Others

Others

Ever since the SC-mandated deadline for setting up the Cauvery Management Board expired at the end of March, Tamil Nadu has been simmering. On Thursday, the anger boiled over during PM Narendra Modi ’s visit to Chennai for the Defexpo. An army of vociferous protesters in black took over those areas of the city where the prime minister was supposed to touch down. They released bunches of black balloons into the sky and #ModiGoBack trended on Twitter.The rallying call for boycott may have been given by DMK working president MK Stalin but those who responded came from all walks of life, from IIT-Madras students to farmers to civil society activists. Yet, this protest is hardly the only one Tamil Nadu is currently in the grip of.In the port town of Thoothukudi, residents have been protesting for over 50 days against Vedanta-owned Sterlite’s copper smelter which, they say, is responsible for various ailments among people living in the area. The agitation reached its apogee on March 26, when over 2,00,000 people raised their voice against Sterlite.Near the Bodhi hills in Theni district, too, people are protesting against the proposal to set up a Rs 1,500 crore Neutrino Observatory , an underground laboratory to detect and study neutrinos, in the area. Around 200 km away in Neduvasal in Pudukkottai district, villagers are raring to resume their agitation against ONGC’s proposed hydrocarbon project on their lands.A million mutinies, it appears, are raging in the state. The common thread running through this multitude of protests is anger over the perception that Tamil Nadu is being discriminated against.“Whether it is the Sterlite protests or Cauvery, it has consistently been brought home that this is something that is unfair to Tamil Nadu as a state,” says S Anandhi, professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies. “There is an idea that the state’s demands are fair and yet it is being denied its rights. That’s why there is unanimous support for these movements, across social strata.”The Centre and the projects led by it are thus perceived as impinging on the rights of the citizens.This keen sense of Tamil identity and prioritising its interests can be traced back to the Dravidian movement led by stalwarts like Periyar, which began in the 1920s. The movement against Brahminical hegemony and caste system also played a crucial role in launching the anti-Hindi agitation of 1937, when the Congress , led by C Rajagopalachari, introduced Hindi as a compulsory subject in schools in the Madras Presidency.Faced with protests for three years, the order was finally withdrawn. The anti-Hindi agitation reared its head again in the 1960s when it was time for Hindi to be adopted as the sole official language in the country. The Congress government was voted out, never to return to power in the state, and the DMK in 1967 inaugurated the rule of the Dravidian parties in the state.If the Congress was at the receiving end of Tamil ire then, it is now the turn of the BJP. “The credibility deficit of the BJP is so strong in Tamil Nadu that whatever goes wrong, people tend to blame the party. The Centre had very little to do with (banning) jallikkattu but if you went to Marina Beach during the protests, you would have seen people raising slogans against Modi."BJP is seen as a north Indian, Hindi, Hindu party which is against Tamil aspirations,” says historian and writer AR Venkatachalapathy. From the beginning, the Dravidian parties had also established a welfare state, perpetuating the notion that the state was the one that would protect its citizens and provide for them, putting their interests first.“People in Tamil Nadu have strong faith in the welfare measures of Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa. They compare this with the Central government which, in their minds, is not a welfare state. Few people are aware the rice in PDS has to be given by the Central government. For them, Jayalalithaa or Karunanidhi have launched free rice schemes, which keeps them alive,” says Anandhi.This is an idea that the regional parties, whether it is the DMK or AIADMK, have assiduously cultivated. Vekatachalapathy, however, draws a distinction between the current protests and those that happened earlier.“I see these protests as relatively new. Most of it is spontaneous, not really organised by political parties. The parties are capitalising on it and riding the wave of resentment.”The pro-jallikkattu protests, for instance, that drew thousands to Marina Beach in January 2017, had no single leader. With the death of former CM Jayalalithaa and old age and ill health restricting former CM Karunanidhi, there is a crisis in the polity. “People are waiting for a new leadership or movement to emerge.”There is also a distinct dichotomy when it comes to issues within the state. For instance, while the Jayalalithaa-led government might give people a free hand to protest against Sri Lankans coming to play cricket in Chennai, it came down hard on any dissidence against itself. The death of Jayalalithaa has now opened up the space for dissent, says Anandhi.“The space that has opened up is now being seized by civil society.” The widespread of adoption of social media and mobile phones are making it all the easier for people to organise and spread the message of revolt. With every move of the Centre coming under scrutiny in Tamil Nadu, it is now up to the government to assure the people, both in word and in deed, that it is not being discriminated against. Here, perceptions might even be more important than reality.