Express News Service
First Published : 03 Nov 2008 03:16:00 AM IST
Last Updated :
CHENNAI: DMK president and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has been literally caught in a catch-22 situation, being unable to antagonise the Congress, the only ally in Tamil Nadu, and being forced to do a tightrope walk on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue, by renewing his call for unity among all parties.
The only weapon which comes handy to Karunanidhi now is the ‘unity mantra’, which he has been chanting time and again, ever since the Lankan Tamils issue took a serious turn in the recent past.
But the unity mantra has, in a way,united the entire opposition on one agenda: to criticise the DMK on the Tamils issue.
Despite the Centre’s diplomatic moves on the issue after the all-party meeting on October 14, the main demand for a ceasefire is yet to be realised and the truth is that the DMK can’t criticise the Union Government.
The PMK criticised the DMK leadership for the inaction on the issue, while the CPI, which gave a fresh momentum to the Lankan Tamils issue in the current situation, is also posing pertinent questions to the ruling DMK.
J Jayalalithaa, leader of the main opposition party, AIADMK, has been waging a fierce battle of words with Karunanidhi on the issue, while the MDMK chief, who is now in prison, has also condemned the DMK in unequivocal terms. Even the Congress is divided on the Lankan Tamils issue because of the LTTE.
Except for a few leaders, almost all of them have taken a firm stance against the Tigers.
CM hits out at Ramadoss
DMK president and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Sunday took strong exception to the remarks of PMK founder leader S Ramadoss who had questioned the action of the DMK Government to raise funds for the cause of Lankan Tamils.
In a statement, he wondered how the PMK leader could criticise his action which was intended to help the suffering Tamils in the island nation. He said even the film fraternity had collected Rs 45 lakh for the Lankan Tamils at a fast in the city.
The fund thus raised would be given to the Tamils in Lanka through the International Red Cross and the United Nations’ representative, he said, and added that there was no need to harbour any fear that the money would be directly handed over to the Sri Lankan Government.
Showing posts with label AIADMK. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIADMK. Show all posts
Monday, November 3, 2008
If Kalaignar were a Bihari
Aditya Sinha
First Published : 01 Nov 2008 01:38:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 01 Nov 2008 07:32:05 AM IST
Sometimes I wonder: what if Mr Kalaignar was a Bihari. He is, as you know, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi; I am, as regular readers know, an American Bihari.We have something in common: the Shiv Sena. The Sena was born mobilizing unemployed Marathis by demonizing the “Madrasi”. Now that Sena founder Bal Thackeray is close to croaking, his nephew Raj and son Uddhav are wrestling for his political inheritance by demonizing the “Bihari”.
In the way that “Madrasi” encompassed all south Indians during the Sena’s birth, “Bihari” includes everyone from the Gangetic belt. This is confusing. South Indians refer to all north Indians as “Punjabis”, so for the “Madrasi”, are Marathis and Biharis sub-sets of “Punjabis”? And why does the “Madrasi” refer to those from the Northeast (like my wife) as north Indians when “Punjabis” refer to them as “Chinkies”? Should we refer to Kashmiris as “Extremely North Indians”? Since Pakistan is dominated by Punjabis, are they a subset of north Indians too? And since Hema Malini and Sridevi both married Punjabis, are they traitors? But I digress. The attacks on Biharis will likely continue for another year, till the Maharashtra assembly elections are due. In part, this is because both Raj and Uddhav think their incontinent old man is going to pop it sometime soon; he was too “leaky” to travel to election meetings far from his house “Matoshri” in Bandra during the 2004 elections. Their fight for the soul of the Sena means a bit of economy with the truth: the Maharashtra state labour commission apparently says there is no fight for jobs between Marathis and Biharis; Marathis dominate government jobs, Biharis do the low-level stuff, and the private sector (which can’t be regulated through quotas) is dominated by the folks from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Could Raj and Uddhav be jumping the gun? After all, their old man is a couple of years younger than our Mr Kalaignar who, Brahmanical Gods willing, will torment India for many years to come. And he hasn’t lost his touch: he recently wrote in the Sena mouthpiece, Samna, that Biharis were “an unwanted lot” in the country, or that the 16 Bihar MPs who have threatened to resign were “spitting into the plate they ate from”. It seems that my wife is not the only one who thinks Biharis are unwanted.
