Chennai:
A political poster war is playing out in Tamil Nadu over the Sri Lankan issue. Ironically, rival parties are groups are using the same face, of a 12-year-old boy, to score political points. Balachandran, son of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, has emerged as the face of the student protest movement for the Sri Lankan Tamil cause.
"The father was an iconic figure for many and now Balachandran has proved to be the leader's son, by being the reason for a mini-revolution even after his death," says Kartik, a law student.
Ever since the Channel four video of the apparent capture and cold-blooded killing of the child came into the public domain, mainstream media as well as popular social media picked it up and gave it prominent play. It became the main campaign material that shocked and provoked people and soon it had gone viral. It became the emotional hook to galvanise students and others into protests over the last few days.
Satish, an engineering college student, says you can't not react after you have seen that face and the boy's body with the bullet wounds.
The posters are all over Chennai and elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, put up by pro-Tamil groups and also the main political parties that claim to espouse the Sri Lankan Tamil cause. The DMK has tried to sail on the momentum created by the student protests. The party was seen to have dented its position as a political party that voiced Tamil ethnic concerns when it failed to raise the issue in 2009, at a time when the military was trying to annihilate the rebel action and did not act to stop war and bring peace in the island nation, despite being in power in the state and at the Centre.
Gnani, writer and political analyst, says Jayalalithaa never had the credibility of working for Sri Lankan Tamils. Only the DMK did. But once they lost that credibility, by default, the advantage went to Jayalalithaa.
If the DMK was trying to recover lost ground, the AIADMK wasn't going to sit and watch its rival walk away with any credit for India backing the resolution against Sri Lanka. So political posters that show DMK leaders like Kanimozhi being honoured by Rajapakse have sprung up.
Another poster shows 12-year-old Balachandran asking DMK chief Karunanidhi: If you had acted before, would I have been killed, thatha? Give me back my life... (Karunanidhi is referred to as 'thatha' or grandfather in some Tamil circles)
Another poster that many in the establishment would find awkward and embarrassing is that of Velupillai Prabhakaran. It has shown up prominently at many protest venues and several of those raising their voice against the government and political parties and in favour of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Motherland) and the Sri Lankan Tamils, tend to eulogise and show reverence and respect towards him, something that the rest of the world that calls his outfit a terror organisation can never be comfortable with.