Arrest Of Motivational Speaker Mahavishnu: What Is Tamil Nadu Government Trying To Conceal?

Sometimes the headlines write themselves. Here it can be: Mahesh vs Mahavishnu!

The Education Department of Tamil Nadu headed by Minister Anbil Mahesh on the one side and the motivational speaker Mahavishnu, who is now in custody, on the other.

The man is behind the bars after he was picked up with unbecoming alacrity by the police for alleged disparaging remarks against persons with physical disability at a function held at a government school in Chennai.

Anbil Mahesh and his department, which are under fire, want no leniency to be shown to Mahavishnu.

That there was a person named Mahavishnu running an organisation named Paramporul Foundation was largely unknown to the bulk of Tamil Nadu till the education department chose to platform him for some motivational speech for schoolchildren.

During a programme at the Saidapet government school on 28 August, Mahavishnu, who had been invited as a guest speaker to motivate young minds, went into the topic of karma and rebirth. In the course of which Mahavishnu said (words to the effect) some people are born with disability due to misdeeds in the previous birth.

Now, whether he should have broached that line with impressionable boys and girls around is debatable. If there were people with physical disabilities in that gathering, the wiser counsel would have been to avoid such references that can be painful for them to take. 

"If God was kind, everyone should be born equal. One is born rich or poor, a criminal or a hero, why such differences? What you have been given in this life is based on what you did in your previous birth," he told the students.

Not A Speech That Calls For Arrest

But purely as an idea it is not something new. All religions that believe in the idea of rebirth indeed subscribe to the idea that your past sin (in the previous birth) impacts your life in the present. It has a say in whether you are born with problems or not, is the popular belief system.

Hinduism, of course, sets much store by this theory. In any case, it is not something that calls for an arrest with the entire police in tow.

While the miked-up Mahavishnu was elaborating on this, one of the teachers in the audience took exception to the idea and asked the speaker to not propagate such ideas. Mahavishnu dared him to reveal his name and asked him for a debate of sorts on the issue. There was some unease in the hall, but nothing untowardly disturbing happened. 

It is not clear whether Mahavishnu continued with his speech after that, if so whether he continued in the same vein, and whether the teacher was escorted out or he stayed put.

Anyway, later it emerged that the teacher was named Shankar, and he had visual impairment. He taught Tamil in that school. 

The short clip of the speech showed up on social media platforms on 4 September — nearly a week after the event — and as is always the case, all hell broke loose soon.

The Dravidian sections, with their usual penchant for vehemence and cheap name calling, went after Mahavishnu for his contentious speech and the small run in with the teacher. 

The Education Minister also copped a lot of flak, but he soon made it clear that action will be taken against Mahavishnu and the school authorities.

Soon, the headmistress of Ashok Nagar Government Girls' Higher Secondary School and the headmaster of Saidapet Government Model School, which had invited him to speak, were both transferred.

The Charges May Not Stand In Court

The State Chief Minister M K Stalin, who is on an official sojourn to the US, put out a tweet condemning the speech, and he also ordered immediate formulation of guidelines on holding programmes in government schools. 

Meanwhile, Mahavishnu who had left for Australia before the controversy erupted was rounded up after he touched down in Chennai on Saturday, with a huge posse of policemen lying in wait as if he was a dreaded terrorist.

Mahavishnu had released a video earlier saying that he would speak to the media upon reaching Chennai airport. But the police would have nothing of it as he was whisked away surreptitiously through an alternate gate without allowing him to meet the hordes of waiting media personnel.

The unseemly hurry and secrecy in taking him away for a speech, albeit that has been made into a controversial one, did not seem all that right.

Anyway, the arrest was based on a complaint filed by a differently-abled man, N Vijayaraj, and the Tamil Nadu Association for the Rights of All Types of Differently-abled and Caregivers (TARATDAC). The charges in the FIR include Sections 192, 196 (1) (a), 352, and 353 (2) of BNSS and Section 92 of Disabilities Act, 2016. 

Without getting too legal, the case may not stand in a court. At best, the court may have a few things to observe. But you never know these days. Be that as they may be, but the sequence of events and the responses all seem too pat, and as many pointed out on the social media platforms, it all seemed 'a fixed match'.

CM’s Damp Squib Of A Visit To The US And The Rape Horror In Chennai

The obvious suggestion is that the state machinery is building this issue up to side-track or distract attention from falling on some other matters. What could they be?

For starters, the Chief Minister's trip to the US has not yielded any big-ticket investment as was claimed that it would. Save for the usual photo-ops at some carefully orchestrated events, the CM's trip has been a damp squib.  

Also, many have pointed out that a potential West Bengal-like horrendous rape incident in Chennai has been pushed out of the headlines due to this Mahavishnu non-incident.

As per news reports, a couple who reported that their 10-year-old daughter had been repeatedly raped by a neighbour were allegedly beaten by a woman cop  in Anna Nagar and detained at the station until the early hours of 31 August.

The child, a sixth-grade student at a government school, was apparently a witness to the heinous mistreatment of her parents in the presence of the accused, Sathish, a local water can supplier. Despite an FIR (first information report) being filed on 31 August, the accused has not yet been arrested.

Of course, it cannot be said with any amount of certainty that the Mahavishnu incident has been blown up artificially. But the course of events does lend itself to the charge of being orchestrated from behind.

There are some questions that beg answers: How was Mahavishnu chosen to speak in the first place? There are enough pictures in the social media that suggest that he had met up with some of the bigwigs of the ruling dispensation in the state, including the Education Minister Anbil Mahesh. Though this doesn't prove anything substantial, it does make it clear that he had access to the powers that are. 

The surfacing of the video, the timing of it, to be precise is what makes one sceptical. One week after the event passed by the clip emerges out of the blue. And that too only a portion of the speech is available. The origin of the video and what really transpired after the showdown are all unknown. The responses also seem too rehearsed and practised. 

Mahavishnu will eventually get bail without much fanfare, and the incident will soon be forgotten. But the media would do well to have an eye open to know what we are being distracted from, if that is indeed the case. Not seeing what is happening around can be a sin in this birth itself.