The recently released Jai Bhim movie has proved to be another classic example of how the Dravidian ideology creates different narratives in different mediums for different audiences.

In the Tamil and Telugu language versions of the movie, a tilak-wearing Hindu man is slapped and ordered to ‘speak Tamil’ when he starts speaking in Hindi, while he is slapped and asked to ‘speak the truth’ in the Hindi version.

Kollywood star Surya’s recent propaganda movie Jai Bhim has created flutters in the social media after people caught it peddling different narratives in different languages. The film was recently released on the OTT platform Amazon Prime. Many who viewed the movie have criticised it for peddling leftist propaganda. Especially, in the Tamil version, the scene in which Hinduphobic urban naxal cum actor Prakash Raj was seen slapping a Marwari looking man for speaking in Hindi.

It received severe criticism as it encourages violence against Hindi speaking people merely for speaking in their mother tongue. Later another anomaly was found by those who watched the movie in different languages. The movie had been dubbed into Telugu and Hindi as well. While in the Telugu and Tamil versions Prakash Raj slaps the Marwari looking guy and asks him to speak in “Telugu” and “Tamil” respectively, in the Hindi version he asks the guy to “Speak the truth”.

This is a classic example of how the Dravidian ideology drives wedges between different linguistic/ethnic/regional groups while claiming to fight for equality and social justice. Their foremost ideologue Periyar aka EV Ramasamy called for culling Brahmins in many public meetings. However he is projected as a saviour of the marginalised sections in the national and international forums. To non-Tamils, what Periyarists say or write becomes the gospel truth and the real face of Ramasamy and his ideology are hidden forever.

To give some examples, ehile he propagated that the institution of marriage is a means to enslave women, he himself married his own adopted daughter. Periyarists in their efforts to make EV Ramasamy “a global thinker”, present only one side of the coin to the non-Tamil audience in the hope that they’ll not discover the other side. Dag Erik Berg, an academic from Norway learns from Karthick Manoharan about Periyar. But he has no clue what the latter translates is not everything that EV Ramasamy said and did and it is not his real face.

One might wonder what’s the context of EV Ramasamy and Dravidian ideology here. The movie has been endorsed by and received accolades from TN CM and DMK president MK Stalin. Dravidianists claim that the scene is specific to those who impose Hindi by speaking the language in non-Hindi states. By that logic should a Tamil be slapped for not speaking in Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam respectively in Andhra, Karnataka or Kerala? For that matter what should be done to hypocritical Tamils who do know Hindi, like DMK MPs for example, but wore Hindi Theriyathu Poda (Hindi Nahi Malum) T-shirts simply for propaganda?

Many have raised these pertinent points in social media and the irony of naming the movie in Hindi. Marwaris are a vulnerable community as it is thanks to the vile anti-Hindi anti-North Indian propaganda of the Dravidian Movement. Islamists had issued pamphlets asking Marwaris to leave TN in February. Now this hate filled movie is going to make them even more vulnerable thanks to the so-called ideology of social justice.