Anyone who follows Tamil Nadu politics even cursorily will know of the connection between the two leading parties — AIADMK and DMK — and the film industry, Kollywood. Five out of the seven chief ministers in the last 50 years have been from Tinsel Town. And every superstar in Kollywood is the subject of intense speculation over whether or not he will join politics and/or launch a party.
Hints that superstar Rajnikanth might, finally, join politics, or form a new political party, sent the southern state into a near frenzy in May. To his almost fanatical (pun not intended) following of star struck cine-goers, the aura around the Thalaiva’s is Godlike. He was one of the few superstars in the region who had so far avoided the political arena. A paradox in Tamil Nadu, where politics is the next step for every film personality.
Sample this: Almost every top rung politician in Tamil politics, since Independence, has had a filmi background. Five of the last seven chief ministers since Independence have been film industry professionals, not just actors, but also screenwriters and lyricists.
The list of film-star turned politicians in Tamil Nadu is simply too long – the names alone would take up a few pages, ranging from the DMK Supremo to heir apparent MK Stalin, the now not-so-popular Khushboo, and Radhika. Last but definitely not least – J Jayalalithaa.
“Mind-boggling as it may seem to a North Indian reared on rajma-chawal and Dharmender-Jeetender films, the cult status, film professionals enjoy in Tamizhnad includes fans building temples to their icons,” says Anjali Sunderraman, who is writing her doctoral thesis on Kollywood’s political leanings.
Traditionally, Tamil Nadu was a Brahmin-dominated community. Then the nineteen thirties witnessed the beginnings of what would later be known as the Dravidian movement. At that time, it was called the Suyamariyaathai Iyakkam or Self Respect Movement and was led by EV Ramasami Naicker aka Periyar.
Essentially an anti-Brahmin movement, it pushed for revolutionary political protests again caste discrimination, the opposition of Hindi as the national language, and the abolition of religion and religious practices based on superstition. Key followers of the movement included film personalities such as CN Annadurai, M Karunanidhi, SS Rajendran, and Sivaji Ganesan.
Both Annadurai and Karunanidhi were scriptwriters for films and began introducing the movement’s ideology in films. “Keep in mind that this was the preinternet, pre-mobile, pre-television in every home era,” says a retired film censor board official.
“It was a state with one of the highest literacy rates in India. Tamilians were avid filmgoers. Add impassioned dialogues by protagonists from poor, lower-caste families. They played rickshaw-pullers, truck drivers, teachers, and slaves. They ate the poor man’s food, drank Kanji (rice gruel) and Chukku Kaapi (the poor man’s staple of ginger-flavoured water). Being poor was almost attractive. As their heroes triumphed over everything that cruel, heartless, society hurled at them, a large populace was drawn to the movement itself, influenced by the films of the day.”
Tamil films began focussing on the most crucial aspects of Dravidian politics linguistic, and cultural discrimination. As the populace took to the people movement and its ideology, the faces who played its heroes (and heroines) on screen, took on a larger than life identity.
Thus, the rich Urimaiyalar (feudal landowner) was brought to his knees by a mass rebellion of the serfs he oppressed. The princess, wooed by both rich man and the poor man ultimately chose the latter who was inevitably ‘cursed’ with birth in a low caste family.
The aam aadmi, as it were, began looking to their reel-life idols for guidance that went beyond Tinsel Town. And because they were professionally involved with the art of telling a tale, these stars were able to bring flair and elements of high drama to their off-screen persona too.
Enter Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai or Anna – the first to use Tamil cinema as a vehicle for political propaganda and it helped that he had been both on screen and behind it.
Anna’s ability to write compelling dialogues in emotion-laden films depicting the Dravidian protagonists’ struggle to reclaim Brahmin-suppressed ethnic identity and human dignity struck an emotional chord in several hearts. In 1949, he founded the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
A few years later Muthuvelu Karunanidhi struck political gold with Parasakthi in 1952. Openly critical of Brahmin practices of the day – atrocities on widows, untouchability and the feudal system of landholding, the film was a massive box office hit.
Catapulting on the film’s success to instant stardom were two newcomers, Sivaji Ganesan and SS Rajendran. Both enjoyed decades of stardom - writing in and acting in films. Rajendran went on to become the first actor in India elected as an MLA in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly. Sivaji Ganesan continued as a star for over 40, starring in social dramas, commercial cinema and Puranic and historical roles. The political career that began with the DMK saw him moving to the Congress, serving as a Rajya Sabha member, floating his own party the Tamizhaga Munnetra Munnani and then the president of the Janata Dal in the state
The cinema hall had been transformed into the perfect venue to communicate concerns about Brahmin dominance in the state, raise cadres, and determine the way forward for emerging Tamil nationalistic sentiment. The nineteen fifties also saw the meteoric rise of Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran aka MGR. Though he’d been around in Tamil films since he was a teenager, it was in a film written by M Karunanidhi – Manthiri Kumari (The Minister’s Daughter) that MGR got his first major breakthrough.
He went on to be Chief Minister thrice. But only after a two-decade stint with the DMK, expulsion from the party, formation of his own political party the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1972.
MGR used his own films such as Indru Pol Endrum Vazhga to garner public support and votes. “Techniques included the obvious, like speeches as well as the more subtle display of the ADMK flag in the film’s opening song,” recalls octogenarian Tamil film critic T Karuppuswamy. In Nam Naadu (Our Nation), in almost every scene, there was a picture of Anna. Some roles and dialogues were nuanced, subtly hidden under seemingly commercial cinema, but others were more obvious. The flag led to instant recall during voting, and in the decade that followed the ADMK won every election it contested.