Attempt to convince Tamil nationalists on Madras Café fails

A last ditch effort by producers of the John Abraham starrer ‘Madras Café’, to convince Tamil groups opposed to the film failed on Sunday.

Tamil nationalist groups have been opposing the film alleging that its content demeaned the ethnic Tamils’ struggle for liberation in Sri Lanka.

Earlier, PMK leader Ramadoss and others had called for a ban on the film but a petition filed by a lawyer to resubmit the film to the Censor Board was dismissed last week by the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench).

On Sunday, soon after watching a preview of the film (a Tamil dubbed version) in Chennai, Naam Tamilar Katchi founder Seeman – himself as well known film director – refused to accept that the film did not have anything against the Tamil groups.

“This movie is nauseatingly anti-Tamil. It projects slain LTTE leader Prabakaran as a villain. We will not agree to the screening of the film in any form. At the very roots’ ‘Madras Café’ is anti-Tamil,” he warned.

Seeman went on to allege that the film appeared to be sponsored by the Congress party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections as it had scenes of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination by a LTTE human bomb in Sriperumbudur.

In the film, John Abraham plays the role of a Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) officer who undertakes a covert operation in Sri Lanka in a bid to unearth the plot to kill Rajiv Gandhi. The fact that John Abraham is shown as a Malayali native in the film has further incensed the Tamil groups as there is a feeling that senior Malayali officers in the National Security Agency and Foreign Ministry in India were responsible for allowing the genocide against Tamils in Sri Lanka during the end stage of the ethnic war in 2009.

Another Tamil film director RK Selvamani, who watched the film said, “In the film every upright officer is shown as a Malayali while all Tamils have been projected as villains.”