The problems that maketh Tamland

It has been a long time of vanvaas, but it has been probably worthwhile to remain silent. But then they also say, "don't speak ill of the dead." And if we follow that maxim to the hilt, we would never talk about anyone or life in itself, since we are all eventually dead anyway. So I will ignore such maxims perhaps to my own peril.

1) Mu Ka was a great Tam litterateur and no one can take that away from him (not even Lord Yama!). He also ably contributed to nation-building by putting his foot down for the devolution of what were then Central rights more to the States --- a principle accepted much later by the Sarkaria Commission for the stability of modern India in contrast to a million mutinies in our extended neighborhood. Foremost amongst these was making a common cause with a wide base on issues of Tam pride in times that mattered the most, a much needed succor from the onslaught of the Congress-i/Jan Sangh-i/Samyuktha Socialist Party version of intolerance in the bygone era including those from the Nehru family, Raj Narain, etc.,  as well as many stalwarts from Tamland such as Rajaji, Satyamurti and Bhaktavatsalam. It may have been a mere coincidence that he and the other DK/DMK stalwarts took to protest on behalf of Tamil for what he/they felt, but in ensuring the version of the Official Languages Resolution, 1968 in the way it did (http://rajbhasha.nic.in/en/official-language-resolution-1968), he/others ensured that there was a lot less misery for a large section of the Indian population over time.

2) More to his credit, following his own misrule from 1989-91 and JJ's misrule from 1991-96, he did not get too bogged down by details in terms of who/what affiliation ran/wanted to run a certain business or how they ran it, as long as he/his family/party got his 5-10% cut (a precursor to the infamous Jayanthi tax or the Mr. 10% jibes at one AA Zardari across the border) letting Tamland march towards industrialization and progress in its own way, independent of whether it was an ADMK front or a DMK front ruling/misruling it. Both ADMK and DMK ensured continuity in terms of policies as long as they got their choicest porterhouses (no pun intended).

3) Much of DK/DMK's rise to fame is/was correlated with the meticulous use of the newly arrived propaganda medium in the form of films to social messaging whether it be caste affirmation in the form of self-respect/suya-mariyaadhai and non-Brahminism, Tam language pride, or social evil eradication. And in that segment, a lot of credit goes to people such as Mu Ka and the atheist-turned-theist of "Arthhamulla Hindhu madham" fame Kannadhaasan as well as brilliant orators such as Sivaji Ganesan, SS Rajendran, KR Ramaswamy (who is conveniently forgotten today), etc. all of whom could sting a bee like no tomorrow, let alone like one Ali. The imprint of the Soviet/Communist revolution on all that propaganda as well as social messaging cannot be ignored, as well as the deep reasons to rename oneself from a Dakshinamoorthy to a Karunanidhi, all the while going for a Muthu, an Azhagiri and then a Stalin instead of a planned Ayyadurai (a morphed version of Periyar 'Ayya' and an Anna'durai'). What that says about what he valued the most is left to one's own imagination!

4) That said, Mu Ka knew which side of the bread was buttered the best and played both BJP and Congress masterfully, as the time of the day demanded it. Like CBN in 2018, he sided with BJP and Vajpayee in 1999 and then dropped out of the coalition when BJP/NDA suited his needs less (that movement began as early as 2002, but nevertheless). He then sided with Congress/UPA and then dropped out of that coalition when he got sucked into inaction over the death of LTTE and more so, the 2G spectrum scam. He had like-minded friends, well-wishers and advisers on both sides of the aisle and kept his rhetoric primarily for the gullible electorate, especially as he aged, mellowing down fast, but not fast enough to witness some beautiful dung droppings such as, "Is Ram a civil engineer?"

5) Mu Ka was also a man of masterful guile in converting pawns to queens on the political checkerboard. If being a No. 3 in CNA's Cabinet to sidelining Naavalar Nedunchezhian with MGR's help first and then planting himself firmly as the CM/Party President face was not enough evidence of this, realizing the gullibility of the electorate that only appreciated the face behind the versatile oratory (and not the playwright) in putting up a Mu Ka Muthu against MGR and when that attempt flopped miserably primarily due to the ineptness of Muthu, to totally removing MGR from the party when MGR demanded the election finances for the 1971 hustings be audited was one too many for even the Frank Underwood's of Tamland.

