The Past:
Politics in Tamil Nadu has always been star driven. It has always been the fiefdom of silver screen stars who have converted their adoring fans into an effective voting bloc par excellence.
Annadurai started the trend of capturing the mass adulation public has for it's heros on silver screen by bringing in MGR into the political fold. In his meteoric rise to political heights MGR had a equal and able ally in MK Karunanidhi.
Sadly personal ambitions and the yearning for personal glory got the better of both of them and the two political forces parted ways with MGR capturing the power in the state with his newly formed AIADMK.
It was MGR who brought J Jayalalithaa alias Amma into politics. He was her guardian, her mentor and the Chanakya behind her rise to a top political leader.
The Current:
When Jayalalithaa passed away last year, her death left a vacuum in the TN political landscape. She was a formidable leader and like all leaders feared the rise of her successor, so she made sure that there was none who could fit in her shoes.
The stalwart of DMK - Karunanidhi is a spent force as well, his children are fighting for their share of his political capital and sadly TN suffers for this.
Politics in TN has always been a show, it has always wanted it's finest heros to rescue it and thus it was not surprise that the Ulaganayagan Kamal Hassan made his announcement of jumping into the vacuum and starting or launching his own political party.
The Future:
The biggest news of 2017 was however the announcement of Thailvar Rajnikant making his announcement of starting his own political party with the intention to contest the assembly elections on all 234 seats.
This was the news that everybody was waiting for and overnight it has galvanized the political landscape in TN and given a new direction to the political discourse in the country.
The Dravidian identity politics no longer works, nor does the politics of appeasement, Rajnikant announcement of spiritual politics is something that has all the boffins and political pundits scratching their heads.
One thing is for sure, Rajnikant is a powerful figure in TN politics, ignore him at your peril, he has a powerful & ready made infrastructure in place in the form of his fan clubs to whom the clarion call has gone out to transform themselves into and single umbrella organization thus forming the party cadre.
A generation grown up revering the the Thalaivar, any political party with him at the helm will deeply galvanize his supporters and connect with the voters. MGR and NTR successfully paved the way for this to happen in TN & Andra. So did Chiranjeevi to a lesser extent.
Rajni has played a reformer, a leader, a social transformer countless times on silver screen and it is on this connect with the public and masses that he and his party will appeal and capitalize on to get them voting for their party in droves irrespective of the local identity and appeasement politics.
In one fell swoop Rajni has changed the ideological facet of politics in TN, earlier it was always a fight between the Dravidian parties which more or less played appeasements and doles to the voters in the form of electoral sops to vote for them. Now by throwing the Spiritual word in relation to the politics, Rajni has tried to change the way by challenging the atheist culture of the Dravidian parties head long. Only time will tell how this story spins off.
The Thalaiver has arrived, Long live the Thalaiver!!!
Politics in Tamil Nadu has always been star driven. It has always been the fiefdom of silver screen stars who have converted their adoring fans into an effective voting bloc par excellence.
Annadurai started the trend of capturing the mass adulation public has for it's heros on silver screen by bringing in MGR into the political fold. In his meteoric rise to political heights MGR had a equal and able ally in MK Karunanidhi.
Sadly personal ambitions and the yearning for personal glory got the better of both of them and the two political forces parted ways with MGR capturing the power in the state with his newly formed AIADMK.
It was MGR who brought J Jayalalithaa alias Amma into politics. He was her guardian, her mentor and the Chanakya behind her rise to a top political leader.
The Current:
When Jayalalithaa passed away last year, her death left a vacuum in the TN political landscape. She was a formidable leader and like all leaders feared the rise of her successor, so she made sure that there was none who could fit in her shoes.
The stalwart of DMK - Karunanidhi is a spent force as well, his children are fighting for their share of his political capital and sadly TN suffers for this.
Politics in TN has always been a show, it has always wanted it's finest heros to rescue it and thus it was not surprise that the Ulaganayagan Kamal Hassan made his announcement of jumping into the vacuum and starting or launching his own political party.
The Future:
The biggest news of 2017 was however the announcement of Thailvar Rajnikant making his announcement of starting his own political party with the intention to contest the assembly elections on all 234 seats.
This was the news that everybody was waiting for and overnight it has galvanized the political landscape in TN and given a new direction to the political discourse in the country.
The Dravidian identity politics no longer works, nor does the politics of appeasement, Rajnikant announcement of spiritual politics is something that has all the boffins and political pundits scratching their heads.
One thing is for sure, Rajnikant is a powerful figure in TN politics, ignore him at your peril, he has a powerful & ready made infrastructure in place in the form of his fan clubs to whom the clarion call has gone out to transform themselves into and single umbrella organization thus forming the party cadre.
A generation grown up revering the the Thalaivar, any political party with him at the helm will deeply galvanize his supporters and connect with the voters. MGR and NTR successfully paved the way for this to happen in TN & Andra. So did Chiranjeevi to a lesser extent.
Rajni has played a reformer, a leader, a social transformer countless times on silver screen and it is on this connect with the public and masses that he and his party will appeal and capitalize on to get them voting for their party in droves irrespective of the local identity and appeasement politics.
In one fell swoop Rajni has changed the ideological facet of politics in TN, earlier it was always a fight between the Dravidian parties which more or less played appeasements and doles to the voters in the form of electoral sops to vote for them. Now by throwing the Spiritual word in relation to the politics, Rajni has tried to change the way by challenging the atheist culture of the Dravidian parties head long. Only time will tell how this story spins off.
The Thalaiver has arrived, Long live the Thalaiver!!!
Comments
Post a Comment