The late 1930s in India was a period of immense cultural renaissance. While the political atmosphere was charged with the struggle for independence, the cultural sphere was seeing a concerted effort by the British colonial administration and Indian scholars to document the architectural and artistic heritage of the subcontinent.
In 1938, Arayar sevai (dance-drama of Tamil hymns) was revived at Srirangam after decades of dormancy – a major cultural event.
Newspapers and journals in Madras during 1938 frequently utilized the imagery of Ramanujar to bolster the argument for the Temple Entry Authorization and Indemnity Act (passed in 1939). The visual documentation of the saint served as a historical validation of the social reform movements of the 1930s.
These publications sold in the tens of thousands—unprecedented for a religious topic at the time.
It is also worth noting that the late 1930s was the golden age of early Tamil cinema. The success of films like Sati Leelavathi (1936) and Ambikapathy (1937) paved the way for religious epics. While the famous film Ramanujar by director G. R. Rao would not arrive until the 1960s, the groundwork for the cinematic portrayal of the saint was being laid in 1938.