The diminishing returns from negativism and toxicity in TN political narratives.
Date : 18/05/2024
Recently, I was listening to an interesting talk by a YouTuber who has gathered olai chuvadigal (writings on leaves) in Tamil in tens of thousands. She was very articulate and sounded genuine. But, the moment I started listening to her third and fourth talk, I found her talks disappointingly centred around beaten tracks of demonizing Brahmins, Sanskrit, Aryans, etc. When somebody is researching Tamil manuscripts, I would expect many interesting things to emerge, but limiting it to Brahmins and Sanskrit is tripping and side tracking them. Very valuable learnings are getting lost when one is churns it only for digging out wastes. Hope the chuvadis are preserved properly and general public gets access so that more knowledge can be extracted.
Tamil Nadu has been fed continuously a daily diet of toxic content for last one century and it is now deeply imprinted in the DNA. Starting from Justice Party, the people have been fed with negativity and hatred. People have started feeling overdosed and wanting to get detoxified, and move up in their lives. The three major themes that are parroted are anti-Brahmanism, anti-Hindi and anti-North. With these three formulae, Dravidians were able to capture power within 20 years of Independence, in spite of presence of tall leaders like Kamaraj. Toxicity has permeated multiple organs of the Society like Education, Media, Movies, etc. I am not including politics because the very raison d’tre of political leadership is playing up divisiveness. The time has now come to detox social consciousness of the society just as we do to Mind and Body.
Brahmins, Brahmins, Aryans Everywhere
I have heard many speakers from Tamil Nadu saying they tried to research if Chola kings took lands away from the poor and gave it to the Brahmins. I don’t know what learning this can provide, excepting hounding out of a community. I really sympathise with this misdirected fruitless research. Imagine if virologists were to research in 2300 AD the role of Brahmins in the spread of COVID in 2020, and if they got preferential treatment or not. Current research in Tamil is not far from this. Even Keezhadi research is about whether this precedes Indus valley or Sanskrit. It will be indeed interesting to know if there are evidences for that, but given such single mindedness it is possible that they might miss other major contributions of our ancient times. A biased mind sometimes subconsciously and sometimes wantonly selects and omits evidence. In simple terms called as phobia. Sadly the loser is Tamil literature, history and knowledge which are remaining to be explored.
Diminishing Returns of Anti Everything
Everything has diminishing returns. Anti-Brahmins did help in denying them opportunities in Government, universities, and public offices, which is understandable as some social correction was required. After decades of denial, the community has totally realigned itself, and has found ways and mostly migrating out. The Dravidian leaders succeeded in subduing them but not in supressing them socially or economically. I myself never carried any rancour and took it as a reality. Truly speaking the space left by Brahmins got occupied by other forward castes than oppressed castes. Oppressed benefited more from reservation than anti-Brahmin strategies. Oppressed classes also realized that Government jobs can provide only limited solace. They realized they need to be competitive and started competing and excelling in IITs and IIMs. They also showed openness to migrate out. So, now both the Brahmins and oppressed castes have turned indifferent to these barbs and divisiveness. Paradoxically enough, history has proved that subjugating a group or religion has never worked, like in the case of Jews. Positive affirmative actions, more than negative restrictive policies have helped the oppressed classes.
Similar is the story with anti-Hindi and anti-North. In recent times, one group has added neighbouring states like Andhra Pradesh to the anti-list. They are hardly making any impact because neighbours are not even taking cognizance. Any arguments or protests lose steam if there are no counter arguments or protests. For leaders and people outside Tamil Nadu, they are mystified by this antagonistic attitudes as they are even in their radar. Anti-Hindi policies have not led anywhere. CBSE schools are very popular in Tamil Nadu. All Tamil Movies are dubbed in Hindi, though it is comic to see heroes delivering punch dialogues in somebody else’s voice and in an unsynchronized manner. Is this comedy required? Sentimental scenes are delivered through subtitles. If you know both Tamil and Hindi, you can’t stand the Hindi version for more than 5 min. The Tamil heroes only hope that the Tamil audience will not see the Hindi version. The very same heroes also are the first to protest against Hindi.
There is more Hindi now in Chennai than what it used to be. Today don’t be surprised if you have to order in Hindi even in traditional restaurant for idly and vada. And, locals prefer rajma chawal and chole bhature. Today Chennai is more cosmopolitan than what it was two decades back, thanks to software and services sector. You will hear lot more Hindi in tourist places like Madurai, Ramanathapuram, etc. There is one small segment which is holding on to ‘antism’ and is dwindling day by day. It is getting shrill because nobody is listening.
Ordinary Tamilians realized they are getting isolated because of the policies of their leaders and started learning Hindi to be mobile. They opted for CBSE and focused on national competitions like NEET, in spite of all the fearmongering. Everything has a diminishing returns and people realize it faster than the leaders. Leaders are caught in time warp.
Promote Positivity and Commonality
The initial negative politics of the Justice Party has got embedded in the psyche of TN leaders. Oppose NEP, NEET, Vaccines, Farm laws, National Institutes, Neutrino project, GST, anti-terror laws, and if possible even Governor. NEP or Navodya gets reduced to a language issue. Parties maintain a check list of participation in protests to evaluate candidates’ eligibility to join their party. Vaccine and GST are centre imposition, and a proxy for North domination. National Institutes represent Aryan domination. When I talk to the policy makers in Delhi, they are puzzled by the habitual opposition to all policies of the Centre under all the regimes. Surprisingly, TN leads in the implementation of all the central schemes and utilization of funds.
Movies have benefited a lot from this divisiveness but they are the latest victim deservingly. Divisiveness gives captive audience in platter on opening days, and the heroes ensures and exploits it through fans club. Slowly the mutually reinforcing relationship between movies and politics is getting broken. The politics–movies wedge is wide open after the defeat of Kamal Hassan and withdrawal of Rajinikanth. Rest of the actors are getting reduced to factional and caste leaders. Only recently, a movie Rudra thandavam went against the trend in portraying reality as is it than as they would like to, and still was a success.
Now movies are themselves victims as they are becoming victim of divisiveness. Movies have become victim of its own agenda driven portrayal. The Directors have to be now conscious of every detail like flags, calendars, surnames, place of worship, etc. Soon even identifying characters with gender will become controversial. As long as Brahmins were the targets, movies faced no problems. But, the moment the attention gets diverted to other castes, it is hell let loose. The heroes will in future bear names like ROBO1, 007, and villains as RDX as they cannot even remotely resemble any caste or group or party. There is no dearth of humour but there is death of humour because every move and word are dissected threadbare on the round tables. This is backlash time and their own making. Earlier controversies generated more business, but now it leads to questions about finances, actors’ fees, taxes, assets, extravaganzas, etc. Questions are asked and comfort zones are going.
It is a brand new world. Old narratives are getting quietly buried. Youngsters are looking for relevant and refreshing narratives.
It is time to bridge various divisiveness and reduce heat all round. How to reduce heat - I will deal with it in another piece.
At present, TN needs detoxification.
G Ramesh
Prof (Retd.) IIM Bangalore.
Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons
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