Social Media is raging with angry memes and even cuss words against 'The New Indian Express' (TNIE) an English daily which chose to greet the news of Padma Vibhushan, awarded to 'Music Maestro' Ilaiyaraja with an unsavory news titled “Dalit outreach with Ilaiyaraja’s Padma”.
Coimbatore, January 26
Social Media is raging with angry memes and even cuss words against 'The New Indian Express' (TNIE) an English daily which chose to greet the news of Padma Vibhushan, awarded to 'Music Maestro' Ilayaraja with an unsavory news titled “Dalit outreach with Ilayaraja’s Padma”.
"Attaching a Dalit tag to a great music composer who has achieved a myraid of accolades in his career is unjustifiable", opine the netizens, who rose in revolt in various social media forums like facebook and twitter against the English daily.
Considered as one of the most popular and evergreen composers of Indian Film industry, Ilaiyaraja has achieved various milestones including scoring music for 1000 films and worked in as many languages including Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, English, Marathi, Sanskrit and Punjabi in his four-decade-long career.
"Why dig the caste of a person who is considered to be one of the foremost musicians in the country with over 1000 films", the netizens outrage.
It may be re-called that in a 2003 BBC international poll, spanning 155 countries, people voted his composition "Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu" from the 1991 blockbuster film 'Thalapathi' as fourth in the world's top 10 most popular songs of all time. The composer was also given Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian honor by the Government of India in 2010.
While one social media post says “Demeaned maestro Ilayaraja with this headline. So the award has nothing to do with his exceptional talent?"
And one meme even castigates media in general for being casteist in its outlook.“That’s why Vijayakanth treated you so badly in public,” reads the meme.
While one twitter post says that, "Modi Government have showed their respect to Tamil people by giving the second highest civilian award to Maestro Ilayaraja", and another post lambasts at the title in TNIE by saying “This is weakening of journalism by continuously dividing India into caste lines."
"The newspaper's take to have chose to portray the recognition given to the seasoned composer by the BJP- led Centre as wooing Dalit electorate in Tamilnadu is distasteful", several meme creators from Tamil Nadu wrote on their Facebook wall.
SimpliCity spoke to a cross-section of the people whose anger was evident in their replies.
“Ilayaraja has been a Tamil icon and identifying him only by his Dalit identity is indeed a shame, whoever has done it,” said Kumutha, a beautician practicing in the city.
“Branding Ilayaraja, a genius composer who has captivated the millions of Tamils and Indians for
more than four decades as 'Dalit' shows the poor choice of words the media house has opted for", said Ruban, a PG student and an ardent fan of Ilayaraja.
“It has become customary to demean Dalits when they rise in life. And, Ilayaraja is no exception” says Kathir, a Dalit activist from the city.
For the musical maestro who has won numerous national and international recognition, the news item carried by the daily, certainly forces the readers to raise their eyebrows and take the news with a dose of bitter.