Tag: anti hindi

Was Fake News About ‘Attacks’ on Migrant Labourers an Attempt to Malign Tamil Nadu?

DMK leaders and other political observers say the narrative was generated to counter the state’s “inclusive model” of growth, with an eye on the 2024 general elections.

On March 1, several non-BJP leaders – including Congress president Mallikarjuna Kharge, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav and Rashtriya Janata Dal’s Tejaswi Yadav – descended in Tamil Nadu. The occasion was Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin’s 70th birth anniversary and the meeting turned out to be a massive show of opposition unity. The leaders were keen on setting up a strong national-level front to counter the BJP and promised to fight against “divisive forces”.

The next day, when journalists asked Stalin if he was eying national politics, he said he was “already there”. Hours later, rumours and fake narratives about “attacks on migrant labourers” from North India in Tamil Nadu began doing rounds on social media.

While several fact-checkers have debunked the claims about these videos, observers see a political motive behind the narrative.

“For one, the Tamil Nadu chief minister sharing the dais with national leaders is surely a reason for these fake news factories to do this. That there is a political alignment against the BJP is a cause of concern for them,” says DMK spokesperson Manu Shanmugasundaram.

He also claims that Tamil Nadu’s “model of inclusive growth” is another reason. “This has obviously hurt them. Tamil Nadu is ranked as the most urbanised state and has one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the country. It provides livelihoods for millions. There are reasons for those who promote the Gujarat model to feel envious of Tamil Nadu.”

While the Tamil Nadu police swung into action and filed cases against those who spread the fake news, the government machinery reached out to the migrant labourers by way of introducing a helpline for the specific purpose. Stalin also spoke to his Bihar counterpart Nitish Kumar and assured him of the safety of migrant labourers in Tamil Nadu.

On March 7, the chief minister visited a glove manufacturing unit at Kavalkinaru in Tirunelveli district and assured the migrant labourers working there of safety and security. In a tweet, Stalin said that there was a feeling of fraternity and safety among them and that the state government remains committed to protecting labourers.

Attempts to ‘malign’ Tamil Nadu?

Observers see the attempt to create a fake narrative as part of larger efforts to “malign” Tamil Nadu at the national level for electoral purposes.

“This has been happening for quite some time. The BJP and the right-wing groups have been doing it,” says Iyan Karthikeyan, a Chennai-based journalist and fact checker. “When a student died by suicide in Thanjavur in March 2022, right-wing groups said she killed herself because the school forced her to convert. They also released a clipped video to establish this. But when the full video was released, the reason was entirely different. She even responded in the negative to questions on whether she was forced not to wear a bindi or not to celebrate Pongal. It became a national debate.”

Similarly, when DMK leader T.R. Balu spoke about removing religious structures to make way for highways, the clip was “maliciously edited” to say only temples were being removed, the journalist said. But Balu had in fact said that even mosques and churches were removed, and in this particular incident, the temple was rebuilt in a bigger way. “But it was twisted out of context. More recently, the national media made a debate out of the murder of an army person. He was killed due to a family dispute. But the debate hinged on him being an army man. Clearly, there is an attempt to show Tamil Nadu as an anti-Hindu, anti-national state. But this did not hit home until the issue of migrant labourers came up. It could lead to a law-and-order issue and a serious crisis,” Karthikeyan said.

He says the narrative is being rolled out with the aim to be used in the 2024 general elections. “While it might still have no impact in the state, the BJP could well use it at the national level – show Tamil Nadu as an example, and say, ‘Look, if we don’t rule you, you would end up being discriminated this way.’”

Also Read: On the Lookout For an Emotive Issue Ahead of LS Polls, BJP Suffers a Setback in Bihar

Tamil Nadu BJP in a fix

But the narrative put forth by the BJP’s Bihar unit has put its Tamil Nadu counterpart in a fix. In an interview with SouthFirst, Tamil Nadu BJP vice president Narayanan Tirupathy said he condemned the fake news, even if it was spread by the BJP in Bihar. He, however, added that several leaders in Tamil Nadu – including from the ruling party – have “degraded” migrant labourers, which lead to panic among them when the fake news of attacks was spread.

The state police have also filed a case against BJP Tamil Nadu president K. Annamalai, allegedly for “airing similar views” to those who spread the fake news.

DMK leaders say that the Tamil Nadu BJP was drawing false conflating the party’s struggle against the imposition of Hindi in the state and the presence of Hindi-speaking migrant labourers. “The DMK has always been vocal about opposition to the imposition of Hindi. We have also expressed concerns about Hindi-speaking people taking up a chunk of jobs in various Union government departments. But to misconstrue these ideological issues as hatred for migrant labourers is a vicious campaign,” says Salma, a writer and DMK spokesperson. “The DMK government will continue to protect the migrant labourers, as it has always done.”

Tamil Nadu: For Many, Anti-Hindi T-Shirts Represent Anxieties About Jobs and Future

Although the trend has provided much-needed relief for a few small manufacturers, the protest is much more than just anti-Hindi sentiment.

Chennai: On September 5, acclaimed music director Yuvan Shankar Raja and actor Metro Shirish tweeted a photograph of them wearing T-shirts with slogans opposing the imposition of Hindi. While Yuvan’s T-shirts read ‘I am a Thamizh Pesum Indian’ (I am a Tamil speaking Indian), Shirish’s in red said ‘Hindi Theriyaathu Poda’ (I don’t know Hindi, go away).

