Yes, The Maran Video Is Old. So What?

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) is making the national headlines regularly these days. Mostly for the wrong reasons.

All through last week, the unvarnished vitriol of former union minister and DMK leader Dayanidhi Maran, had the nation collectively facepalming. His jibe against the people of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar kicked up a maelstrom of protests.

Putting down the speakers of Hindi from those states, he said they come to Tamil Nadu to handle menial jobs, like construction work or cleaning roads and toilets. 

It was yet another chapter of embarrassment in a season of never ending ones for the Dravidian party. The season had begun with Udhyanidhi Stalin and A Raja making obnoxious remarks on Sanatana Dharma. Then, the Dharmapuri DMK MP S Senthilkumar, with his foot firmly in his mouth, described the Hindi heartland as 'gau mutra states'.

Soon after, at the meeting of I.N.D.I. Alliance partners, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Lok Sabha MP TR Baalu fell afoul of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, as he waded into them to learn Hindi rather than ask for translation.

The putative opposition I.N.D.I. Alliance partners, who had been feeling all squeamish with regard to many self-goals from the DMK, are now venting out their frustration.

Congress leader Pawan Khera said Maran's comment was unrestrained and it is absolutely unacceptable. Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav said it is unbecoming of a DMK leader to say something of this sort. 

”To speak disparagingly of the entire populace of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is reprehensible. We condemn it. We believe that people should be respectful towards those coming from other parts of the country," he added.

A stung DMK looked desperate for cover. It said that Dayanidhi Maran's speech was made four years ago. Indeed it was an old video. So what?

When the defence is over its temporality, rather than over its veracity, there can be no real takers for the same. The DMK did not see that coming and is now clearly caught off-guard.

And then over the last two days, an old speech of M K Stalin's, against Hindu weddings carried out based on Vedic traditions (havan and Sanskrit mantras,) has been doing their rounds on social media platforms. It is a strange rite of passage in the Dravidian ecosystem to invite top leaders to weddings and let them shower, well, vitriol on sundry issues and people. 

Past Makes DMK's Future Tense

Indeed it is the past that is catching up with the DMK. But, just as well. 

It has so far carefully crafted an image to the rest of India as being a liberal, social justice outfit, when in reality the Dravidian ideology is one predicated on bigotry and bad-mouthing sacred Hindu ideals and ideas. The Dravidian ideology's fountainhead EV Ramaswamy made a career out of being a demagogue.

Why mock and vitiate people's beliefs and practices? Ridiculing others’ religious ways is not what true atheism is all about. But, in any case, the Dravidian brand of atheism is bogus and dubious, as it seeks to single out only one religious tenet as its target. 

On the language issue, too, to be sure, there is a feeling in Tamil Nadu — justifiably so — that Hindi is being sought to be imposed on the state by the centre (read: the BJP). There are grounds to protest that and take cudgels for the same, with the powers that be. 

But what the Dravidian leaders are doing instead, is let loose pure hatred on the populace of the Hindi heartland. That hostility and aversion has also now started to slowly seep into every-day mainstream life.

Jokes and jibes on Hindi workers are not uncommon now in Tamil films. 'Vadakkans', loosely meaning north Indians, has become an entrenched usage and it has a pejorative shade. This kind of casual bigotry is no different from racism. And that is what the Dravidian ideology has been practicing for long.

The Dravidian philosophy, if anything, is predicated on exclusivity. It was basically an anti-Brahmin movement of the powerful landed gentry that took political mileage through rhetorics and rabble-rousing.

The EVR brand of ideology is kinkish, in that it did not come down on intermediary caste forces, but went hammer and tongs against Hindu idol worship and practices. Plenty of falsehoods and half-truths were unleashed in this wicked warfare. 

The sinister import of the Dravidian ideology would have been exposed much earlier, but the presence of the AIADMK anomaly of precluded it. Both MGR and Jayalalithaa, believers in tradition and religion, never embraced the core anti-Hindu sensibility of the Dravidian ethos. Hence, that aspect of the ideology was dormant for long.

But with the AIADMK slowly losing its sheen, the DMK is now bringing out the true colours of the political philosophy they owe allegiance to. This is not the fringe. This is its heart and soul.

The coming days may well see more such clips emerging, where DMK leaders speak disparagingly about Hindu customs and Hindi-speaking people. 

The past speeches of the DMK leaders are no aberrations. They are the insistent echo of its inner voice.