No-win game
Sat, 06 Sep, 2008,04:25 PM
. The Tamil film Dhanam, which has just been released in Tamilnadu, tells the story of a prostitute entering into a wedlock with a Brahmin boy, who hails from an orthodox family, how they insulted her and how she liberates herself from them after liquidating them all.
The screenplay is full of denigration and ridicule against the Brahmin community and even comedians are characterised in a manner that creates a sense of revulsion.
. This is not the first time, and will not be the last time, that a movie insulting Brahmin community is produced and released in the state. After all, the Brahmin community is the eternal punching bag of all and sundry in this land of rationality.
It is also an irony that, a good number of producers, directors and actors, who form part of such movies, hail from the same Brahmin community.
This may have something to do with the identification factor, as Brahmins despite being classified (notionally) as being in the Forward Community have generally been objects of ridicule in a culture that has been carefully created and nurtured by the powers that be in the last four or five decades.
To put it bluntly, there is actual apartheid practised against the Brahmins in Tamilnadu. A film like Dhanam may just be a manifestation of this existing ethos.
The small screen, which is much more in sync with the ground realties, also deals with the Brahmin community in a manner that leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Perhaps, it may have something to do with the fact that most of the TV channels are owned by either the Dravidian parties or those who owe their allegiance to them.
At every opportunity, whether it is a serial or a topic presentation or a debate show, the community is insulted. The vernacular media too uses a pen dipped in vitriol while dealing with Brahmins.
Anti-Brahmin tirades at least had a context when the original iconoclast, E V Ramasamy Naicker aka Periyar, got it all started in the fifties and sixties.
The Dravidian movement since then, driving on the steam provided by the maverick mentor, has kept the guns trained on the Brahmins, even though the times and the tenor have changed unimaginably.
That is the essential duplicity of the Dravidian cult. It is not uncommon to still hear Karunandhi, Veeramani and others of the ilk talking about Brahminism being the biggest evil ever, and ever will be.
The anti-Brahmin banner-holders are also emboldened on the sly by anti-Hindu forces (missionaries and the mullahs). The Dravidian cult members and the other two forces have formed a triumvirate but each with his own agenda.
Brahmins, numerically insignificant, have never been cohesive enough to be seen as an acrimonious force, indulging in atrocities and vile acts.
There may be some communities that have treated the Dalits with condemnable contempt, yet Brahmins, for some inexplicable historical bias, have been singularly held guilty.
Somebody like Karunanidhi, who takes personal glee in besmirching Brahminical symbols, still refuses to stop pouring the venom and has created a Brahmin anti-Brahmin divide within the larger matrix of Hinduism.
This has lead to the Brahmin community deserting the Dravidian land and settling in other states or abroad. In a sense, Tamilians and Tamilnadu have been the losers in this no-win game.
Films like Dhanam only serve to underline the fact that the game, wittingly or unwittingly, is always on.
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The above is an editorial in the News Today.
