மாணவர் போராட்டத்தை சர்வாதிகார மனப்பான்மையுடன் காவல்துறை மூலம் தீர்க்க நினைப்பது கண்டனத்திற்குரியது #jallikattu https://t.co/8HcnMS1l25

DMK working president M.K. Stalin strongly condemned the Tamil Nadu government on January 23, 2017, for employing authoritarian methods and police force to suppress the peaceful student movement defending Jallikattu. Speaking as early-morning police cordons formed across Marina Beach to evict thousands of young demonstrators, Stalin stated that resorting to strong-arm tactics against unarmed, peaceful students was deeply reprehensible and antithetical to democratic governance.

Stalin highlighted that student participants had maintained exemplary peace, cleanliness, and civic order throughout the multi-day gathering. They had garnered widespread international acclaim for their dignified, leaderless civic protest. Treating patriotic, cultured youth as hostile adversaries and deploying thousands of armed riot personnel revealed the administration's authoritarian insecurity and total lack of administrative imagination.

The opposition leader asserted that genuine democratic grievances could never be resolved through batons, barricades, and intimidation. Stalin warned that heavy-handed police actions would only inflame public sentiment and widen the gulf between the populace and the state government. He demanded an immediate cessation of coercive police operations, urging the state administration to respect youth rights, engage peacefully, and honor historic Tamil cultural sentiments.