The T-shirts were apparently DMK MP Kanimozhi’s idea. In August, the politician was asked by a member of the airport security staff if she was Indian when she told him that she did not speak Hindi.

In less than a week after Raja and Shirish’s photo became viral, tens of thousands of similar T-shirts began selling like hot cakes across Tamil Nadu and even in many countries that have a Tamil population.

For at least a handful of small-time manufacturers in Tiruppur district of Tamil Nadu, the anti-Hindi sentiment meant a viable business opportunity. “I have already delivered 6,000 pieces of these anti-Hindi T-shirts,” says B. Karthikeyan, who runs a small manufacturing unit. One of the earliest manufacturers to print the T-shirts, Karthikeyan says they were the first order he had since March, when the coronavirus-induced lockdown was imposed.

“There are many people manufacturing them now. But personally, for me, this order came as a big relief. I still have 5,000 pieces pending to be delivered, and just today I received an order for 500 more pieces,” he says.

Anti-Hindi T-shirts being printed in Tiruppur. Photo: By arrangement

M. Shekar is a ‘buying agent’ in Tiruppur and he procures the shirts from manufacturers and then sells them. “The idea has benefitted more than 15 small-time manufacturers. On average, a manufacturer has received an order of 5,000 pieces. In a week, the manufacturers made a business worth about Rs 1.5-2 crore. They continue to receive orders from Chennai, Singapore, the US and elsewhere.”

Shekar, who deals largely with orders placed by politicians, says Kanimozhi was involved in designing the T-shirts. “Out of 20 designs, four were finalised. It took about a week. We are happy that the other manufacturers who have started printing the T-shirts have largely stuck to the original idea,” he said.

Also Read: India Doesn’t Need Hindi to Unify the Masses

Rafiq, another Tiruppur based buying agent, says the city has always picked up early on trends. “The T-shirts move very fast and there is a demand. But it’s not just about anti-Hindi T-shirts. Every time a trend appears, it is the manufacturers from Tiruppur who market it. When Rajinikanth’s Kabaali was released, T-shirts with Kabaali’s image on it were manufactured on a large scale,” he says.

On September 6, Kanimozhi shared an image of her with a group of youngsters wearing the T-shirts. “A spark is enough to ignite a sentiment. When we printed Tshirts, in the era of blatant Hindi imposition, we didn’t know that the youngsters would respond passionately like our forefathers in fighting discriminatory practices. Thank you.”

The spark seems to have spread to the neighbouring states too. On September 13, actor Prakash Raj tweeted a photograph of him wearing a similar T-shirt.

Soon after Kanimozhi tweeted about the discrimination she faced from the CISF officer, national award-winning Tamil director Vetrimaaran also shared a bitter experience. He said in an interview that in 2011, at the Delhi airport, he was made to wait for 45 minutes by an immigration official after revealing that he did not know Hindi. The immigration official had accused ‘Tamils and Kashmiris of breaking the country,’ Vetrimaaran said.

“Not just about anti-Hindi sentiment”

But Aazhi Senthilnathan, president of the Thannatchi Thamizhagam movement (Autonomous Tamil Nadu) thinks the T-shirts represent more than just anti-Hindi sentiment. “I see this movement as the voice of the urban middle-class youth, some of whom might even speak Hindi,” he says.

Senthilnathan recalls his visit to Karnataka three years ago, after a section of the youth and students protested against the decision to use Hindi as the third language on signboards at metro stations. “I could see that many of them [the protesters] spoke Hindi. In the last six years, Hindi has come to symbolise the hegemony of the North, that takes away our jobs and affects our economy,” he said.

Also Read: To Move Beyond the Binary of Language Politics, Teach Migrant Workers Tamil

He points to anti-Hindi protests in Central government and public sector offices in recent years, which he says is the result of the appointment of a large number of Hindi-speaking officials. “I have known Central government offices where circulars were issued in Hindi and the employees were told that they had to leave if they didn’t know Hindi. There is this feeling that a state as developed as Tamil Nadu continues to be discriminated against, and humiliated by Delhi. This North-South divide is now more acute in the urban middle class,” Senthilnathan says.

Senthilnathan says that in the past, such protests emerged only from the traditional Dravidian parties or Tamil nationalists. “If a cinema personality or an ordinary citizen is so vocal now, I see it as a voice against the hegemony.”

Senthilnathan also points out that anti-Hindi protests did not figure in the priorities of the mainstream political parties for the last two decades. “Of course, they would remember the martyrs of the anti-Hindi protests every year and organise events. But since the 1990s, it was not a priority. If it is coming back now, especially among the commoners, I think it is reflective of the mood of the state and the frustration of the youth,” he says.

“The simmering job insecurity among the youth in Tamil Nadu keeps the language issue alive today.  There is a new reason to protest Hindi imposition since the middle class of Tamil Nadu face an imminent threat of losing their jobs and livelihood. What happened to Kanimozhi and Vetrimaaran was the manifestation of this fear, of this threat that they are facing,” he says.

Interestingly, Senthilnathan says, this is not the first time that clothes have been used to protest against the imposition of Hindi. In the 1950s, a group of Periyarist women wore sarees that had Tamil letters and slogans like ‘Tamizh Vaazhga’ (Long live, Tamil) printed on them to oppose Hindi imposition.  “In the 1950s, Chennai was not as big a city as it is today. The women were picked up by some policemen, who left them somewhere in Poonamalle. It took the women hours to figure their way back.”

Kavitha Muralidharan is an independent journalist.