Overseas Lankan Tamils shun TN stars

Overseas Lankan Tamils shun TN stars: South Asia : Hindustan Times.com: "Sri Lankan Tamils living in Europe and North America have decided not to distribute or see films featuring Khushboo and Suhasini Manirathnam on the grounds that they had insulted Tamil women. They have also warned that they will agitate against the screening of films made by director Manirathnam.

This is the latest development in the raging controversy over Khushboo's statement that there was a high prevalence of pre-marital sex among women in Tamil Nadu.

The ban and the warning were announced by the "European and North American Film Fans Association" and the latter's statement was reported at length in the pro-LTTE website www.puthinam.com on Monday.

Suhasini Manirathnam, actress and wife of director Manirathnam, had jumped into the fray recently defending Khushboo's right to express herself on this question. But what had really irked the Overseas Sri Lankan Tamils was the use of a derogatory expression by Suhasini to mean that Tamil women were not pure as driven snow, and therefore, hardly qualified to censure Khushboo.

"Have Tamil women grown horns?" Suhasini asked rhetorically at a meeting in Chennai recently, referring to the hullabaloo over Khushboo's remarks. The Tamil expression "growing horns" is a derogatory one, signifying pretentiousness in the absence of qualifications, an aspersion of inferiority.

The Sri Lankan Tamil association's statement also saw the issue as "Tamil vs Non Tamil" one. It described Suhasini as a "non-Tamil". Suhasini is a Tamil Brahmin, but the Tamil nationalist movement in both Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka does not consider Tamil Brahmins as Tamils but as remnants of the Aryan or non-Tamil invasion of the South India some 5,000 years ago.

Khushboo, of course, is a Non-Tamil, an Urdu-speaking Muslim Pathan from Mumbai, to be precise.

The statement accused Suhasini of thinking that the Tamils were "slaves" and described her remarks as "barbaric". She had insulted "6.5 crore" Tamils, it said.

If Suhasini did not apologise to the Tamil people, the world Tamils would agitate against the screen of films made by Manirathnam also, the statement warned. It also said that Tamil Nadu film makers should give only Tamil names for their films. This follows an on-going movement in Tamil Nadu led by the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and the Vidhuthalai Siruthaigal (Liberation Leopards) to Tamilise commercial name boards and titles of films.

The Overseas Tamils' statement warned Tamil Nadu film makers and stars not to take them lightly because the overseas market was a substantial source of income for the Chennai film industry."