6) The typical stick to beat Mu Ka is with the epithet bestowed on him by the MGR-demanded Indira-instituted Sarkaria Commission (a different one) report: "the man who institutionalized scientific corruption in Tamil Nadu politics" (not a paraphrase from the report, but the tenor of it). But a more realistic assessment of him is more of a man who institutionalized family politics in Tamil Nadu. All others from that era have mostly fallen wayside except his family. The numerous episodes in which the DMK leadership were sidelined to ensure the pre-eminence of the Mu Ka family starting with the Maaran-Mu Ka tag-team to promote Mu Ka Muthu over MGR in the late 60s and early 70s, followed by the vanvaas as the Ram-loving Mu Ka called it (the 1977-1989 interregnum with three ADMK governments), and the early 90s' sidelining of folks such as VaiKo when he became too big for his boots in being more-Tamil-than-Tamil, or those actions that sidelined K. Anbazhagan, Arcot Veeraswami, and even the scions of the Maaran family and Azhagiri, all in favor of one Stalin.

7) As much as Mu Ka moved away from the literary Brahminical Tamil dialogue delivery that was common during the 40s with a more colloquial and mass understandable Tamil dialogues that could easily reach out to the vast majority of the people, one could also accuse him of failing to move with the times as his screenplays bombed in the 90s. While his 80s renditions such as "Paasapp paravaigal" and "Paalaivana rojakkal" were still reasonably connected to the audience, his final film screenplay for "Ponnar shankar" was one distasteful and badly mangled version of what would be a pre-eminent story of the Gounder community. As expected, the movie miserably bombed at the box office.

8) A lot has been written about Mu Ka not losing a single election from 1957 to his death. But not much has been said about the 1991 scraping in the Harbour constituency (an 890 vote win) coming as it did in the wake of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the disrobing of JJ in the State Assembly by Durai Murugan. The other winner in that elections on behalf of DMK was Parithi Elamvazhuthi, someone who was tom-tommed to be one of the DMK greats that defied a sympathy wave in the Egmore constituency in those days. But if one looks 25 years later, Parithi is spending his time in the ADMK vacillating between OPS and TTVD gangs/camps, further bolstering the credentials of Mu Ka for sidelining everyone in the party except Stalin. Stalin, by the way, lost in the Thousand Lights constituency to KA Krishnaswamy (a family member of KA Mathiazhagan, one of the Five Founders or Aimberum Thalaivargal when CNA left DK to form DMK).

9) The other less talked about event is his skipping of the 1984 Assembly elections when he more or less knew that he would be ousted in the aftermath of the sympathy wave following Indira Gandhi's assassination, MGR's reasonably ok governance from 1980-84 despite his kidney failure, the sympathy in Tamland for MGR and the beaming videos from Brooklyn, as well as the charisma of Rajiv Gandhi. In some sense, Mu Ka had a good premonition of the whacking the DMK alliance would take in the polls (195/234 won by ADMK) and quite easily skipped the elections. MK Stalin had again lost to KAK in the same Thousand Lights constituency in 1984 also (in what was his debut fight at the Assembly level).

10) All this said, Tamland's pre-/post-independence electoral period can be neatly delineated into three or four eras depending on one's biases.

The first era from approximately 1940 to the mid-60s witnessed populist Congress governments carrying over from Gandhi's messages, with often incorruptible and clean leaders, only mightily burdened by their philosophical and ideological inclinations as they came from elitist Brahmin/forward caste/well-to-do families. Even the Opposition in this era could not find corruption or personal animosity against the likes of T. Prakasam, Ramasami Reddiar, Kumarasami Raja, Bhaktavatsalam, Rajaji and Kamaraj. In fact, the handing over of the baton from Rajaji to Kamaraj took the sting out of the likes of EV Periyar quite quickly.

The second era began a bit earlier in the mid-50s and continued through the mid-70s with the rise and popularity of the Justice Party/DK, social reform, anti-Hindi agitations, a transformation from a "vengaayam/kattumiraandi" religious/linguistic depictions to one of "ondre kulam, oruvane devan", and the rise of film icons such as Sivaji and then MGR to prop up the DMK to power. A lot has been written about whether the 1967 win of the DMK could be attributed to the shooting of MGR by MR Radha, but most likely even if this event had not happened, the social/linguistic churn would have meant a rise of the DMK at some point in this period.

The mid-70s to mid-2010s (a really long period) is basically the era of bipolar disorder in Tamland (pardon the pun) from sun-rise to son-rise, the demise of ideology and the natural reversion to the mean in the form of compromises, nepotism, money-making/corruption and caste re-affirmations in the form of petty and fissiparous outfits such as PMK, VCK, PT, DMDK, MDMK, IUML, etc., support for pan-Tamil causes across the globe with no heed to Tamil causes and issues in the state (e.g., VaiKo), and basically vindictiveness and melodrama that has often no parallels anywhere else in India (perhaps!). This is the period that completely drove away any space for nationalist/reasonable parties in Tamland, much to their own detriment, but perhaps reaffirming faith in the idea of India (in contrast to what the current Opposition dispensation would have you believe in) that one can start with a demand for a Dravida Naadu and end up with a demand for a Bharat Ratna instead! But then Periyar is in a thidal, Anna in a samaadhi, MGR in a mani-mandapam, may be that explains the trajectory that is Tamland, perhaps!!

