Chennai: The ferocious wave of anti-alcohol anger sweeping across Tamil Nadu is worrying the government as it could dent a major source of its revenue but worse still, is emerging as the most potent weapon in the hands of the Opposition to flog it on grounds of social insensitivity and collapsing public order.
What began as isolated and sporadic protests a couple of months in some rural areas erupted into a mass movement against the Tasmac shop after the videos of the horrid attack on women by the police, led by ADSP Pandian, at Sama-lapuram in Tirupur on April 11 went viral.
The power of social media took over the public psyche in Tamil Nadu as all the TV channels competed with each other to flash footages from remote battle grounds featuring women as the main warriors. The police wielding batons have been natural villains and they frequently gave exemplary performances.
Like in the case of the Padur demonstration of April 15 that ended in Inspector A. Govindaraj slapping rioting cases against 140 Dalits for breaking down the tasmac shop ‘relocated’ in their residential area. That carpet-bombing FIR, which included several women, elders and even minors, was based on a ‘confession statement’ from a local that makes comical reading.
“This government is clueless on how to handle this mass eruption of public anger against the Tasmac shops. Government appears paralysed. Police high-handedness is hardly the answer, it will only compound the problem into crisis”, said DMK spokesman TKS Elangovan, MP.
His leader M. K. Stalin was even harsher in his criticism that law and order has collapsed in Tamil Nadu. “The State brutality against women agitating for closure of Tasmac shops raise the question whether the DGP and the Chief Minister are in control of the police force”, he said.
The Samalapuram brutality was repeated in Ambur’s Azhijikuppam on Friday (May 19), where the police mercilessly beat up the women protesters even as the Tasmac shop in their residential area was knocked down by the angry mob. And there were a dozen more such angry agitations that day in other parts of the state—almost carbon copies of each other. Women in the lead.
Saturday saw a hundred women being taken into custody at the anti-Tasmac demo at Chennai’s Velachery. Similar scenes were witnessed in several places across the state—a small bunch of screaming women lifted and threw out the refrigerator along with its beer bottles at Kothamangalam in Pudukottai. Wow!
Tasmac employees’ union general secretary D. Dhanasekaran is as bitter against the government as these anti-liquor demonstrations. “The government seems undecided whether we should live or we should die. They must have a clear policy on locating these Tasmac shops. The Supreme Court has banned locating them near the highways but people are atta-cking the shops even when we locate them far away from the highways, even remote places, even near burial grounds. We are coming under physical attack. Our lives are under threat”, he told DC.
Eminent anthropologist Prof M.A. Kalam of the CK Prahlad Centre at the Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA) has an interesting interpretation of this ‘socio-economic revolution’ sweeping the state. The women’s pent-up anger, in suffering physical abuse by drunkard husbands and robbing of family income by the Tasmac bottle, is now bursting out. This mass movement is triggered by the social media and the TV channels—just as during the Marina campaign for Jallikattu, says Prof Kalam.
“Liquor shops have been there for years and there haven’t been protests like this. These people are now agitating and breaking down the Tasmac shops as they find themselves strengthened by their numbers even as the social media and the TV channels provide the trigger that ignites their outrage”, Prof Kalam told DC.
Kanchi SP disapproves of police harassment in Padur anti-Tasmac stir
Superintendent of Kancheepuram Police, Santhosh Hadimani on Saturday assured DC that he would conduct an enquiry into the Padur's anti-Tasmac agitation, in which 140 names of the residents had surfaced in the FIR list.
Disapproving the Kelambakkam Inspector A. Govindaraj's FIR, the SP said, "Video and photo evidence in the anti-Tasmac protests is sufficient for the investigation. There is no need for an arrest".
In the mass protest, residents, especially women, had ransacked a Tasmac shop relocated in the residential Padur on April 15. Their woes had multiplied since then, as the residents became victims of police harassment.
Inspector Govindaraj, had included the names of 140 people, based on the confession from one local, Paramasivam, an ex-president of Padur Panchayat. "Most of the names in the FIR were of the innocent people. Paramasivam had randomly mentioned the names of those who did not vote for him in the village election," said a protestor-victim, seeking anonymity.
Of the 140 names in the FIR list, 18 had taken anticipatory bail while eight were arrested and remanded. The rest are living in constant fear of arrest. On Saturday, they all made a beeline to the rights lawyer, Mr Ramalingam seeking help to obtain anticipatory bail as remedy from the Inspector's arrest threats.
Advocate Ramalingam said, "We have filed the bail petition with the vacation court today (Saturday). The hearing is on Wednesday. We cannot get the bail before it."
