The Brahminical fringe and the Murali movie

Now that the Murali movie issue has finally ended, i would like to now look at how the Brahminical fringe in the Indian media looked at this whole issue using the following articles as case studies.

1)  Mob censorship and the furore over cricket legend Muralidaran's biopic 800 by P.K.Balachandran, Newsin.Asia

2)Heckler’s veto: On Vijay Sethupathi's withdrawal from Muralitharan biopic '800'- The Hindu Editorial

3)Actor Vijay Sethupathi pulls out of cricketer Muraleedharan’s biopic ‘800’
By R.K.Radhakrishnan, Frontline.

(https://frontline.thehindu.com/dispatches/actor-vijay-sethupathi-pulls-out-of-cricketer-muraleedharans-biopic-800/article32894100.ece)

Article 1 titled 'Growing Intolerance Within Indian Film Industry, Mob Censorship and the Furore Over Cricket Legend Muralidaran’s Bio-pic “800”.' written by P.K Balachandran
Published in NewsIn.Asia

Starts by cherry picking 'movies banned in India' to paint a negative picture of the protest against the Murali movie. The author starts setting the stage by discussing the movies banned in India.

 First of all, in our case nobody called for the banning of the Murali movie, we only called for a boycott. They are totally two different things. The movie is yet to be shot, and the protestors wanted the actor to hear their side of the story. We only called for a boycott, which is a democratic way of protesting that respects the freedom of speech from both sides.

There wasnt a single statement from our side that called for the 'banning of the movie', the hashtag (#Tamils_Boycott_VijaySethupathi) in which i was posting most of my tweets against the movie too very clearly carried the message of boycott and not the message of ban.

None of the hashtags that were used to record the opposition to the movie carried the word 'ban' on it. 

But who gives a flying fuck about facts? Mr.P.K Balachandran has no time for facts. To people like him, this is yet another opportunity to undermine and ridicule the sentiments of the Tamil Nation. In his article he has a very favourable opinion of the Dravidian movement's tolerance. 

This is a strategy the Brahminical media often uses when attacking the Tamil Nationalists. They always use the Dravidian movement to attack and ridicule the Tamil Nationalists. It is a good cover for them.

But PK.Balachandran who is full of praise for the Dravidian parties, fails to mention the ban of Da Vinci Code under Karunanidhi's rule and the pressure it exerted against the release of the movie 'Iruvar'. The movie Iruvar was even refused a censor certificate in the beggining. Furthermore PK also conveniently ignores the issues faced by the Ulaganayagan Kamal's Vishwaroopam and Thalapathy Vijay's Thalaivaa movies under ADMK rule. 

PK also says that "Forces with political agendas in mind, had denied the producer of 800 his constitutional right to free expression". Nobody said the movie cannot be made. Our demand was only to Vijay Sethupathi. The production company has said that it hasnt dropped the movie.

Infact it was the production company that released the actor from the movie after seeing the public opposition for the movie. PK doesnt address any of these points in the article. He doesnt even mention the IPL issue in TN with relation to the resolution passed by the TN assembly.

This article is a classic example of how the Brahminical media intentionally exaggerates and twists the protest of the Tamil Nation to sell their pro-Rajapaksa agenda.

The second article is a Hindu editiorial titled

Heckler’s veto: On Vijay Sethupathi's withdrawal from Muralitharan biopic '800'.

This article tries to undermine the opposition to the movie as a 'heckling act' from just the politicians. It doesnt talk about the overwhelming public opposition towards the movie. Almost all of the social media accounts of Vijay Sethupathi was flooded with requests from the Tamils to drop the movie.

The editorial fails to recognise the fact that this is a public protest and not just a political protest.

Finally the infamous and shoddy article titled  Actor Vijay Sethupathi pulls out of cricketer Muraleedharan’s biopic ‘800’
by R.K.Radhakrishnan for Fontline, clearly summarises the true intentions and hatred the Brahminical fringe has for the Tamils.

When the article was first published, it made a lot of false statements and accusations. It was purely opinionated and it was more of  rant by a crazy obnoxious prick. The author himself later accepted the fact that he was not in his right mind while writing the article.

R.K. Radhakrishnan is clearly the most ill informed Indian journalist with a track record of working in Sri Lanka. He made an inaccurate statement in his article that Murali's father was hacked to death in a riot. 

When that was pointed out. He lost his shit, and started attacking the Eelam Tamils. He even called Eelam Tamils 'vermins'.

He later apologised for it, removed the objectionable tweet and corrected his article.

None of these articles actually tried to understand the other side of the story. None of them covered the voices from Eezham or the Tamil diaspora that were against the movie. The real intention was not to give an unbiased report about the whole issue, but to use this as an opportunity to make a political statement against the Tamil Nation.

Here are a few important points that the Brahminical fringe ignored in their coverage. 

▪️The protestors were against the movie because of Murali's association with the genocidal regime of the Rajapaksa's. The articles don't go into this details. They refuse to address Murali's political side and how the movie could have been used as a political propaganda tool of the Sinhala Nation.

▪️The protestors also spoke about Murali defaming the forcibly dissapeared's family members struggle for justice. Infact the family members themselves appeared in front of a press conference in Jaffna and requested Vijay Sethupathi to drop the movie, but the Brahminical fringe didn't cover that story.

▪️The protestors also raised awareness Sri Lanka cricket's politics and how it is used as a political tool to justify genocide and crimes of the Sinhala State. The fringe didn't address this point. 

▪️The SL Navy using cricket results as an excuse to assault and shoot the Tamil Nadu fishermen in the border was also not addressed,

And so on..

For a very long time the Brahminical fringe within the Tamil media has gotten away with this anti-Tamil reporting, but this cannot continue for long. The Tamil Nation will continue to expose this fringe. We will resist.

-Mr. பழுவேட்டரையர்