Large scale violence in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over cauvery water sharing following Supreme Court's direction came as shock to all right thinking people. Many of them blamed the inept handling of the situation by Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalitha.
However shocking facts are comingout that regional channels, local media who should be responsible under these situations played with fire and fueled cauvery fire resulting in large scale violence and ultimately death of innocent people and also loss to public property.
In Bengaluru 56 buses of a private Tamil Nadu bus operator was torched, hotels, malls attacked and ransacked, residents who own Tamil Nadu registration vehicles harassed. Situation is no different in Tamil Nadu where unruly mob targeted Karnataka people.
Couple of days back a video clip surfaced on social media, via WhatsApp and it was aired continuously on Kannada and Tamil Television channels. It showed a Tamil boy beaten by Kannada fringe groups for his Facebook post where he made fun of protests by Kannada actors on the Cauvery issue.
Tamil channels aired the clip continuously on Sunday and on 8AM Monday reports of petrol bomb hurled at New Woodlands, popular hotel in Mylapore Chennai came as a shock. Though the employee informed “It was a small incident, nothing really happened and no one was injured,” and requested media not to blow the incident out of proportions, media wantonly for their own TRP ratings started showing it continuously.
Three hours after the first petrol bomb, four more petrol bombs were hurled at the hotel. Kannada news channels started airing this incident and this resulted in retaliatory attacks in Bengalurua nd Mysore. Adayar Ananda Bhawan, near Satellite Bus Station, Bengaluru was ransacked.
In Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, fringe Tamil outfit attacked Kannadida bus driver forcing him to say that Cauvery belonged to Tamil Nadu. The attack was filmed and video went viral and TV channels too quickly swung into action.
Anchor of a popular Kannada news channel, aired the video repeatedly and stoked violence asking “When Tamil Nadu police silently watched the youths attacking a Kannadiga hotel, why is Karnataka police caning Kannadigas,” Reporters of various Kannada channels started counting the number of burning lorries on the Bengaluru-Mysuru road, Bengaluru-Hosur Road, Nice Road, and Mandya and Bandipalya area in Mysuru, where scores of lorries from Tamil Nadu bring in food grains, vegetables and other essentials into Karnataka as if they were reporting Kholi or Gayle scoring sixers in 20-20 match.
Senior journalist RK.Radhakrishnan said “One channel in Tamil repeatedly showed visuals of the boy attacked in Karnataka over a Facebook post,” and added “It is due to this that there was an attack on New Woodlands Hotel in the morning and later in the day on Adyar Ananda Bhavan in Bengaluru as retaliation.”
Radhakrishnan went on to reveal "The media has to take a lot of the responsibility for the violence…One media house that owns channels in both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has been playing both cards in its respective language channels just for eyeballs. They need to be taken to task as per provisions of law for incitement to violence.”
Journalist of a popular Tamil channels says “The top Tamil channels are all taking a pro-Tamil stand…No one is really condemning any of the violence.” Mahesh Kollegal, editor of Kannada portal justkannada.com says “Media channels’ telecast and exaggeration of the incidents is only sensational,” and went on “They are involved in a rat race to increase their TRPs, and in the process, journalists working in the visual media are being forced by managements to telecast incidents live without bothering about their repercussions on the public and peace in society.” He went on “Governments have to draw a line between what should be telecast and what not to be telecast when such emotive issues come to the fore.”
Under these circumstances CMs of both states, Siddaramaiah and Jayalalitha instead of exercising restraint started letter war. While Siddaramiah wrote “Our Government is firmly committed to maintaining law and order in the State. We have taken utmost precaution to ensure the safety and security of all citizens, particularly Tamil speaking people, in the State. You would agree that the incidents of violence against Kannada speaking people that are being reported from Tamil Nadu would incite passions threatening peace in our State, which all of us should prevent.”
Jayalalitha replied back “Despite very provocative incidents that are taking place in Karnataka, absolute restraint has been observed in Tamil Nadu by all sections…I am concerned that the situation in Karnataka is serious with several instances of mob violence targeting Tamil speaking persons and their property.”