With the passing away of both JJ and Mu Ka, we have a giant vaccum that cannot be filled in by the likes of the 4-5 percenters (aka Vijayakanth, Ramadoss, VaiKo, Thirumaa, etc.). Nor can they be filled by the likes of PC and the essential jokers in Satyamurti Bhavan. Completely out of picture are the nationalists in Kamalalayam. Just because that name sounds similar to Arivalayam or Anbagam, the BJP cannot overnight replace the Dravidian front with its own agenda. In fact, what is the agenda of BJP in Tamland, one wonders. May be nothing and that is not too bad in a way! This vacuum that corresponds to the fourth era sees the likes of Rajnikanth and Kamalahassan trying to wade into.

In fact, I did witness a surreal event before Vishwaroopam-II that was played out in the movie hall in the US --- an in-your-face petty propaganda clip for Kamal's party, MNM. Gone are the days when subtlety used to be an art-form with phrases such as "Anna, nee naalai aaluvaai" to "thalaivare" or movie titles such as "Kaanchi Thalaivan", or even Rajnikanth's quasi-political dialogues couched as real movie dialogues in such movies as Padaiyappa and Bhaasha. This in-your-face propaganda and the distancing of the party name itself by calling it a Maiyyam or Maiam (however that is written in English), instead of a Kazhagam or a Katchi (loosely translated as either an Organization, a Grouping, or a Party) + a more South-centric focus rather than a Tamland-centric focus (not quite sure what exactly would come out of it though) just stands quite opposite to what used to be status quo. Not much good is likely to come out of such ventures, especially if one has to see Vishwaroopam-II as the first-post MNM movie to showcase a new-Kamal, if there really was one who indeed needed a rebranding.

The continuing strong anti-Shaivite stand in some form or the other starting with Anbe Shivam and continuing through Dasavatharam and now Vishwaroopam + a world where all establishmentists speak a Brahminical Tamil (laughable even it were only a fraction true) + a confused stand on terrorism (with dialogues such as "religion does not cause terrorism, but people do" quite like the NRA's stand on gun violence) does not portend an intelligent yet unintelligible Kamal who is trolled by all and sundry. This is more of a useless idiot (in contrast to the useful idiots) wanting to be a do-gooder who is probably just the wrong pressure valve in a state filled with an enormity of confrontations, complications and confused histories.

The other side sees Rajnikanth's political fantasy-world with an always ueber-correct hero now having to confront political quagmires where one does have to make a significant compromise, and can and does get trolled ceaselessly in such ventures. This front is also not likely to see a great future ahead even if it presents a mirror to the hypocrisy of the state and its erstwhile/current crop of self-declared leaders (unabashed anti-Brahminism/anti-Hinduism, but with the reality of someone who cannot skip a yellow shawl for decades + need to pull the plug on an Ekadesi and a quick burial on Dwadasi so that one can attain saranagati at the lotus feet of the same venerable God who one can veritably question as if one is a Nakkeeran-lite just because they have read Tamil well + a clamoring for a burial site despite having pretty much a good chunk of Madras in one's possessions + a corrupt regime that is tolerated and accepted as lawful/reasonable/forgivable, let alone a bigamy + countless other accusations). Primary reasons for Rajni's failure would be the strong pulls and conflicts that he has to handle + the unrealistic expectations that he has already projected (real or imaginary) + the poor health he will have to confront in building an organization from the ground up despite the presence of enough of his rasikar mandrams + a changing reality of a significantly aspiring middle-class where there is no unquestioned loyalty to anything ideological/to any person, even if reality seems otherwise, etc.

With a similar age class as Modi and MK Stalin, these two film stars have probably 5-10 years (if at all!) of good/reasonably healthy life before all their vices start taking a real effect on their well-beings. This chasm is not likely to be filled by the different power centers in ADMK and its splinter-ist outfits corrupt as they are, nor is there an alternate hope when the reality of DMK's family-centric agenda comes up to the forefront. Whether such chasms get filled up by pro-leftist anarchist outfits that supposedly emancipate marginalized outfits or worse, pro-Tamil outfits with an axe-to-grind on every Tamil problem in this vast wide world, or whether they get pushed back by caste re-affirmation fronts, or whether there is a space for moderate yet nationalist forces would be an interesting problem to witness, if only one was an outsider peering in. For an insider peering out, these are bound to be eternally uncomfortable events where one lays low, watches the surreality of modern Tamland and its various actors get played out in real-life Big Boss type events, and possibly troll away to one's merriment!

Sadly, we may not have to witness anyone asking for a plot near the Cooum in a long time to come! That may be the only comforting reality in the short while!!