Hate politics, prejudices spiral after cyclone

Nearly three weeks after Cyclone Michaung made its devastating entry into the states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh in the first week of December and made the citizens recall the untold miseries they experienced since 2015, ‘relief’ politics is slowly rearing its ugly head in the Dravidian land. Of course, things got worse in the last week when the traditionally arid regions of south Tamil Nadu faced rains, which took them by total surprise and marooning their lives and livelihoods. So, the entire State was paralysed and the people had to be saved by a combination of Central and State relief agencies, which worked round-the-clock and by all accounts doing a great job.

A section of the Tamil media has not been happy with the response from the Centre and have come out with statistics as to how, in comparison to the earlier flood tragedy of 2015, the funds disbursed and facilities extended are lesser. Very noticeably, a social activist writing for a political weekly even made an incredulous observation that the State has suffered because of lesser help from the neighbours, especially the Hindi belt, which had been liberal eight years ago when the capital city of Chennai was totally under water for days on end.

The reason being attributed was that the hate politics and the linguistic antipathy shown towards the population from north India has made them tighten their purse strings and reluctant to give an extra rupee or two for the cause. Of course, one cannot be taken in by such ‘analytical’ commentaries when one looks at a 360-degree support of resources, both fiscal and non-fiscal from Delhi and other donors.

The disturbing aspect to this observation is that people in Tamil Nadu are concerned about the State being referred to as an ‘intolerable, insular’ kind of a region which prioritises linguistic pride on top of everything else. As far as Tamil Nadu goes, ever since the advent of the Dravidian parties nearly eight decades ago and the unbroken reign of theirs at Chennai since 1967, this is one situation which is like a glass with partially-filled water.

It is purely a matter of perception as to how the rest of the country sees the State welcoming the outsider, the other who has ultimately gone on to live on comfortably in the region for as long as he/she wants. One can add the minor skirmish between T R Baalu, the DMK leader and Bihar CM, Nitish Kumar here when the former asked for a translation of his speech in English for him to understand what he spoke.

Whether Hindi is a ‘national’ language or an ‘official’ language in India is a subject which can further draw up battle lines between the heartland and the hinterland, the feeling of discrimination and being subject to

step-motherly treatment is one which can be experienced by both sides. Whether the glass is half full or half empty, what is needed is overthrowing of traditional prejudices clouding the mind and adopting a balanced approach to enable better understanding and proceed with clarity.