Expose Special Articles

DMK sponsored ‘Hindi Theriyathu Poda’ gang and their hypocrisy exposed

September 7, 2020
The Commune

Tamil social media went into a frenzy after a couple of Tamil film personalities, DMK sympathizers and DMK politicians posted a picture of them wearing t-shirts that says “Hindi theriyathu poda” (I don’t know Hindi, Get lost!) and “I am a Tamil speaking Indian”.

It all started on September 5, when an actor named Shirish posted a picture of him and music director Abdul Khaliq (earlier known as Yuvan Shankar Raja) wearing the customized t-shirts.

Following this, Shanthanu Bhagyaraj, son of yesteryear actor-director K. Bhagyaraj shared pictures of him and his wife Kiki Vijay wearing the same t-shirts.

Aishwarya Rajesh, known for her role in Kaka Muttai too followed suit.

DMK apologist and journalist RK Radhakrishnan too wore the same t-shirt and sat on a TV debate.

DMK MP Kanimozhi on Sunday tweeted a picture of her standing with a few youngsters sporting the t-shirts. It is being said that this was actually Kanimozhi’s idea. She even tweeted indicating the same saying “a spark is enough to ignite a sentiment”.

DMK chief MK Stalin’s son, the party’s youth wing secretary and ‘actor’ Udhayanidhi Stalin participated in a virtual meeting with party members wearing the t-shirt “Hindi Theriyathu Poda”.

However, netizens were quick to point out the hypocrisy and the absurdity of their attempt to stoke linguistic chauvinism. Here are some examples of this blatant hypocrisy.

1. Abdul Khaliq (Yuvan Shankar Raja)

Yuvan Shankar Raja, who rechristened himself as Abdul Khaliq after converting to Islam made his debut in Bollywood in 2014 by scoring the music for a Hindi movie “Raja Natwarlal” starring Emraan Hashmi, a Hindi actor. It was produced by one of the big banners of Bollywood – UTV Motion Pictures with a budget of ₹470 million. It is said that Abdul Khaliq was referred by notable Hindi film music director Pritam.

Abdul Khaliq was on-boarded for working on “Shershaah”, a Hindi film being co-produced by Karan Johar starring Siddharth Malhotra, Kiara Advani, Javed Jaffrey and Paresh Rawal. However, recent reports say that he has been dropped from the movie.

As for Metro Shirish, this picture is will convey what needs to be conveyed.

Image

2. Shanthanu Bhagyaraj and Keerthi Bhagyaraj

Shanthanu’s mother Poornima Bhakyaraj though a native of Tamil Nadu was born and brought up in Mumbai. She did her college education from RA Podar College of Commerce and Economics located in Matunga, Mumbai. She made her acting debut with the Hindi film ‘Paheli’ and went on to do a couple of more films in Hindi before going on to become successful in Tamil and Malayalam films.

Shanthanu Bhagyaraj studied in Shishya School, one of the top private CBSE schools in Chennai where studying three languages is compulsory from class 4 to class 7. Study of second language is compulsory upto class 10 with the option of choosing Tamil, Hindi or French. It is therefore pertinent to ask Shanthanu which language he chose till class 10 and whether he studied Hindi till class 7 (due to the three language policy).

Not much information is known about Keerthi except that she used to anchor the show Maanada Mayilada, a programme of Kalaignar TV (DMK’s mouth piece).

3. Aishwarya Rajesh

Another celebrity who had flaunted the ‘Hindi Theriyadhu Poda’ t-shirt, Aishwarya Rajesh, had in The Kapil Sharma Show, a Hindi show anchored by Kapil Sharma says that she knows Hindi very well. She speaks decent if not good Hindi. When Kapil Sharma expressed that he had difficulty in doing the show by talking in English, Aishwarya exclaims that “Mere ko Hindi maalom hai re!” (I know Hindi!).

4. Radhakrishnan RK

The Hindu’s Frontline editor and an unofficial DMK mouthpiece who as expected jumped into the DMK sponsored t-shirt bandwagon does not even know the difference between the ‘ra’s in Tamil. In a tweet, instead of “ஒரு” (one), he wrote “ஒறு” which has no meaning.

When a twitter user pointed this out, he conveniently blamed Google Translate.

It is this man who can’t even write Tamil properly comes up on live television sporting the ‘Hindi Theriyadhu Poda’ t-shirt in an attempt to stoke Tamil sentiment.

But, Radhakrishnan very much knows Hindi which he himself accepts.

(Note: TN Deserves Better is the campaign banner of DMK given by IPAC).

4. DMK MP Kanimozhi

This entire Hindi Theriyathu Poda campaign is said to have been initiated by DMK MP Kanimozhi coming in the wake of her alleging that she was questioned at the Chennai airport for not knowing Hindi. But here are some points to note:

a) When the Nira Radia tapes were made public, Radia can be heard speaking to Kanimozhi in Hindi. She even says in her conversation with Radia that she was at a mall to purchase music album of Fateh Ali Khan, the Pakistani singer.

b) Also, in which language did she speak to north Indians like Shahid Balwa, Karim Morani and Vinod Goenka during her 2G negotiations? Probably only English as none of them know Tamil.

c) In which language did she speak to her lawyers Kapil Sibal, Abishek Singhvi, Ram Jethmalani for the 2G case –? Probably only English.

5. DMK 

More than 40 schools run by the DMK leaders or their relatives are affiliated to the CBSE and follow the three language policy with one of the language being Hindi.

Stalin’s daughter, Senthamarai Sabareesan runs the Sunshine Senior Secondary School where Hindi is mandatory till class 8.

Shree Bharat Vidyaashram, school run by DMK MP, S. Jagathrakshakan is another CBSE school that teaches Hindi.

The GeKay school which is affiliated to both CBSE and Cambridge curriculum is run by DMK MP, R. Gandhi, and his son, Vinod Gandhi.

DMK leader Arcot Veerasamy’s brother Devaraj owns the Chennai Public School where Hindi is mandatory atleast till class 5.

However, these hypocrites will say that these are being done at their personal capacity and not officially.