Chennai: A Dravidian war without big guns

Sometime in the 1950s, film publicity boys in Chennai were stumped by a curious case of MGR posters going missing from the walls of Triplicane. They spent sleepless nights peeping from behind trees after they had pasted the posters. Finally, they caught the poster thieves.

They found women sneaking out of their houses in the dead of the night to peel off MGR posters before the gum had dried. “They took the posters home, spread them on the floor and slept on them,” said Vaasanthi, author of ‘Cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars: The World of Tamil Politics’, in a previous interaction.


The hero worship continued well after MGR quit movies for politics. J Jayalalithaa inherited MGR’s legacy and declared war on M Karunanidhi, who had long risen as the star successor of C N Annadurai. The Jayalalithaa-Karunanidhi battle lasted almost three decades. As the two legends passed away within the past 28 months, Tamil Nadu, for the first time in half a century, will be going to the polls without a star leader.

Political analyst Sudhangan says personality politics started with Annadurai. “People loved Kamaraj, but the Congress didn’t put him on a pedestal for votes. The DMK grew around the image of Annadurai, aided by others including MGR and Karunanidhi.”

The 1967 Assembly elections were a testimony as much to MGR’s popularity as to that of Annadurai. Annadurai had expected the DMK to win around 80 seats. A month before the polls, actor-politician M R Radha shot MGR in the neck. MGR had a providential escape and the DMK went to town with posters of the star with a bandage around his neck. The DMK swept the polls with 179 seats.

Five years after launching the ADMK (later AIADMK) in 1972, MGR stormed to power in 1977 and remained unbeatable till his death in 1987 despite Karunanidhi having attained his own share of aura. Jayalalithaa inherited the star leader status with ease, and took on Karunanidhi, marking the beginning of another era of the battle of legends.

Minister K A Sengottaiyan, who had been in charge of Jayalalithaa’s election tours, says electioneering is now bound to change. “For MGR, people came to meeting venues three days early and slept on the ground. In 2001, when Amma got down from the campaign vehicle in Yercaud, people kissed the earth she walked on,” he says.

It was to occupy this space vacated by the giants that actors Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan announced their political entry. While Rajinikanth continues to be Prince Hamlet, Kamal is working hard to be less of a star and more of a political promise. Stalin remains the tallest of the lot today, and he knows he cannot attain his father’s stature. Riding the AIADMK Trojan horse, the BJP finds this the best opportunity to make some gains in Tamil Nadu, but Narendra Modi can never steal the Dravidian show.

In the absence of colossuses, politicians may count more on caste and conflicts. The AIADMK is already patting itself on the back for the alliance it has stitched together. For the ruling party, byelections to the 18 Assembly constituencies are more crucial than the Lok Sabha polls. Not for nothing that it went out of the way to rope in the PMK and the DMDK.

While the AIADMK combine gloats about arithmetic, the DMKCongress alliance will focus on the chemistry — between allies and with the people at large. The party has been waiting for the Edappadi Palaniswamy government to fall on its own. That was not to be. For the DMK, which has been in a labyrinth, it’s time to holler and be heard.

The elections on April 18 will present a new testing ground for all parties. National security, terrorism and Rafale will all play out in battlefield TN, but in the absence of a blinding star, they may also present the state with an opportunity to put performance before personalities.