Anno Domini 2017 marks the golden anniversary of the people of Tamil Nadu opting out of the mainstream politics of the nation and placing their trust on regional parties. During the last 50 years the state has been ruled alternatively by the Dravida Munnetra Kazaham and the All India Dravida Munnetra Kazaham, described as koothadi parties by the late lamented Kamaraj.
Chief Ministers of these two parties like CN Annadurai and M Karunanidhi of the DMK and MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalitha of the AIADMK, came into politics after successful careers in cinema either as screenplay and dialogue writers or as actors.
When Jayalalitha passed away in December last after almost ruining the State and shaming its citizens by the kind of politics she played, there was a sigh of relief the makebelieve programmes of the celluloid era has ended and the people could look forward to the halcyon days of genuine politics and progress.
The ruling AIADMK, left leaderless by Jayalalitha, has split into three factions and has ceased to be a force, but it is being propped up by the BJP government at the Centre.
To make this chaos worse confounded super star Rajinikanth is planning to add his version of politics. Tamilisai Sounderarajan, chief of the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit, gave her twist to the gathering storm saying that Rajini’s politics is against corruption and the BJP is ideally suited for him.
His fan-club members and political leaders he has been consulting, however, caution him against joining the BJP as the people of Tamil Nadu will not support the saffron party, placing Rajinikanth in the Hamletian dilemma of “to-enter-ornot-enter” the mug’s game of politics.
Having conquered Tamil filmdom and egged on by the BJP, Rajinikanth finds Fort St George, seat of the Tamil Nadu government, irresistible.
Having been a super star, he does not want to play second fiddle in the BJP. He does not mind launching his own party to become the Chief Minister and keeping his outfit as a constituent of the BJPled National Democratic Alliance.
His proposed entry into politics has already prompted another popular Tamil film star, Kamal Haasan, to take up the cudgels.
With his pro-DMK bias, he is likely to join the United Progressive Alliance. That the people of Tamil Nadu are after film stars to lead them politically is a myth. Sivaji Ganesan, the greatest film star Tamil Nadu has ever produced, dabbled in Congress politics in his salad days, but came a cropper when he launched his own political party.
Actor couple Sarathkumar and Radhika had been star campaigners for the DMK and the AIADMK at election times. The All-India Samathuva Makkal Katchi launched by them flopped.
Enamoured of the success of Jayalalitha in politics, Vijayakanth, dubbed as Karuppu (black) MGR, launched the Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagham and offered himself as the Chief Minister candidate in the 2016 Assembly election. His party drew a blank and has started fading out of the Tamil Nadu political horizon.
Another popular film star-turned politician, Seeman, who heads the Naam Thamizhar Katchi, is opposed to settlers aspiring to become Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu. Though he has a huge fan following, his party could not win a single seat in the Tamil Nadu Assembly so far.
Post-independence politics in Tamil Nadu has been influenced by the Aryan-Dravidian divide. According to this belief, Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India. The invading Aryans took over the north and pushed the Dravidians southward and imposed their caste system on a Samathva Dravidian society.
Though this division may be historically incorrect, political parties in Tamil Nadu are sustained by this myth and the masses subscribe to this theory. Rajinikanth, though declared himself as a pucca Tamil, is a Gaekwad of Maharashtra origin. To what extent he will be politically acceptable to Tamil masses remains to be seen.
From being a bus conductor in Karnataka, Rajinikanth moved to Tamil Nadu 44 years ago and became a super star. “My being a successful actor is god’s blessing. Tomorrow, if I enter the political arena, god willing, I will not take any one who is coming with me with a view to making money.
Such people can move out right away. I will follow only the path of truth and justice,” he told a recent meeting of his fan club and said, “I have attained this stage in life only because of the people of Tamil Nadu who have given me name, fame and money. What is wrong if I aspire to serve for the welfare of the same people who have given me everything? Claiming the system was bad, democracy was spoilt and the people were not happy about the present political scenario and wanted a change, he exhorted his fans to bring about that change.
As Tamil Nadu is in the grip of severe drought, he has advised his fanclubs in Thanjavur a yaagam for Varahi Amman in the Big Temple there on 3 September. When MGR was the Chief Minister and Chennai was starved of drinking water supply, he brought a conman from Kerala who claimed he could bring rain and stop it.
The death of Jayalalitha and the retirement of Karunanidhi from active politics have left a vacuum in Tamil Nadu politics. Rajinikanth considers himself as the best candidate to fill that void.
No film star without prior involvement in public life has ever succeeded in politics in Tamil Nadu. To the DMK goes the credit of using the medium of cinema for political propaganda. Annadurai said once that it took 10,000 political meetings to convey one message which could be delivered in a single movie.
MGR, who had been acting swashbuckling action roles, was weaned by Karunanidhi for playing political propaganda roles. Gradually MGR’s screen persona reflected the DMK image. He always played the underdog, fighting oppression and injustice and built up his image as a man who did no wrong.
It helped him establish himself as a righteous political leader though in reality he was quite different. Electoral malpractices like distributing cash for votes was introduced by him first in Pondicherry and then in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalitha improved on it by wholesale purchase of voters. Her rise in politics has nothing to do with her career in films. Charisma, glamour and intelligence stood her in good stead in politics.
She had a godfather in MGR who launched her political career. Before long, she posed a threat to MGR’s own leadership of the AIADMK he founded. His efforts to cut her to size did not succeed. Much to the dismay of AIADMK veterans, she captured the party after the death of MGR by defeating her mentor’s wife, Janaki Ramachandran, and went on to become Chief Minister thrice.
The only film star in south India to make it to the top in politics was NT Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh. After an exceedingly successful career in films for four decades, he developed an “urge to serve the people” on his 60th birthday. Within 10 months of launching his Telugu Desam Party he ousted the firmly entrenched Congress from power in Andhra Pradesh.
Those were the days Indira Gandhi used to change Chief Ministers at the drop of a hat. The people who voted the Congress to power had no say in the shenanigans of the party’s high command. Rajiv Gandhi, then a greenhorn in politics, insulted Chief Minister T Anjiiah in public at the Begumpet airport in Hyderabad for arranging a lavish welcome for the visiting Congress leader, and had Anjiah removed from office.
This boorish behaviour of Rajiv Gandhi deeply hurt the sentiments of the Telugu people. In this atmosphere, Rama Rao offered to restore Telugu pride and self-respect and it clicked.
Devoid of political skills and lacking in administrative experience, Rama Rao could not sustain the people’s affection for long. His own son-in-law Chandrababu Naidu staged a bloodless coup, took control of the TDP and captured power. The popular view that stardom in film is the road to success in politics is not borne out in reality.
(The writer is a veteran journalist and former Director of The Statesman Print Journalism School)