In fact, till my wife and I met, she, like the ULFA, thought all Biharis were either tea garden labourers or rickshaw drivers. In Punjab, at the height of terrorism in the 1980s, extremists used to gun down Bihari migrant workers, though Punjabi entrepreneurs are now trying to woo Biharis back since their own people are too prosperous to do manual farm labour.
In Delhi, Biharis will soon overtake Punjabis as the capital’s largest ethnic group; that the BJP has chosen a Punjabi candidate, V K Malhotra, for CM means the Biharis are likely to vote for Mayawati and thereby split the Congress tally. Even CM Sheila Dixit last year spoke of how “these Biharis” came to Delhi and stayed on.
Even in America. While I grew up, other Indian youngsters used to snort when I revealed I was from Bihar (you’d think that Indians would display more unity living halfway across the globe). Once, feeling demoralized I told my father, and he counseled me to buck up; “Tell them about Bihar’s ancient culture,” he said. “How it was the birthplace of Buddhism, and the centre of the empire of Chandragupta Maurya, the first unifier of India.” In fact,my parents are currently visiting from America; my mother comes annually for Chhath puja, this year on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the same time as the US presidential elections (anyway they would have split their votes between Obama and McCain). Chhath entails worship of the Sun; it is said to have started in the Mahabharata with Karna, the son of Kunti by the Sun God. Biharis celebrate it wherever they migrate to; in New York, my mother tells me, one of her friends does Chhath on the banks of the Hudson River. Though my mother stopped going to Bihar for Chhath during the lawless years of Laloo Prasad’s reign, she did the puja in Delhi, where I used to live.
In fact, the 16 MPs who were protesting against Raj Thackeray’s behaviour and who demanded a CBI inquiry into the police shooting of an angry young migrant, said they would quit Parliament after Chhath.
My father and I were watching the announcement on TV and I laughed; I further laughed when I saw Raj Thackeray ask his supporters not to disrupt Chhath in Maharashtra.
The resignation threat was as sincere as the recent DMK threat to resign (thereby threatening to pull down the UPA government) in case India did not ensure a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.
But Karunanidhi seems to have had his cake and eat it too. He gets away with his hypocrisy and remains the “champion” of Tamil Eelam, simply because there is nobody else to inherit his mantle (sons Stalin and Azhagiri are no patch on Raj and Uddhav, so Chennai’s Biharis need not worry).
After him, there will be a real crisis of leadership in opposition to Jayalalithaa. If Vaiko or Ramadoss were capable of the top job, they would have somehow got it by now; if they have not, they will never.Vijaykanth does not seem to have any depth, relying for advice on the discards from other parties.
He seems like nothing more than a popular face. Plus, he has no neck.
And if Karunanidhi had roared against the attacks against Biharis,would Raj or Uddhav have had the temerity to tell him to mind his own business, the way they did to Laloo or chief minister Nitish Kumar? Probably not. Of course, Mr Kalaignar takes his alpha-male role too seriously when he throws stones at women, the way his gang did at Jayalalithaa in Madurai on Thursday. His support to Tamil Eelam remains just a lot of lip service, done to ensure his family’s political and business survival, as the coming months may prove. And with Laloo around, Bihar isn’t big enough for two kalaignars.
Last week, my wife scolded me for bragging about my American heritage. I did it because Obama’s words made me proud of that heritage. The USA is lucky to have a leader like him. India’s luck can be gauged by the transcendence of its Thackerays, Laloos, Kalaignars, Amar Singhs, Sonias, Advanis, et al. Our luck is further eroded by the fact that we have a prime minister who is incapable of politically managing this vast land. I don’t buy the theory that at any given time, a chunk of India wants to secede. I think we lack the visionary leaders we had at independence, men and women who forged a nation out of so many peoples.
And if you want to see who’s to blame, you need just look in the mirror!.
editorchief@epmltd.com
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=If+Kalaignar+were+a+Bihari&artid=fAclz7FoN0o=&SectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&MainSectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&SectionName=aVlZZy44Xq0bJKAA84nwcg==&SEO=karunanidhi,%20tamil%20eelam,%20bal%20thackeray
First Published : 01 Nov 2008 01:38:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 01 Nov 2008 07:32:05 AM IST
Sometimes I wonder: what if Mr Kalaignar was a Bihari. He is, as you know, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi; I am, as regular readers know, an American Bihari.We have something in common: the Shiv Sena. The Sena was born mobilizing unemployed Marathis by demonizing the “Madrasi”. Now that Sena founder Bal Thackeray is close to croaking, his nephew Raj and son Uddhav are wrestling for his political inheritance by demonizing the “Bihari”.
