Vijay has a huge fan following among women, but will they automatically become his voters like they had done for MGR's AIADMK
By N SATHIYA MOORTHY
It takes a lot of courage, especially for a very successful film personality, to give it all up and jump into the unpredictable pool of politics and elections.
Tamil cinema's superstar Rajinikanth tried and failed but the late Vijaykanth succeeded with some effort but only to a limited extent.
Rajinikanth's successor to the title, Vijay, has done it — or, has promised to do it. With the box office tingling in his favour for films and years now, the 50-year-old actor began by declaring the name of his political party as Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), that too after registering the same with the Election Commission.
In comparison, until the very end, Rajinikanth did not make any such move — and allowed scepticism to take over his fans for years and decades.
In the end, he proved his critics right, by crying out ahead of the 2021 assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, citing health issues in the midst of Covid recovery for the self and the world as a whole.
Interestingly, post-withdrawal, his films like Jailer (2023) did better at the box-office than a few that bombed in a row.
Did it owe to the fact that politically-aware fans had begun boycotting him after his unconvincing moves on the electoral front ahead of the 2021 polls — but returned to him once they were convinced that he won't be a threat to the political parties to which they otherwise owe their allegiance?
What makes Vijay's political entry unique from among the long list of actor-politicians in the Tamil pantheon is his early declaration that ahead of contesting the 2026 assembly elections on the TVK brand, he would have ended his very successful film career for good.
It takes a lot of guts for an actor with a lot more of cinema in him to take that decision and declare it in the open, for his fans and other voters to assess in good time.
In comparison in recent times, Rajinikanth, now 73, could not take that decision. Compatriot-actor Kamalahaasan continues to travel on two boats since the launch of his Makkal Needhi Maiyam.
Even as his politics failed, though not as miserably as in the case of the late thespian Sivaji Ganesan in his time, Kamal had his commercially most successful film, Vikram (2022) only during his continuing duality.
However, his more political Indian 2 (2024) bombed recently, taking down the reputation of S Shankar, one of the nation's most successful film-makers, with it.
There are lessons for Vijay to learn from the political footsteps of the likes of Kamal, Vijayakanth and Sivaji Ganesan, after he had put into practice what he had learnt from Rajini's experience — not to mislead or take the fans for granted, for too long.
Like Vijay now, Vijayakanth was one actor who launched a party and entered politics — but in his case, his politically powerful films had begun tiring his fans and other viewers alike, as all of them came out of the same one-liner: Good man versus bad man, good cop versus bad man.
Another actor-politician from Vijayakanth's generation, Sarath Kumar, merged his party the All-India Samathuva Makkal Katchi with the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha polls this year.
His explanation that the idea woke him up from sleep at 2 am and he then shared the decision with actor-wife Radhika Sarathkumar, only became the butt of many memes.
Radhika contested the Virudunagar Lok Sabha seat as a BJP candidate, and came a distant third against Congress victor, Manickam Tagore, who retained the seat, despite a configuration of her Naidu community votes and Sarath's Nadar votes.
Vijayakanth's son, Vijaya Prabhakaran, also a Naidu by community identity, came second, in the AIADMK-led alliance.
The greatest of actor-politicians in Dravidian Tamil Nadu was the legendary M G Ramachandran, MGR for short, who is still possibly the most charismatic actor-politician in the country.
He travelled in the two boats simultaneously, and used one to promote the self in the other, and vice versa.
It suited the times in which he lived, as in the post-Independence decades, cinema medium was used, and was expected to be used, to promote social awareness and prick social conscience — a euphemism for soft-politicisation.
MGR was followed by Jayalalithaa, fellow-actor, his political find and successor, but there was a difference.
MGR built the AIADMK out of the parent DMK, facing off and fending off many challenges thrown by the wily M Karunanidhi, who was also the unsparing and unforgiving chief minister at the time.
Jayalalithaa too had to fight her survival battles after MGR's death, when the old cabal tried to elbow her out but failed.
She also fought an older and wiser Karunanidhi, survived and won many a battle against the DMK under his care.
Today, Vijay has all these patterns to choose from, rather learn from.
Like MGR, Rajinikanth and Vijayakanth, but more subtler than them all and in that order, he pepped up and peppered his recent films with a socio-political message, which was larger-than-life from a simple and simpleton voter's perspective.
Thus, Vijay's Sarkar (2018) spoke about electoral reforms in a unique form, but his super-stardom required a larger canvas than normal that his film-maker A R Murugadoss packaged it with.
There was one on medical college admissions scam in Bairava (2017). His BJP adversaries, starting with Tamil Nadu party President K Annamalai, were aghast when Vijay, after registering his new party and at the conclusion of the Lok Sabha polls that he had consciously stayed away from, criticised NEET for medical admissions.
Annamalai said that Vijay's opposition to NEET showed him up as anti-BJP, and hence he has left the anti-Dravidian ‘Opposition' space open for the ruling party at the Centre.
It is easier said than done, not that it is easy for Vijay and the TVK, either, to do so.
Vijay's fans did not expect the BJP to react the way Annamalai did. For long, pro-BJP social media activists especially had run him down by name and religion, often referring to his parents converting from Hinduism to Christianity, with a young Vijay taking the official name, Vijay Joseph.
These critics saw more than the rest in every word that Vijay spoke on the silver screen, every innocuous action of his, to attribute religious motives that were not visible to others.
So much so, and possibly so, Vijay came attired in a saffron veshti/lungi in the older of the father-son dual roles he played in Bigil, which was a sports story, made different by the younger Vijay, football coach, inspiring and instilling self-confidence in Tamil Nadu's women's team till the very last — and cinematically so — for them to win the national championship.
Better still, father Vijay also sported sacred ash on his forehead in almost every scene, and was surrounded by aides, one wearing what is branded as ‘Dalit' blue and another, a Muslim by name, with a skull-cap of the Islamic faith.
It is highly doubtful if the message went across. At least in the case of Rajinikanth, such gimmicks did not give him the kind of confidence to enter direct politics after playing with such symbolisms in films like Kabali (2016) and Kaala (2018).
As far back as 1995, when Rajinikanth had begun testing the electoral waters through socio-political themes in his films, he chose a unique name, ‘Manik Basha' for his don role, that too after his Muslim friend, slain by the villain.
The film Baashha (1995) is one of the most successful and evergreen movies of the super-star.
Vijay began by declaring that in the coming months, he would complete two films and that was the end of it.
His father-son dual-role offering GOAT, acronym for the longer and non-filmi title, Greatest of All Time by maverick film-maker Venkat Prabhu, the writer-director of such sleek and brainy thrillers like Mankatha (2011) and Maanadu (2021), a sci-fi involving a time-machine, is due for a theatrical release on September 5, incidentally the birthday of former President and educationist Dr Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan, and which is celebrated across the nation as Teachers Day.
continued….
