Live Mint has published an article in which the author Manu Joseph claims that the emotional foundation for the secession of South Indian states has already been laid, and he discusses the possible reasons for the states to secede from India.
On Monday (1 May 2023), Live Mint published an article titled “A Republic of South India is not entirely unthinkable” by Manu Joseph, who is a columnist for the outlet. Throughout the article, beginning with the title, the author seems to have expressed his own desire for South Indian states to secede from India under the guise of explaining the possibility of South Indian states seceding from India.
Columnist Manu Joseph explained his theory of South Indian states seceding from India stating thatt if the BJP continues its political tactics against parties like DMK, Communists, TRS (now BRS) ruling their respective states.
He added that though the idea is far-fetched, an emotional foundation already exists for an extraordinary revolt in the future. The author Joseph, echoing the lines of the British who attempted to divide and rule India, stated that South Indian states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka “have their own riparian, lingual, and ethnic discords”.
Implying that the South Indians will never be Indians, author Joseph said, “The political swag of the south ensures that there may be no such being as the ‘Indian nationalist’, there is only the North Indian nationalist.”
Exhibiting the characteristics of a Dravidian Stockists journalist, Joseph extols how Tamil Nadu has passed a resolution against the Governor and Tamil Nadu Finance Minister’s response to Prime Minister Modi who questioned the ‘freebie’ culture in certain states.
Though he admits that there is no emotional support for secession among people in south Indian states, he lists the possible reasons that could change people’s minds. The author Joseph explained the three possibilities, saying, “One, the BJP continues to grow stronger in the north, makes no inroads into the south but compensates by repressing other political parties and states it does not govern. The second factor is a major economic shock that could be attributed to the central government, something like ‘demonetization’ or even a major recession. The third is the rise of a South Indian Modi.”
He ended by saying, “A nation is simply a habit. As time goes by, it becomes a stronger habit that is harder to break. But then South India, too, is a habit.”
Throughout the article, we could see the author’s enviousness over the BJP’s winning streak, which drove him to seek a separate South Indian state. However, he fails to recognize that these are the very old reasons peddled since the 1800s by Robert Caldwell and his followers, such as Dravidian Stockists in South India, who attempted to distinguish South India from the North and were repeatedly proven to be false.
Notably, Ram (@madarassi), a member of the Dravidian Stockist news outlet The News Minute, shared Manu Joseph’s secessionist article and stated, “You will call us secessionist if we do this.”
Idhu naanga sonna "secessionism".
A Republic of South India is not entirely unthinkable https://t.co/aV1CxLKvs9
— Ram (@madarassi) May 1, 2023
This is not the first time Manu Joseph has found himself making controversial remarks. Earlier, he wrote an article about “right-wing women” in which he attempted to demean and denigrate the same women who had trusted him in sharing their experience.
Joseph in that Live Mint article goes on to declare that “Most of the women drawn to the right started their adult lives with no strong political views but a crush on Narendra Modi and bitter personal experiences with some liberals seem to have tipped them.”
He also took a jibe at late veteran BJP leader and Axternal Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj saying that even some of the urban liberal women are developing conservative views “that would put a smile to the face of Sushma Swaraj”(With inputs from Livemint)
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