In the way that “Madrasi” encompassed all south Indians during the Sena’s birth, “Bihari” includes everyone from the Gangetic belt. This is confusing. South Indians refer to all north Indians as “Punjabis”, so for the “Madrasi”, are Marathis and Biharis sub-sets of “Punjabis”? And why does the “Madrasi” refer to those from the Northeast (like my wife) as north Indians when “Punjabis” refer to them as “Chinkies”? Should we refer to Kashmiris as “Extremely North Indians”? Since Pakistan is dominated by Punjabis, are they a subset of north Indians too? And since Hema Malini and Sridevi both married Punjabis, are they traitors? But I digress. The attacks on Biharis will likely continue for another year, till the Maharashtra assembly elections are due. In part, this is because both Raj and Uddhav think their incontinent old man is going to pop it sometime soon; he was too “leaky” to travel to election meetings far from his house “Matoshri” in Bandra during the 2004 elections. Their fight for the soul of the Sena means a bit of economy with the truth: the Maharashtra state labour commission apparently says there is no fight for jobs between Marathis and Biharis; Marathis dominate government jobs, Biharis do the low-level stuff, and the private sector (which can’t be regulated through quotas) is dominated by the folks from Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Could Raj and Uddhav be jumping the gun? After all, their old man is a couple of years younger than our Mr Kalaignar who, Brahmanical Gods willing, will torment India for many years to come. And he hasn’t lost his touch: he recently wrote in the Sena mouthpiece, Samna, that Biharis were “an unwanted lot” in the country, or that the 16 Bihar MPs who have threatened to resign were “spitting into the plate they ate from”. It seems that my wife is not the only one who thinks Biharis are unwanted.
In fact, till my wife and I met, she, like the ULFA, thought all Biharis were either tea garden labourers or rickshaw drivers. In Punjab, at the height of terrorism in the 1980s, extremists used to gun down Bihari migrant workers, though Punjabi entrepreneurs are now trying to woo Biharis back since their own people are too prosperous to do manual farm labour.
In Delhi, Biharis will soon overtake Punjabis as the capital’s largest ethnic group; that the BJP has chosen a Punjabi candidate, V K Malhotra, for CM means the Biharis are likely to vote for Mayawati and thereby split the Congress tally. Even CM Sheila Dixit last year spoke of how “these Biharis” came to Delhi and stayed on.
Even in America. While I grew up, other Indian youngsters used to snort when I revealed I was from Bihar (you’d think that Indians would display more unity living halfway across the globe). Once, feeling demoralized I told my father, and he counseled me to buck up; “Tell them about Bihar’s ancient culture,” he said. “How it was the birthplace of Buddhism, and the centre of the empire of Chandragupta Maurya, the first unifier of India.” In fact,my parents are currently visiting from America; my mother comes annually for Chhath puja, this year on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, the same time as the US presidential elections (anyway they would have split their votes between Obama and McCain). Chhath entails worship of the Sun; it is said to have started in the Mahabharata with Karna, the son of Kunti by the Sun God. Biharis celebrate it wherever they migrate to; in New York, my mother tells me, one of her friends does Chhath on the banks of the Hudson River. Though my mother stopped going to Bihar for Chhath during the lawless years of Laloo Prasad’s reign, she did the puja in Delhi, where I used to live.
In fact, the 16 MPs who were protesting against Raj Thackeray’s behaviour and who demanded a CBI inquiry into the police shooting of an angry young migrant, said they would quit Parliament after Chhath.
My father and I were watching the announcement on TV and I laughed; I further laughed when I saw Raj Thackeray ask his supporters not to disrupt Chhath in Maharashtra.
The resignation threat was as sincere as the recent DMK threat to resign (thereby threatening to pull down the UPA government) in case India did not ensure a ceasefire in Sri Lanka.
But Karunanidhi seems to have had his cake and eat it too. He gets away with his hypocrisy and remains the “champion” of Tamil Eelam, simply because there is nobody else to inherit his mantle (sons Stalin and Azhagiri are no patch on Raj and Uddhav, so Chennai’s Biharis need not worry).
