Chennai Corner

Yeddy as a friend
At a time when Tamil Nadu CM M Karunanidhi is buffeted from all sides – quite literally with 12 districts including Chennai city under sheets of water for the last 10 days – he needs all the friends he can get. Now, how much he can rely on Karnataka’s beleaguered CM B S Yeddyruppa’s statement that he is on “good terms” with him (Karunanidhi) and that the contentious Cauvery dispute will be “amicably resolved” is open to question. Yeddy dashed down here apparently for a thanksgiving audience with the Meenakshi Ammal at Madurai after surviving to fight another day. His statement can only be classed as lip service and should be treated with suspicion particularly because it was Yeddy who hyped up the Hogannekal dispute weeks before he was elected the first BJP CM of a southern state. And Hogannekal created ripples of discord between TN and Karnataka, and like the Cauvery dispute, will continue to be used by politicians to exploit emotions.

Modified investments
Narendra Modi, the CM of Gujarat, on the other hand made no bones about his intention to steal investors away from TN during his hardsell (“If you have the plan ready, we will give approvals in two hours”) of his state recently. Modi’s offering of a single window clearance within a few hours does not bode well for TN, which so far has been seen as a prime investment destination. As an observer of the TN investment scene put it, “The state has a great infrastructure for automotive ancillary units to retain customers but industrial peace is needed to develop and maintain them in future. The government should look into these urgently to face the invasion from other state kings.” The king he was referring to was Modi who got a red carpet reception that saw 10 top industrial houses holding closed-door investment meetings with his team.

According to Congress MP K S Alagiri, who shot off a complaint letter to union Commerce and Industry minister Anand Sharma, “The companies are blaming labour and power problems as reasons for taking investments out of Tamil Nadu and setting up units in Gujarat. These are not problems which cannot be solved.” But despite the agreement signed in Delhi last week during French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s visit here for the setting up of a Rs 4,500 crore plant, (which will be spread over 290 acres and will employ 1500 locals and will be up and running by 2012) by the world’s largest tyre maker, Michelin, the flutter in industry circles is the labour problems in industries including Hyundai, Ford and Foxconn.

Maybe the state government should sit up and take notice of the MP’s letter which has accused Modi of starting a “rat race” by luring the Tatas to start the Nano plant and is now trying to reel in Hyundai (which rolled out its three millionth car in August this year after a decade of operation here) and Ford (which rolled out its 1 lakh car in May this year after being set up at over 353 acres in Marimalainagar in 1999). Incidentally, after nearly four years of operation, BMW rolled out its 10,000 car in late-November. Alagiri says, “In future, Modi will also lure software units from Bangalore to shift base to Gujarat.”

While these automakers (there are seven in the state) have no plans of fleeing, they are reportedly indeed considering expansion plans in Gujarat. It is ironical that while the saffron brigade has never posed a real threat to the state because numerically they are no match for the Dravidian parties, the biggest poster boy of the BJP might be a real threat to industrialization in the state.

Seeman’s saga of NSA
Film director Seeman has been making news more for his support of Sri Lankan Tamils than his films. As head of the Naam Thamizhar movement, he is part of the militant movement in Tamil Nadu that has deified LTTE head V Prabhakaran. He is not unlike Vaiko of the MDMK who recently said that Prabhakaran was well and alive contradicting all the pictures put out by Sri Lanka that its forces killed the LTTE chief in May last year.

Seeman was detained under the National Security Act (NSA) for his alleged hate speech against Sinhalese students studying in India. His speech saying Sinhalese students in India would be targeted if the “frequent attack on Indian fishermen continues” was the reason for his detention by the additional commissioner of police through his order dated July 16. The habeas corpus petition was filed (by his relative, James Peter, on August 4) seeking quashing of the detention. In the four months since the petition was listed, there were 11 adjournments. Irked at the repeated adjournments, he sought a transfer to another bench because of the delay. Three days is all it took for the new bench (constituted by the Chief Justice) to quash the detention. “Since the additional commissioner of police is a subordinate to the commissioner of police, he cannot function as a detaining authority under the provisions of National Security Act. Hence, the detention order is set aside,” the high court bench said. So, Seeman will be a free man soon. And going by his track record, till the next time he makes a speech inciting violence.

Muthukumar gets a bust
Last year every opposition leader, including AIADMK chief Jayalalitha, who has made no bones that her heart does not bleed for the LTTE, jumped onto the Sri Lankan Tamil bandwagon before the Lok Sabha elections hoping it would harvest votes. And the man who started all this emotive chest thumping was an unknown DTP operator called Muthukumar from one of Chennai North’s middle class suburbs after he committed self-immolation. A suicide note (which ran into controversy over whether he wrote it or was written by someone and used by politicians to drum up the issue) said his act was to protest the killing of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Remember Karunanidhi’s " breakfast to lunch" fast at the Marina when he discovered that even Jayalalitha was exploiting the Tamil issue while he was getting left behind? As a self-acknowledged protector of Tamils, the CM had to do something and so he enacted the farce with both his wives, Dayalu and Rajathiammal, taking up positions near his head and feet with air coolers blowing cool air while he went without food for four hours.

But now, Muthukumar’s backers wanted to erect a bust in memory of the youth in Thanjavur but Karunanidhi’s government nixed it. The next stop for P Maniarasan, general secretary of Thamizh Thesa Poduvudamai Katchi, was the high court. In his petition, he said he wanted to erect a bust-size statue of Muthukumar in a land exclusively belonging to a private person, at Sanoorapatti village in Thanjavur taluk.

The judge reminded those in the courtroom, “There were meetings to condone his death and he was adored for the spirit of sacrifice.” Rejecting the government’s objections to the statue, Justice K Chandru said, “If the argument of the special government pleader is accepted, then for putting up the picture of one’s own parents or forefathers in private patta lands, they should move the authorities for permission. The government is trying to clutch a non-existing power.” Therefore, now the erection of Muthukumar’s bust will happen. And politicians who shed crocodile tears for Muthukumar will turn it into a shrine and milk it for votes!

Not Karunanidhi, say women activists

While Karunanidhi can still boast that he is at the helm in a state that has a woman DGP and a woman Chief Secretary, the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) contends that the government is “anti-woman”. The association’s state general secretary U Vasuki says that a chargesheet has been prepared against the government for violation of various sections of the Constitution and also several cases of harassment of women. These include insult and abuse of women. In particular, the chargesheet cites the alleged attack on MLA Latha while seeking entry for Dalits into the Draupadiamman Temple in Kangiyanur in Villupuram district. “Another woman activist Poongothai, who is also the secretary of AIDWA, was injured in the protest in the Uthapuram (where the CPM saw to it that a wall that had come up to separate the Dalits from the upper castes was demolished over two years ago) issue,” said Vasuki, adding that these kinds of assaults on women should be punishable under IPC Section 324/325/326 and Section 307 that includes life term imprisonment and a fine.