Published in Vijayvaani.com
| by Jayasree Saranathan | on 05 Sep 2023 |
On Saturday, 2nd September, Udayanidhi Stalin, son of the DMK supremo and the Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development of Tamilnadu stirred a hornet’s nest by calling for the eradication of Sanatana Dharma in his address to the ‘Sanatan Abolition Conference’ convened by the Progressive Writers and Artists Forum, in Chennai. Coming closely on the heels of the just concluded meeting of the opposition I.N.D.I.A. alliance in Mumbai, this outburst by a prominent member of a constituent party of the alliance garnered national attention.
While his speech was seen as a call to incite genocide of believing Hindu groups, the same utterances were excused as a right to free speech by the DMK supporters. The local TN Congress leaders were quick to pitch in to support Udayanidhi; Karti Chidambaram drew our attention by his tweet that ‘everyone who is batting for “SD” (Sanatan Dharma) comes from the privileged segment who are beneficiaries of the “Hierarchy”’, forgetting that he is married into the so-called privileged segment.
That the local Congress cadres had their own compulsions to support Udayanidhi’s indefensible verbal assault on Hindus by his attack on Sanatana Dharma, can be seen from the manner in which Congressmen outside Tamilnadu objected to his speech. The Maharashtra Congress Chief Nana Patole told ANI that the Congress party ‘neither comments nor believes in hurting anyone’s religious sentiments,’ and added that they ‘can’t take onus for someone else’s statement’.
While official responses from other alliance partners are awaited, it goes without saying that Udayanidhi has added salt to the injuries already inflicted by his party on North Indians, particularly the people of Bihar, UP and Northeast. Not long ago several migrant workers from the North fled from Chennai and Tiruppur, the textile hub, following hostile propaganda against ‘Vadakkans’ (northies). In the forefront was Udayanidhi, inciting anti-Hindi slogans while he had no qualms in buying rights for Hindi films through his Production and Distribution company, Red Giants.
Biharis are particularly are in the line of attack of the DMK headed by Udayanidhi’s father M.K. Stalin, who views the Bihar-born Tamilnadu Governor, R.N. Ravi, as a villain. Nothing can be more atrocious than the scorn spit by the DMK leader R.S. Bharati in an indirect dig at the Governor when he said that those who sell Soan Papdi and Panipuri don’t know the pride of Tamilnadu.
The arrest of a Youtuber, Manish Kashyap, further deepened the crisis which reflected in the opposition to M.K. Stalin’s visit to Bihar in June 2023, to attend a meeting of the Opposition parties convened by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. The Twitterverse was buzzing with the hashtag #GoBackStalin with the tweet of T.R.B. Raja, DMK minister for Industries and son of T.R. Balu,..... Continue to read HERE
