witnessed the Hero's Day events which really melted my heart. The lighting of the Torch in memory of the Heroes was a magnificent sight. I was chilled to the spine when I saw the rows of tombs in Maaveer Cemetery of fallen heroes who laid their lives for the future freedom of their people."
He also described the destruction of the Jaffna Public Library as part of the cultural genocide of the Tamil people of the North-East.
On the political moment, he was direct. "Tamils of Eelam must achieve success by continuing to pursue their policies courageously as they have been doing for the past 30 years," he said. "The Eelam Tamils must stand firm and attain their final goal."
The PTI wire agency carried his remarks in a dispatch dated 5 December 2004, reporting that Bharathiraja had said the achievements of Tamil Nadu were "dwarfed" by those of the LTTE.
The Government of India had awarded him the Padma Shri the same year. He later returned the honour, citing the Indian government's failure to act on Tamil sentiment over Sri Lanka.
'The film fraternity to express their solidarity'
Four years later, as the Sri Lankan military's final offensive gathered pace in the North-East, Bharathiraja led the Tamil Nadu film industry to Rameswaram. In October 2008, more than 2,000 artists arrived by special train from Chennai. Members of around 25 film industry associations took part, wearing black shirts and black badges, carrying placards and shouting slogans against the Sri Lankan government.
Bharathiraja and Tamil film council producers' president Rama Narayanan led the procession from Agnitheertha Kadarkarai to the Kilakadu ground near the bus stand, marching through the town under tight security. The rally had commenced after prayers at the Ramanathaswamy temple for the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils.
Addressing the artists, Bharathiraja said that while the entire world was set to listen to the voice of the cine artistes of South India, he fervently hoped their voice would be heard in New Delhi. Speaking to reporters later, he said the rally was an opportunity for the film fraternity to express their solidarity with the Tamils in Sri Lanka, and that the coming together of the industry would attract everyone's attention.
Tamil Guardian reported the event as the first time the Kollywood industry had converged in support of Eelam Tamils since the Black July anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka in 1983, a quarter of a century earlier.
London, 2013
In April 2013, four years after the end of the war, Bharathiraja stood before crowds gathered at Trafalgar Square in London to demand a United Nations referendum on Tamil Eelam. The march, organised by the Tamil Coordinating Committee, moved through central London on Easter weekend. Protesters rejected Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, called for an investigation into the genocide of Tamils by the Sri Lankan state, and welcomed the Tamil Nadu State Assembly's call for a referendum across the Eelam Tamil nation.
Bharathiraja was among the speakers, alongside the Tamil Youth Organisation UK, as the crowds expressed solidarity with Tamil Nadu student protests and condemned the Sri Lankan state's destruction of the Tamil nation.
'Eelam Tamils are all over the world'
In February 2020, speaking to the New Indian Express around the release of Meendum Oru Mariyaadhai, a film set partly in the United Kingdom, Bharathiraja spoke about working with the diaspora.
"Unlike Tamils from our state who remain only in some pockets in the world, Eelam Tamils are all over the world. They have been instrumental in spreading our culture and tradition. Meendum Oru Mariyaadhai is set in the UK, and this gave me a chance to work with many of them."
'He supported the genocide of Tamil children'
In October 2020, Vijay Sethupathi announced he would play Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan in a biopic titled 800. The announcement drew immediate backlash from Tamil audiences. Muralitharan had expressed support for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who served as defence secretary during the final phase of the war, and had been widely condemned for his public statements on the Tamil struggle.
Bharathiraja wrote an open letter to Sethupathi.
"It is difficult to earn a good name and reputation among the public. People have showered their love for you so quickly. Your humble attitude and the manner in which you convey your feelings of the general public is the reason. I wish that you continue to grow as an actor. I came to hear about your film, 800, which is a biopic on Muttiah Muralitharan. He didn't object to any of the killings of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. He supported the genocide of Tamil children."
"Although Muttiah Muralitharan has accomplished so much as a cricketer, he chose to remain quiet when the genocide happened in Sri Lanka. What is the point of all his records then? He is a traitor. Many have been asking me as to why Vijay Sethupathi agreed to be a part of the film. On behalf of all the Tamilians around the world, I request you to not act in the film. If you choose to do so, you will receive support from all the Tamilians across the world. Why must people see you representing the face of a traitor in the years to come? Please avoid acting in the film."
In a separate statement, he was more direct still.
"When our Eelam Tamil brothers were dying, Mutthiah was playing fiddle. He completely endorsed Sinhala chauvinism. If you dropped this film, you will be regarded with gratitude by the Eelam people and me."
He called on the Tamil film industry to instead produce biopics on Tamil Eelam revolutionaries, specifically naming Thileepan, the LTTE political wing leader who fasted to death in Jaffna in September 1987. He asked Sethupathi: "Do you want your face to be forever associated with a racist person and be looked at with hatred by people?"
Vijay Sethupathi subsequently withdrew from the film.
'The history of Tamil Eelam fighters'
In June 2021, Amazon Prime Video began streaming the second season of The Family Man, in which Samantha Akkineni played a fictional Tamil militant leader. Tamil audiences across Tamil Nadu and the diaspora objected to what they described as the portrayal of the Eelam Tamil freedom struggle as terrorism. The Tamil Nadu government had written to the Union government ahead of release, stating that the show depicted Eelam Tamils "in a highly objectionable manner".
Bharathiraja issued a public statement and directed it at Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar.
"We are upset to know that the Union government hasn't passed an order to stop the streaming of The Family Man, despite requests made by many Tamilians including a TN minister. The visuals in the show reveal that the series has been made by people who do not know the history of Tamil Eelam fighters. I condemn the show that insults the rebellion, which was filled with good intentions, valour as well as sacrifices. I request Information and Broadcast Minister Prakash Javadekar to immediately stop the streaming of the show. As we all know, the show continues to show people from Tamil, Muslim and Bengali communities in a bad light."
He warned Amazon directly that if the platform refused to pull the show, Tamils across the world would boycott all Amazon services.
A Kollywood peer who called out those who stayed silent
Bharathiraja's record on Eelam Tamil solidarity was not confined to these moments alone. When singer Hariharan was announced as a performer at a concert in Colombo, Bharathiraja was among the Kollywood directors who urged him to pull out, alongside Ameer and Vetrimaran. Hariharan subsequently cancelled the concert.
The thread running through all of it was consistent. In Jaffna in 2004, at Rameswaram in 2008, at Trafalgar Square in 2013, in the letters of 2020 and 2021, he named the Sri Lankan state's actions against Eelam Tamils as genocide and named those who stayed silent as complicit. He used the language of Eelam, of Tamil Eelam fighters, of the Tamil Eelam freedom struggle.
He returned his Padma Shri because the Indian government had not listened. He walked through a cemetery among the tombs of 17,800 fighters. He stood on a platform at Trafalgar Square to demand a referendum on Tamil Eelam. He wrote to a film star asking him not to put his face to a man who had stayed silent while Eelam Tamil children were killed.
He said it himself, in Jaffna, in December 2004, in an interview reported by TamilNet,
"The Tamils of Tamil Nadu too have performed great things and made great achievements. But they are all dwarfed by the greatness of the achievements of Eelam Tamils. Whichever part of the world you may go to and look for Tamil intellectuals, it is the Eelam Tamils that you see."