Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, when the supporters of EV Ramaswamy Naicker started becoming violent with people who had surnames that were traditionally used

Or, to put it a bit more bluntly, when the supporters of EV Ramaswamy Naicker started becoming violent with people who had surnames that were traditionally used by the brahmins, people out of fear started to not use their family names. Even years after his death, his philosophy of "If you see a cobra and a brahmin, kill the brahmin" still has a large foothold in Tamil Nadu.