Actor turned politician Kamal Haasan who is the founder of political party Makkal Needhi Maiam, decided to plunge into the Sterlite protests by visiting the injured protesters at a government hospital in Tuticorin. This visit though didn’t go well for him after he was booked for violating section 144 which has been enacted in the region, as reported by DNA.
Following his visit, where he supposedly expressed sympathy with the victims of the police firing, done to stop violence by protestors, Haasan decided to take to Twitter to indulge in a “rant” which seem to portray his attempt at whipping up separatist sentiments in the state of Tamil Nadu:
Internet connection cut in Thooththukkudi? Alarming! What next? excommunicate Tamilnadu? TN would see an uprising,much bigger than any, in its history. No Government is strong enough to take on the might of my people.
— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) May 23, 2018
As seen in the tweet, Haasan seemed to be extremely upset with the administrative decision to cut-off the internet connection in Thooththukkudi, which is at the heart of the violent Sterlite protests.
The lack of internet services supposedly angered Haasan so much that he claimed that Tamil Nadu would see the biggest “uprising” in the history of the state, after questioning whether the state would be “excommunicated” in the future.
Such an outburst by Haasan which hoped for an Indian state rising against its parent sovereign country raises the question whether he was trying to whip up separatist sentiment in the state.
Incidentally, with his clamour for an “uprising”, Haasan finds himself in the company of Kashmiri separatists who are routinely reported towards making such calls:
It was also puzzling to note as to why was Haasan so irate with the suspension of internet services in the region, which is a procedure regularly followed by law enforcement authorities to quell tension in the region. Even though not ideal, it is mainly designed to prevent the transmission and accessibility of inflammatory content over the net or social media, which might further aggravate the situation.
Haasan who via his tweet tried to portray that Thooththukkudi was the sole “victim” of a lack of internet services, but possibly unbeknown to him, similar action is routinely taken in Kashmir during the separatist violence or in Indian states other than Tamil Nadu, when they are gripped in tension.
