Cinema News Tamil Nadu

Actor Suriya’s hypocrisy: Releases ‘Jai Bhim’ in Hindi, features scene where Prakash Raj slaps a north-Indian for speaking Hindi

November 2, 2021
The Commune

In yet another case of reeking hypocrisy by alleged ‘actor’ Suriya, his latest film ‘Jai Bhim’ features a controversial scene in which a north-Indian man gets slapped for speaking Hindi.

Jai Bhim, directed by T.J. Gnanavel is based on a real life incident that happened in the 1990s where men from the Irular tribe were taken by the police and implicated in false cases. Suriya plays the role of a lawyer named ‘Chandru’ who takes up the case to get justice for the victims.

The film is dashed with the trademark elements of ‘porali’ films with images of Karl Marx, Dr. Ambedkar and ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy Naicker.

The film also has made efforts to coax the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu by featuring a scene that instigates violence against speakers of the Hindi language.

In a blatantly bigoted scene, Prakash Raj who plays the role of a police officer slaps a north-Indian (who has been stereotyped as a ‘Marwari’ Saet) for speaking in Hindi and asks him to speak in Tamil.

It is worth mentioning that Suriya who is also the producer of the movie has released Jai Bhim in Hindi too in order attract Hindi audience.

Many on social media not just pointed out the problematic scene but also lashed out as Suriya for being a hypocrite.

In Hindi, the same scene shows Prakash Raj uttering the dialogue “Speak the truth”. Only in Telugu and Tamil, the makers of the film seem to have deliberately kept the dialogue to exploit linguistic faultlines.

Many point out that this has deliberately been done to appease the ruling DMK in Tamil Nadu, the party which is known for inciting hatred in the name of a non-existent ‘Hindi imposition’.

This is not the first time alleged actor Suriya who has of late been resorting to virtue signalling is being called out for his hypocrisy.

In “Soorarai Pottru”, a mischievous distortion of the story of Captain G.R. Gopinath, Suriya who is shown as an ‘anti-caste’ and a ‘socialist’ capitalist (God knows what that is!) utters the dialogue “I want to break the cost barrier and the damn caste barrier too!”.

However actor Suriya who is a director of two companies – one ‘2D Entertainment Private Limited’ and the other ‘Rakkia Cinemas Private Limited has recorded his name as “Rakkia Gounder Sivakumar Suriya”.

He was also called out for opposing NEET while having a ‘selection criteria’ for awarding scholarships to ‘deserved students’.

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