DMK owes a part of its success within the 2024 Lok Sabha elections to a divided opposition. Whereas it stays to be seen if these events stay fractured throughout the run-up to the 2026 meeting election, the ruling get together can depend on one other benefit: a vociferous governor (if he stays that lengthy). If DMK manages to retain energy, a justifiable share of the credit score ought to go to R N Ravi. Each time the prime resident of Raj Bhavan fires a salvo that he thinks would please the saffron bosses in Delhi, DMK and its allies get a shot within the arm.
The most recent confrontation between the governor and DMK wasn’t actually Ravi’s fault. A refrain of protests rose after a choir singing ‘Tamil Thai Vaazhthu’ at an occasion at Doordarshan Kendra to mark the valedictory of the ‘Hindi month’ omitted the half ‘Dravida’ from the tune. It was presumed that both it was completed on the governor’s instruction, or somebody was being extra loyal than the king. “Is he an Aryan or a governor,” requested chief minister M Ok Stalin. Ravi known as it a casteist comment unbecoming of a chief minister.
Omission of textual content shouldn’t be new to the governor. In his deal with to the legislative meeting in January, he had skipped a paragraph of his speech that had references to some Dravidian leaders and the time period ‘Dravidian mannequin of governance’. Stalin had objected to it, prompting Ravi to stroll out of the session. Inside a number of days, talking on the 176th Thyagaraja Aradhana in Thiruvaiyaru, Ravi gave extra gunpowder to DMK by saying that sanatana dharma that gave rise to a sanatana kalachar (tradition) began from ‘Thamizhagam’ (one other time period proponents of Dravidianism see as an try to just accept ‘Tamil Nadu’ as a geographical entity.)
Whether or not the governor was answerable for the omission on the Doordarshan occasion or not, the episode has helped DMK and others to buttress their argument that Ravi is an ‘anti-Dravidian’ agent of the ‘outsider BJP’. Union minister L Murugan sprang to the governor’s assist, however BJP leaders and cadres within the state confide that the spat helps solely DMK and its allies.
Whereas Ravi has been bowling no-balls to permit DMK too many free hits, NTK chief Seeman has been chucking on the Dravidian lineup. Sustaining that ‘Dravidam’ is a political assemble, and solely Tamil is the unique lineage, Seeman’s arguments have been sharp. DMK has no ethical authority to make a noise over the omission of the phrase ‘Dravida’ as a result of the ruling get together had earlier eliminated a number of different components of the state tune penned by Manonmaniam Sundaranar, together with references to Aryan, Kannada and Malayalam, he says, and DMK has little to place up as mental defence. Nonetheless, Seeman is simply too parochial within the trendy context to have an enchantment past his sturdy, if slowly rising, constituencies.
Seeman’s studied arguments however, the time period Dravidian has bought so ingrained within the system — and the names of a number of political events right here — that it has come to be accepted as an expansive synonym of Tamil pleasure. So, it was no shock that AIADMK, AMMK and MDMK, in addition to Congress and others condemned the Doordashan fiasco.
It’s tough to say if Ravi is a person of convictions or compulsions. What is definite is that he’s blissfully unaware of the political ramifications of his Hindutva discourses and the advantages his ideological opponents derive from them. Some experiences counsel governors of some states could quickly get replaced. Even when Ravi strikes out in a number of months, DMK can have sufficient to say that it has been battling for Dravidian pleasure, in opposition to imposers of Hindi and Hindutva. Privately, although, DMK leaders hope he stays.
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Views expressed above are the creator’s personal.
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