After him, there will be a real crisis of leadership in opposition to Jayalalithaa. If Vaiko or Ramadoss were capable of the top job, they would have somehow got it by now; if they have not, they will never.Vijaykanth does not seem to have any depth, relying for advice on the discards from other parties.
He seems like nothing more than a popular face. Plus, he has no neck.
And if Karunanidhi had roared against the attacks against Biharis,would Raj or Uddhav have had the temerity to tell him to mind his own business, the way they did to Laloo or chief minister Nitish Kumar? Probably not. Of course, Mr Kalaignar takes his alpha-male role too seriously when he throws stones at women, the way his gang did at Jayalalithaa in Madurai on Thursday. His support to Tamil Eelam remains just a lot of lip service, done to ensure his family’s political and business survival, as the coming months may prove. And with Laloo around, Bihar isn’t big enough for two kalaignars.
Last week, my wife scolded me for bragging about my American heritage. I did it because Obama’s words made me proud of that heritage. The USA is lucky to have a leader like him. India’s luck can be gauged by the transcendence of its Thackerays, Laloos, Kalaignars, Amar Singhs, Sonias, Advanis, et al. Our luck is further eroded by the fact that we have a prime minister who is incapable of politically managing this vast land. I don’t buy the theory that at any given time, a chunk of India wants to secede. I think we lack the visionary leaders we had at independence, men and women who forged a nation out of so many peoples.
And if you want to see who’s to blame, you need just look in the mirror!.
editorchief@epmltd.com
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=If+Kalaignar+were+a+Bihari&artid=fAclz7FoN0o=&SectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&MainSectionID=d16Fdk4iJhE=&SectionName=aVlZZy44Xq0bJKAA84nwcg==&SEO=karunanidhi,%20tamil%20eelam,%20bal%20thackeray
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Jaya gets death threat
CHENNAI: Days after AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa said LTTE supporters in India were anti-nationals, she received a death threat by airmail on Wednesday. The letter, bearing Malaysia post, is from a person who claims to be the functionary of a pro-LTTE organisation.The undated letter handwritten by V Tamilmaindan, who claims to be the Asian Planning Officer of Ulaga Tamilina Pathugappu Kazhagam, Bangkok branch, with headquarters in Canada, states: “You will be eliminated if you do not change your attitude towards the LTTE and its avowed policy of separate Tamil Eelam. This is the final warning. If you don’t refrain from poking your nose in the Tamil Eelam issue, you will be killed.” The letter cites the assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as an example.“We will not hesitate to kill any person, who attempts to eradicate the LTTE or acts against the organisation,” the letter adds.Jayalalithaa’s secretary K T Karthikeyan lodged a complaint at the Teynampet police station seeking additional security for her.Based on a complaint from former minister and AIADMK functionary D Jayakumar to City Police Commissioner R Sekar, the Central Crime Branch has registered a case in this connection. Police sources said the letter reached Jayalalithaa’s Poes Garden residence around 12.30 pm. The Madras High Court has also been informed about the letter. A copy of the letter was submitted before Justice M Jeyachandran, who ordered filing of an affidavit in this regard on Thursday and said that copies of the letter be served on the DGP and the Home Secretary. On October 22, Jayalalithaa said that she continued to be on the LTTE hit list and because of that reason she had been given the security cover of NSG Commando Force as well as Z Plus category.The CoP said police had been directed to investigate into the matter expeditiously. He said the threatening letter was posted from Canada.
