While India celebrated Gukesh Dommaraju making history by becoming the youngest-ever world chess champion, there was a pocket in the Twitterverse that fought over his heritage.
A debate erupted online over the 18-year-old chess prodigy’s Tamil or Telugu roots, which morphed into a broader clash over ethnicity and language.
Gukesh Dommaraju’s historic World Chess Championship win sparked an online tug-of-war for credit between chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, each claiming him as their own.
It began with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin congratulating Gukesh in a post on X, and saying, “Tamil Nadu is proud of you.”
An X user, however, was quick to point out in a reply that Gukesh was “from Andhra Pradesh”. With a screenshot highlighting his heritage the X user, Swayam Tewari made a case for Gukesh’s Telugu background.
Another user, too, claimed Gukesh to be of Telugu heritage and wrote that the Indian grandmaster was not a “native Tamil Nadu person”.
Tamil Nadu sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin, too, claimed Gukesh as “our very own”, which led to comparison posts.
The matter regarding Gukesh’s ancestral heritage got more intense with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu claiming him as “Telugu boy” in an X post, just minutes after Stalin’s tweet. Naidu joined the credit line when he posted on X “Hearty congratulations to our very own Telugu boy…”
In reply to Naidu’s post, an X user wrote a cryptic opinion regarding staking claims on a victor.
Another user said that Gukesh was born and brought up in Chennai and pointed out the “inaccurate regionalism” in Naidu’s claim.
Indian Grandmaster Gukesh Dommaraju defeated reigning champion Ding Liren in the 14th game during the World Chess Championship match in Singapore on Thursday. By doing so, he shattered the record of Russian chess legend Garry Kasparov and became the youngest world chess champion at age 18.
