Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi, Senior Journalist
@kvlakshman
Has the Tamil Nadu governor RN Ravi brought an issue into sharper focus that the BJP was trying to blunt by its reach out to the Tamilian through his heart – love for language and culture – with its Kashi Samagam that was celebrating Tamil culture, language, and identity far away in north India.
The BJP and Sangh Parivar outfits went big with the splashes on the Kashi Samagam, a month-long event at Varanasi to celebrate the many aspects of the historical and civilisational connection between India’s North and South. Many students from Tamil Nadu were taken to Varanasi for an exposure of North India and the saffron brigade in Tamil Nadu went to town with this.
Read More :-IS CM YOGI A DOG LOVER OR CAT ONE?; WATCH VIDEO TO FIND OUT
Softening the Tamilian sentiments, it was thought will give help to the BJP’s efforts to strike deeper roots in the state which it finds almost impregnable. Its state unit Chief K Annamalai has been trying hard with its brand of aggressive campaigns – stressing on his Tamilian identity to appeal to the psyche of the Tamil voter and get them to accept the BJP that is largely dismissed as that Hindi speaking North Indian party.
In fact the DMK ecosystem seemed rattled with this intelligent campaign, and then stepped in governor RN Ravi with his controversial remark after controversial remarks, culminating all the tiff with the state government into a full scale war with his unprecedented actions in state assembly session that he inaugurated.
It gave the DMK, just the emotional issue that it is going about milking as it fits neatly into the overall regional party narrative built on Tamil pride, identity culture and language. Already, the issue has caught the imagination of the masses, no doubt helped by the fanning of the issue by the ruling regional party, whose stand on Hindi and Hindi imposition is well known.
Since the BJP is closely identified with Hindi and its penchant to try and popularise Hindi across India, including in Tamil Nadu, the governor’s actions have been successfully sold to the people as “acting as the BJP spokesperson and propagating the RSS BJP ideology from the high Constitutional office.”
Read More :-‘BJP KNOWS HOW TO FUNCTION AS WINNER,’ SAYS YOGI ADITYNATH WHILE LAUDING PM MODI’S EFFORTS
Quite predictably, the BJP Tamil Nadu chief Annamalai jumped into the defence of the governor and laid the blame squarely on the DMK government for creating a big hue and cry over a non issue. He said he did not find any differences or confusion in Tamil Nadu being called Tamizhagam, as “both the names mean the same.” Even CM Stalin mentions Tamizhagam in some places, the BJP leader said to defend the governor. In fact, the governor erred in describing TN as a peaceful state, in his address to assembly, and this is utterly false, Annamalai said.
The BJP leadership and cadres are trying their best to paint a picture of DMK as the one who is at fault, but in public perception in the state built on a staple diet of local media that is pro-Tamil and Pro-Tamil Nadu the governor is already being seen as the guilty party and is being perceived as plying partisan politics that he is not supposed to.
What the BJP finds it a tougher ask in its campaigns in Tamil Nadu, or for that matter in few other south Indian states, is that the local vernacular media does not entirely pander to the BJP view like the Hindi language media does across North India. This could be a challenge for the BJP, as in the media game the regional parties are more than matching it unlike the Congress that has seemingly vanished from the media discourse, unless of course it is mentioned for the wrong reasons.
In such a scenario, political observers feel that Governor Ravi may in fact have done the DMK a favour by giving it a chance to distract the people’s attention from other real issues and instead whip up emotions on the Tamil pride, identity, culture and federalism, an idea that finds favour with the masses.
(Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi is a senior journalist tracking social, economic, and political issues and takes a keen interest in sports as well. He has worked with prominent news organisations.)
