DMK leader M.K. Stalin, who is the son of DMK supremo Karunanidhi, is currently the working president of the party. Although not popular yet on the microblogging site, Stalin is present on Twitter and has notched about 1700 tweets. Apart from tweeting, he also seems to have developed a habit which annoys every Twitter user.
SG Suryah is one such Twitter user. Suryah is an attorney, columnist and is also the Vice President of Tamil Nadu’s BJP youth wing. On Saturday, he wrote an article that debunked the allegations which were being spread by Stalin to create an anti-Hindi debate in the state. These allegations by Stalin were perpetrated in a detailed statement released on March 30th.
Some of the allegations which Surya debunked were:
- The Modi govt was imposing Hindi as it was introducing Sanskrit/Hindi as a third language in place of German. (response: This is applicable in Kendriya Vidyalays only but Tamil Nadu and Puducherry are exempted from following the three-language formula. German was removed as it was introduced by the UPA government without following rules)
- Sanskrit Week was being forced upon schools. (response: There is no force; Sanskrit Week has not been made mandatory)
- Sanskrit was imposed due to the introduction of half-hour Sanskrit news bulletin in Doordarshan. (response: Doordarshan was already having a 5 minutes bulletin which was expanded. Further, how is it any imposition – no one is forced to follow the bulletin – or how does it compromise Tamil?)
- Modi government was forcing government officers and Departments to use Hindi as a communication language. (response: it was a decision taken by the UPA government and it is compulsory only in Hindi speaking states, not in Tamil Nadu)
Surya also shared the same on his Twitter account and tagged Stalin:
https://twitter.com/SuryahSG/status/848048280592371713
Apparently Stalin either didn’t like Surya’s criticism or the fact that he was tagged by Surya and reportedly proceeded to block him:
https://twitter.com/SuryahSG/status/848055384170528768
What made matters worse was that, Surya was actually followed by Stalin before he decided to block him:
https://twitter.com/SuryahSG/status/848950174328147973
This tendency of eminent personalities to block people who haven’t abused or trolled them, has long irked many on twitter. Twitter does have a mute feature by which people automatically can escape seeing mentions or replies from unwanted accounts. What’s more peculiar in this case is the fact that Stain followed Surya.
So technically as Surya is associated with the BJP, Stalin was already getting some content critical of either him or the DMK on his timeline. But he neither unfollowed him or blocked him for the following criticism:
https://twitter.com/SuryahSG/status/845536682237583360
https://twitter.com/SuryahSG/status/822702347776245760
Intolerance anyone? Or rather “असहिष्णुता”?