A Tamilian in India, is an Indian first …

In the last two days after the ordinance on Jallikattu was passed, the peaceful student agitation took an ugly turn…. all sorts of political and other nefarious elements infiltrated the peaceful agitators and tried to turn it into an anti-India, anti-Modi, anti-Hindi agitation. The good thing is students had dispersed before much of these things happened and some of the nefarious activity was caught on tape so people could understand that it wasn’t the students who were indulging in these things.

Here’s a poster that got me upset ….

and it got several other people upset too … but I was even more upset to see some of the commentary around this poster. Some people said “this is where things were headed right from the beginning”, and some others said “they dont belong to India, why should we bother with them” etc etc.

A few things that all “North” Indians need to understand about Tamilians – Whether you like it or not, proven history says the Tamil language is as old if not older than Sanskrit, so assuming that Hindi will automatically be accepted as a “national” language won’t work. Yes, almost everyone in TamilNadu now learns Hindi and they understand it helps them move around the country, but also remember Hindi is the official language NOT the national language. I am a Tamilian and I speak Hindi like a native, its my first language and I love Hindi, but it doesn’t make Tamil any lesser for me and I completely understand when a Tamilian says he doesn’t like Hindi.

Second, the burden and pleasure of patriotism is not restricted to “Delhi” and “Punjab”… the Indian army has soldiers who come from TamilNadu and several of them have died proudly serving the nation. Am as proud of the Sikh regiment as I am of the Madras Regiment …. Yes my Sikh brother is tall, fair and when he marches the enemy shivers, but when my lithe, dark Tamil brother sneaks upon the enemy, he dies without knowing what hit him. So lets not decide that patriotism is restricted to Delhi and Punjab. My husband is a hardcore Tamilian who protested against Hindi being imposed, but he would have been the first to stand in line to defend his motherland then and now, just like the millions of Tamilians who dont speak Hindi.

Yes, there was a time when some idiotic politicians tried to look for a separate Tamil “eelam”. It remained a dream and it will remain a dream forever, just like “Khalistan”. It will remain a dream because every Tamilian is first an Indian, just like the Punjabis are !! Just as you cannot dream of India without Punjab, you should not dream of India without TamilNadu. Not to score points, but just to point out, Subramania Bharati’s poems ignited a whole generation to fight against the British but the rest of India couldn’t read them and still doesn’t…. he was the first to speak about women empowerment, again rest of India couldn’t understand him because he spoke in Tamil. Cut to the modern day, late APJ Abdul Kalam, the most celebrated President of India is a Tamilian… or the unbelievable Kamaraj, with whose scheme Nehru wouldn’t agree because it would have brought someone else into the PM’s chair… has any of the armchair patriots read the “Thirukural”? Or has any of the Lutyens-Delhi-armchair historian bothered to speak about the naval fleet of the cholas at a time when Persians and Greeks and Romans were hired as security guards ??

Jallikattu is a sport and it is not cruel to the bulls …. there are people who have been cruel to the bulls during Jallikattu and therein lies the difference. Just as we dont ban the medical college, some of whose students tortured a poor dog, Jallikattu doesn’t have to be banned, but those who tortured the bulls must be hanged !! Anyway, the courts and the government better deal with this issue once and for all. I also wonder why there was lesser hue and cry about anti-India slogans at JNU in Delhi but there is a furore around the anti-India slogans during the last two days at the Marina Beach ….  Tamilnadu also has its fair share of politicians who will stoop to any level just like all other states.

And please dont talk about corruption – even the late Jayalalitha and the forever alive Karunanidhi do not have as much assets as the black money hoarded in just the city of Delhi.

There is a dangerous trend of assuming that Delhi is India, IT IS NOT. Its a part of India just like Mumbai, just like Chennai, just like Kolkatta and just like Patna…Imagine if all the 29 states had Chief Ministers like the Delhi CM. Ah, I cant imagine I wrote that. That would be a national nightmare. Even an atheist will pray for it not to happen.

So Dilliwalon – open your eyes and travel around the vast and beautiful country of ours and relieve yourselves of the nightmare that you have voted into power. Go to TamilNadu, eat idli-dosa and enjoy the second largest beach and confirm for yourself that every Tamilian is an Indian first.

JaiHind.