Analysis

Reel reigns

This year marks four decades of rule by actors-turned-politicians in Madras. But although their star power remains undiminished, their legacy is proving tarnished.

By : N Gunasekaran

When the Tamil film Sivaji, starring Rajnikanth, was released in June, it was met with massive fanfare, raking in a record-breaking INR 13.5 million in its first four days. Indeed, the people of Tamil Nadu were excited enough to forget many of their more pressing problems, including the Kaveri River water-sharing arrangement with Karnataka, which is a perennial source of worry at this time of the year.

Both Rajnikanth and fellow film-superstar-turned-politician M G Ramachandran have owed their screen success to ‘formula’ Tamil films. Creating such films is not easy, bearing as they do the onerous burden of depicting the hero as a demigod, while at the same time offering punchy dialogue, comedy, romance, songs, sentiment and the final triumph of good over evil. But the effort might just be worth it: in Tamil Nadu, a successful screen hero can end up capturing state power. Since 1967, all five of the state’s chief ministers have been associated with Tamil cinema.

A proven expert in this regard was Ramachandran himself, popularly known as MGR, popularly called Puratchi Thalaivar (revolutionary leader), who was the unchallenged political leader in Tamil Nadu from 1970 until his death in 1987. During that time, he founded the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), which came to power five times in the span of the past three decades. During his film career, MGR assiduously built up an image of himself as a benevolent, virtuous and courageous hero, a ‘saviour’ of Tamils. In his films, he played the roles of worker, peasant, boatman, hunter and slave; fighting against landlords and capitalists; voicing the demands of the poor; protecting women and the weak; and smashing villains single-handedly.

Audiences loved MGR. After nearly two decades of watching him on screen, they also voted overwhelmingly for him, on the belief that only MGR, who had always fulfilled their aspirations on celluloid, would continue to do so in real life. There is good reason to suspect that MGR had nurtured his political ambitions from the early days of his film career. As one of his popular songs, from his 1965 hit Enga Veetu Pillai (Our Son), went: “If I were to declare an order/ And if it were to be implemented/ The poor would no longer suffer.” Such songs and narratives were liberally scattered throughout MGR’s films, and were clear attempts to woo Tamil Nadu’s poor – a constituency that makes up over half of the state’s total population. In his 1958 hit film, Nadodi Mannan (Vagabond King), MGR played a monarch who comes up with a plan of action that promises a better deal for the poor. On becoming chief minister, he recalled that same plan, declaring that those promises would be now be fulfilled by his new government.

MGR boasted more female supporters than male, due perhaps to his macho persona or the importance that he gave to women characters in his films. The mother and the heroine were omnipresent in all of his films, to illustrate the two facets of MGR – the affectionate son, and the romantic hero. Villains were also important in his films. These ruthless characters were meant to depict MGR’s real-life political adversaries, such as lifelong rival M Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu’s current chief minister. MGR also acted in a number of hits (Rickshawkaran, Netru Indru Naalai, Urimai Kural) in which the villains were corrupt politicians, landlords and industrialists. As MGR must have planned, viewers rarely made the distinction between his celluloid villains and his real-world adversaries. For decades, this negative portrayal had a drastic effect on Karunanidhi’s political fortunes. Although Karunanidhi had hit back at MGR through his own celluloid productions, ultimately he was unable to gain the state government’s top spot until after MGR’s death.

Very particular socio-political conditions in Tamil Nadu paved the way for the political approach that was eventually spearheaded by MGR. The Tamil-nationalist Dravidian movement and the mobilisation of backward castes had strong roots in the state. The founder of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), C N Annadurai, popularly known as Anna (elder brother), was also a prolific writer of film scripts. Annadurai’s films (Velaikari, Oru Iravu, among many others) offered central themes of a politicised stripe: the evils of upper-caste hegemony, the oppression of backward castes, the greatness of the Tamil language, and self-respect.

Karunanidhi’s own Parasakthi was a major hit in 1952, and proved to be a trendsetter for subsequent Tamil propaganda films. MGR, who acted in many of Anna’s films, picked up on this trend, but also added a new twist. The year after Parasakthi was released, he joined the DMK, quickly becoming its most prominent figure. During his DMK days, MGR placed great emphasis on developing a network of fan clubs. When he was kicked out of the DMK in 1972 for his open criticism of Karunanidhi’s lack of transparency in party finances, most of these fans followed him to his new party, the AIADMK. The simmering discontent against the DMK during the 1970s, coupled with MGR’s projection of himself as the alternative to Karunanidhi, paved the way for his spectacular rise to power.

