As sections of the Dravidian political class in Tamil Nadu compete to see who can coin the ugliest slur for “Vadakkans”, a 25-year-old woman from Bihar has quietly done more for cultural harmony than all their rhetoric put together.
Maithili Thakur, a celebrated folk and classical singer who has just become Bihar’s youngest MLA from Alinagar on a BJP ticket, is going viral again in Tamil social media circles, not for a speech, but for her soulful rendition of “Kannana Kanney” from Ajith Kumar’s blockbuster Viswasam.
Kannana Kanney- Cover
(Tamil Song) pic.twitter.com/Kv8zon9ATL— Maithili Thakur (@maithilithakur) December 4, 2020
The same Tamil song she sang back in 2020 as a young girl during the COVID pandemic has now resurfaced as she steps into public life, and the contrast could not be sharper: while a young Bihari woman embraces Tamil language and music with respect and affection, prominent Dravidian leaders in Tamil Nadu have spent years demeaning Biharis, Hindi speakers, and North Indian migrants as pigs, panipuri sellers, toilet cleaners, and fools.
A Bihari MLA Who Sings Tamil, Not Slanders Tamils
Maithili Thakur’s rise has been straightforward and clean:
a gifted singer from Bihar, widely loved on social media for her bhajans, classical pieces and multilingual covers, she joined the BJP earlier this year and was fielded from Alinagar in Darbhanga. She went on to defeat RJD’s Binod Mishra by over 11,000 votes, making history as Bihar’s youngest MLA and the first BJP winner from that seat.
For many Tamil users, the discovery that this flawless rendition was by a girl from Bihar, singing in impeccable Tamil with visible emotion, was itself a quiet rebuttal to the stereotype that “North Indians don’t respect southern culture”.
That same video is now circulating again, with the caption changed from “What a voice” to “This is Bihar’s youngest MLA.”
Meanwhile In Tamil Nadu: Dravidianists & DMK Leaders, Ministers Call Biharis Pigs, Panipuri Sellers And “Fools”
While a Bihari MLA is winning Tamil hearts with a beautiful song from a Tamil film with impeccable pronunciation that will put the native Tamilian to shame, the ruling DMK leadership and its extended ecosystem have, over the years, normalized a steady stream of open contempt for North Indians and Biharis in particular.
DMK MSME Minister T.M. Anbarasan, speaking amid the delimitation debate, accused North Indians of “breeding like pigs” and blamed them for southern states losing Lok Sabha seats due to higher population growth in the Hindi belt. In another speech, he mocked Hindi speakers as fit only for cattle herding, construction work and panipuri vending, proudly declaring that those who studied Hindi were doing menial jobs in his own home.
He is not an outlier. DMK General Secretary and Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan had described Hindi as a “peeda” (curse), warning Tamils that learning it would bring “dosham” and “theetu” and likening Hindi to a second wife who will displace the first. In the same breath, he narrated a story about a bull running away because it could not bear the “stench of a North Indian” and mocked North Indians again for having “children like pigs”.
MP Dayanidhi Maran has repeatedly claimed that those who learn Hindi end up cleaning toilets and doing construction work in Tamil Nadu, while Tamils who study English rise to become CEOs in global tech companies. A. Raja has similarly reduced Hindi speakers to a stereotype of farm and construction labour.
DMK leaders like KN Nehru have declared that “Biharis are less brainy than Tamils,” blaming Lalu Prasad Yadav for “filling” railways with Bihari workers. RS Bharathi has called people in other states “fools” and repeatedly sneered that Tamil Nadu taxpayers are “feeding Biharis and UP people” through welfare canteens.
Add to this the routine “Vadakkan”, “pani puri vaayan”, “gomutra state” jibes from MLAs, ministers and MPs, and you have not fringe chatter but a sustained, normalized culture of xenophobia directed at North Indians and Biharis, from the very party that endlessly talks of “Constitutional morality” and “federalism”.
Maithili Thakur’s Kannana Kanney Vs DMK’s “Pani Puri Wala” Politics
The symbolism here writes itself.
On one side, you have a young Bihari woman, steeped in her own Maithili and Hindustani traditions, reaching across the Vindhyas to sing a Tamil lullaby with full respect for its lyrics, raga and sentiment and being embraced by Tamil listeners purely on the strength of her voice.
On the other, you have senior Dravidianists and politicians from the DMK who sneer that Biharis and other Hindi speakers are fit only to sell panipuri, laugh about them doing “toilet cleaning” work in Tamil Nadu, insist that learning Hindi will “turn Tamils into Shudras,” and openly call entire northern states “cow-urine states” and “fools”.
The DMK’s message to its cadre is that ‘North Indians’ are a threat, a joke, a lower rung. Maithili Thakur’s message, by contrast, is that language and region are bridges, not weapons and she didn’t have to deliver a single “unity” lecture to prove it. She just sang a song.
Dravidian Xenophobia Hurts Common People, Not Just “BJP Voters”
The consequences of this rhetoric are not academic. When ministers, MPs and party strategists keep repeating that North Indians are “idiots”, “pig breeders”, “toilet cleaners” and “panipuri sellers”, it filters down into everyday interactions in rental decisions, workplace behaviour, casual abuse, and even targeted violence against migrant labourers.
Tamil Nadu knows what it means to be stereotyped. For decades, all southerners were lazily labelled “Madrasis” in the north. Today, the same state that rightly resents those old slurs is allowing its ruling party to mainstream mirror-image abuse against Biharis and Hindi speakers.
Meanwhile, the very migrants who are mocked from podiums are the ones building Chennai’s flyovers, staffing food joints, working in factories, running kirana shops and doing jobs that locals are often unwilling to do at those wages. They are not sitting in television studios; they are standing behind tea stalls and construction mixers, trying to send money home.
A Different North–South Story Is Possible
Maithili Thakur’s rise offers a totally different template for what North–South relations can look like. Here is a Bihari girl who learns and sings Tamil songs with care, wins an election in her home state purely on people’s trust, and goes viral in Tamil Nadu not because of a hate speech clip, but because of a melody about a father’s love for his child.
Her victory and her music together quietly demolish the Dravidianist claim that North Indians only come south to “steal our jobs” or “sell panipuri”. They also expose the intellectual laziness of those who insist that learning Hindi is some kind of civilizational fall, while happily consuming Bollywood songs, Hindi OTT content and North Indian tourist money.
If Bihar’s youngest MLA can sing Kannana Kanney and win Tamil hearts, perhaps it is time some Tamil politicians stopped equating Biharis with pigs and panipuri stalls and started treating them as fellow citizens.
Until then, every time Maithili’s Kannana Kanney video resurfaces, it will stand as a quiet but devastating rejoinder to the DMK’s politics of contempt: a reminder that cultural respect travels both ways, and that a song from Viswasam can do more for unity than an entire season of Dravidian hate speeches.
Subscribe to our channels on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram and YouTube to get the best stories of the day delivered to you personally.