Express News Service
Express News Service
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Pepper MK with telegrams, ask him to quit, says Jaya
First Published : 29 Oct 2008 02:30:00 AM IST
Last Updated : 29 Oct 2008 10:32:02 AM IST
CHENNAI: AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Tuesday called upon the people of Tamil Nadu to send in telegrams to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi asking him to quit for staging a farcical drama.In a statement, Jayalalithaa, who mentioned a news item about Gangai Murugan, who got drunk, climbed the scaffolding of a billboard in Nellai and threatened to jump off and commit suicide, said, ``Some people enact various types of dramas to catch attention. Only when they are taught a bitter lesson, they will stop doing it.’’ She said Karunanidhi was “apparently unaware that India could not interfere in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka.’’ “His misconception was cleared by no less an authority than the External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who had come down to Chennai on Sunday to tell him that it would not be possible for India to bring about a ceasefire in Sri Lanka as that would amount to interfering in the internal affairs of that island nation.’’ “Convinced that nothing more could be done for the Tamils in Sri Lanka, he decided not to hand over the resignation letters of all his party MPs, thereby avoiding a crisis for the Centre,’’ she said.She claimed that in return, the Congress would ensure that its MLAs in Tamil Nadu, who sustained Karunanidhi’s minority government in power today, would behave accordingly.Jayalalithaa, calling the whole affair as a drama and a farce, pointed out that ``On day one, when it was reported that Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi had handed over her resignation to her father and not to the Rajya Sabha Chairman, I had predicted this was how things would shape out. Even Karunanidhi, with all his ingenuity and theatre experience, could not come up with a better script!’’ She said “ Karunanidhi will continue to stage many more such farcical dramas and fool the people who trust him. He should know what the people think and this has to be done, if Tamil Nadu has to survive.’’ “He has to go. And we cannot expect the Centre to do anything about it. For, the persons in power at the Centre are also supporting actors in Karunanidhi’s play,’’ she said.Saying that Karunanidhi had taken nation for a ride, she said he conveniently forgot all about the thousands of Tamils who had been homeless or been displaced by the ongoing war in Sri Lanka.
Monday, October 27, 2008
TN government denies plans to arrest Jayalalithaa
IANS
First Published : 27 Oct 2008 06:53:29 PM IST
Last Updated : 27 Oct 2008 07:06:48 PM IST
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government Monday denied the claims of opposition leader J. Jayalalithaa of her impending arrest by the state police. "The allegation is a figment of her imagination and not based on any fact," Director General of Police K.P. Jain said in a press release here. Jayalalithaa, AIADMK chief, said in a statement Sunday evening that she has been informed by top police officials that Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has ordered her arrest "under any pretext" following her demand for dismissal of the DMK regime for its "anti-national acts". "Stung by my demanding the arrest of Karunanidhi and the dismissal of his government for anti-national crimes for which Marumalarchi DMK leaders Vaiko and M. Kannappan were arrested, the chief minister has exhorted reluctant police officials to immediately arrest me under some pretext or other. I have been informed about this by officials," Jayalalitha said in a statement. "Since MDMK leaders have been arrested after being accused of anti-national acts of supporting the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for circulating elegies for the deaths of LTTE leaders Tamilselvan and Anton Balasingham using government machinery, Karunanidhi too deserves to be arrested," Jayalalitha said. "As I demanded that this be done by the central government after dismissing the minority DMK regime due to the impossibility of the state police detaining a chief minister, Karunanidhi is planning this vengeful action against me," Jayalalitha added. She also demanded, in her statement, the arrest of film personalities Ramanarayanan, director Bharti Raja and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan for their anti-national statements in praise of LTTE leader Prabhakaran
First Published : 27 Oct 2008 06:53:29 PM IST
Last Updated : 27 Oct 2008 07:06:48 PM IST
CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government Monday denied the claims of opposition leader J. Jayalalithaa of her impending arrest by the state police. "The allegation is a figment of her imagination and not based on any fact," Director General of Police K.P. Jain said in a press release here. Jayalalithaa, AIADMK chief, said in a statement Sunday evening that she has been informed by top police officials that Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi has ordered her arrest "under any pretext" following her demand for dismissal of the DMK regime for its "anti-national acts". "Stung by my demanding the arrest of Karunanidhi and the dismissal of his government for anti-national crimes for which Marumalarchi DMK leaders Vaiko and M. Kannappan were arrested, the chief minister has exhorted reluctant police officials to immediately arrest me under some pretext or other. I have been informed about this by officials," Jayalalitha said in a statement. "Since MDMK leaders have been arrested after being accused of anti-national acts of supporting the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, for circulating elegies for the deaths of LTTE leaders Tamilselvan and Anton Balasingham using government machinery, Karunanidhi too deserves to be arrested," Jayalalitha said. "As I demanded that this be done by the central government after dismissing the minority DMK regime due to the impossibility of the state police detaining a chief minister, Karunanidhi is planning this vengeful action against me," Jayalalitha added. She also demanded, in her statement, the arrest of film personalities Ramanarayanan, director Bharti Raja and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan for their anti-national statements in praise of LTTE leader Prabhakaran
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