DMK president and former chief minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday launched a sharp attack on Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay over his gesture mocking Stalin’s MISA imprisonment and the alleged torture meted out to him in prison. With Stalin’s video message, the DMK has changed Vijay’s body-shaming gesture into a matter of dignity. In fact, the DMK has always raked up the torture meted out to Stalin and others during the emergency days in its political fights in the last 50 years. Stalin’s soft-spoken video, with a strong message to Vijay, has come up at a time when the state is heading for a crucial by-poll in two constituencies, which the TVK hopes to win.
In the video message, while recounting his arrest, Stalin said how the scars of the brutal treatment he endured in prison remain with him even today.
Urging Vijay to maintain the dignity expected of the occupant of the state’s highest constitutional office, Stalin said, “Brother Vijay, what you said is true. There is no lie in it," Stalin said, referring to his imprisonment under MISA. Recalling his jail days, the former CM gave a detailed account of the brutality he suffered in the prison and how the others with him inside the prison were attacked.
“I suffered many forms of torture in prison. We were lodged in a facility where the leprosy patients were previously housed. Ten people were confined in a small room. Inside that room, all of us had to urinate in a single vessel. The place was extremely filthy. That was where we slept. We were subjected to maximum brutality. Yes. My jaw was broken in the police brutality,” Stalin said. “You too showed your jaw by placing your hand there, didn't you? That was correct. Even today I have scars of the beatings,” he added.
In his video message, which had been widely shared by every DMK handle, Stalin pulled off every punchline uttered by Vijay in his most viral assembly speech. Calling Vijay’s gesture “inappropriate,” he said that for many people in public life, particularly many who struggled for Tamils and Tamil Nadu, “this kind of clampdown has happened, and all of us have come through these experiences. It's nothing new for us to struggle and face consequences.”
Asking Vijay to go to the library and read the history of Tamil Nadu and the emergency days, he said, “This is the history from the days of Annadurai, whom you call your ideological leader. That is the history of DMK, and I am proud to be part of it.”
Recalling Vijay’s meeting with him before assuming power. “When you visited me, I invited you by holding your hands. You expressed regret for your harsh remarks against me during the election campaign. I told you that I was not keeping anything in mind. I also told you to maintain dignity while commenting on others. But you seem to have forgotten it,” Stalin said, recalling Vijay’s regret.
