Chennai: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of working against the Constitution, Chief Minister M K Stalin called upon the people of Tamil Nadu and Kerala to function as a double barrel gun to usher in a new dawn in the entire country.
Speaking at the Media Meet 2023, organized by the Kerala Media Academy, in Chennai on Friday, Stalin raised an alarm over a threat hanging over India. While the country’s plurality had been put under duress, there was also an attempt to destroy social justice and both of them together threatened to demolish India itself, he said.
While political movements like the DMK were countering the current trends, the media should also play a part to ward off the threat as it happened during the Independence movement and also stop the false propaganda that was on now, he said.
He likened the present threat to the nation to an earlier threat of foreign invasion that prompted DMK founder C N Annadurai to give up the demand for a separate Dravida Nadu, by understanding the importance of national security in saving the country.
We could change the roof tiles only if the house remained intact, Annadurai had said then, Stalin recalled and stressed on the need for addressing the present threat by the people and the media.
Paying encomiums to the Kerala Media Academy, run by experienced journalists, for producing impartial media persons with secular orientation, he said that was much needed under the present circumstances. Only if journalists worked independently would democracy be vibrant, he said.
Expressing his appreciation for the clairvoyance of veteran journalist P R P Bhaskar, whose book, ‘Changing Mediascape,’ was released by him on the occasion, he said that in 1957 he had predicted that the DMK’s stand on a separate Dravida Nadu would change in due course.
Bhaskar, who is now 91 years and had worked with a plethora of publications during a journalistic career spanning seven decades, was asked about the prospects of the DMK in 1957 by an officer in the Union Education Minister and he had stated that the party would come to power in 10 years, which happened the same way (the DMK romped home in the 1967 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu), he said.
The officer, who was not amused by his answer, had asked him with some concern if that meant secessionism would rear its head and Bhaskar had replied that there would be a change in the demand of the DMK too, Stalin said.
Referring to Bhaskar mentioning about the impediments that were thrown up at the implementation of the Mandal Commission report even after V P Singh had made it a law, he said the DMK was still lending its voice for social justice that was even now under threat.
