Mainstream media in Tamil Nadu is known for peddling the Dravidian ideology that divides people on the basis of race based on which caste one belongs to. In their lens, anyone from the Brahmin community, doesn’t qualify to be a Tamil even if the person’s mother tongue is Tamil, as Brahmins are considered as ‘Aryans’ who migrated from far-off lands.
Coming against this backdrop, the Tamil Nadu mainstream media channels namely – Puthiya Thalaimurai and News 7 Tamil found themselves in a spot after netizens dug out its double standards in addressing two players – Ashwin Ravichandran and Natarajan, both of them being players from Tamil Nadu who speak Tamil.
Both these channels addressed Ashwin, a Brahmin, as an ‘Indian’ cricketer while Natarajan, a Vanniyar, was mentioned as ‘Tamil’ cricketer.
On January 1, News 7 Tamil had put out a news in its Twitter page saying “Tamil” player Natarajan has been selected to play in India vs Australia test series.
However, it put out a tweet today in which addressed Ashwin as an “Indian” cricketer stating that the cricketer managed to play well despite 5 fielders encircling him.
This lack of uniformity or rather the presence of heavy bias while describing players from specific community is the reason why their hypocrisy is being called out in social media.
And @news7tamil as well! pic.twitter.com/0pnLmfn0iv
— Ethirajan Srinivasan (@Ethirajans) January 11, 2021
This is how Dravidian ideologues divide Tamils. #Natarajan is always a Tamil Cricketer & #RavichandranAshwin is a Indian Cricketer. Brahmin Cricketers won’t be called Tamils?
Though I want everyone to be called Indians, this discreet divide & rule is a decades’ old pattern here. pic.twitter.com/51o0Th4S7t
— SG Suryah (@SuryahSG) January 11, 2021
@karthickselvaa @sumanthraman
Why such biased reporting from a so called unbiased media house ? https://t.co/tV2qvzV9GR— Kutty Chandran (@KuttyChandran2) January 11, 2021