A southern phenomenon
As with the Hindi superstar Amitabh Bachchan, Sivaji Ganesan, a contemporary of MGR who also starred in Parasakthi, acted in a variety of roles but did not stick to any particular persona in the characters he chose. Perhaps as a result, despite boasting a very successful cinema career, his political attempts have failed miserably. While an early supporter of the DMK, Ganesan eventually founded a short-lived political party, the Thamizhaga Munnetra Munnani, in 1987, and contested elections. While his party experienced ignominious defeat, another former film star, Jayalalitha, leading the AIADMK after the demise of MGR, performed well in that election.

Though Jayalalitha had acted as the heroine in many MGR films, much of her success is actually due to MGR’s having chaperoned her into politics in 1982. The next year, when she was appointed as the AIADMK’s propaganda secretary, few had difficulty in recognising Jayalalitha as MGR’s anointed heir, having seen her as the heroine in more than two dozen MGR films. Significantly, Jayalalitha’s Brahmin background has not hindered her leadership of the anti-Brahmin party. Patronage from a political mentor is obviously the formula for political success in Tamil Nadu – one that overrides other considerations.

Formula films have also helped to boost Rajnikanth’s political influence. During the 1996 elections, Rajnikanth opposed Jayalalitha, warning, “If Jayalalitha comes back to power, even god cannot save Tamil Nadu.” Karunanidhi shrewdly used this quote in his own campaigns. In hundreds of public meetings, he would narrate the failures of the corrupt administration of then-Chief Minister Jayalalitha, concluding with Rajnikanth’s quote, to thunderous applause. This was also one of the factors that led Karunanidhi to unseat Jayalalitha in 2006.

Due to the firm grip of the DMK and the AIADMK on Tamil Nadu’s political sphere, the MGR phenomenon has yet to be repeated in the state. But why has MGR’s approach, which has met with such dramatic success in Tamil Nadu, not worked elsewhere, particularly in the Hindi-belt among Bollywood stars? It is not for the wanting, with actors such as Vinod Khanna, Sunil Dutt and Hema Malini having taken the plunge, and even ‘Big B’, Amitabh Bachchan, giving significant support to the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh.

Much of the film stars’ political take-off in Tamil Nadu can be explained by the very strong linguistic-nationalist sentiments among Tamils, a phenomenon not existing in the same degree elsewhere. Harold Schiffman, a scholar of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture, points out that, as far as “willingness to sacrifice one’s life for the language, the Tamils surely rank near the top”. Indeed, Tamil linguistic nationalism was the undercurrent of many Tamil films during the 1950s and 1960s. Another factor that distinguishes Tamil Nadu from the Hindi belt has been the emergence of a strong anti-upper-caste social-reform movement, a mobilisation that has not taken root in any broad swath of the north. These two factors were both widespread in Tamil Nadu, however, and quickly politicised the mass culture.

The MGR phenomenon has for decades demonstrated the potential of the audio-visual medium to sway people’s ideological leanings. However, politics constructed on personality cults can be used only to a limited extent for any broad-based constructive purpose. What about the possibility of utilising this approach to build a progressive politics – say, one based on evolved cultural values? The fact is, actors-turned-politicians’ assumption of power has done little to improve the situation of the poor of Tamil Nadu. Though certain sections have progressed, most of the backward classes remain in the margins. In recent years, declining employment has led to livelihood insecurity in large numbers of rural households. According to the government’s National Sample Survey, the employment growth rate in the state between 1993 and 2004 was a meagre 0.2 percent per year, compared to more than 1.7 percent during the previous decade. Twenty-two percent of Tamil Nadu’s citizens – more than 14 million people – are officially mired in poverty.

Such figures are relatively unsurprising, given that much of the insubstantial rhetoric and programmes offered by Tamil Nadu’s screen heroes have lacked viable socio-economic policies for upliftment. But perhaps this has been a point easily glossed over until now, like a plot hitch that audiences overlook in the interests seeing the grand finale. The defeat of the AIADMK in 2006 notwithstanding, the reviews are still out on exactly how much mindless fare audiences, and voters, will accept. Whether the reign of reel heroes will continue to be a defining feature of Tamil Nadu will depend on whether a cult-oriented politics, revolving around screen heroes, can be transformed into one that can genuinely harness the people’s aspirations – made higher by the consciousness articulated by the Dravidian movements’ resistance to social, linguistic and caste oppression.