Tamil movie actor Vijay is set to take a decisive step into Tamil Nadu politics. - PHOTO: ACTORVIJAY/INSTAGRAM via The Straits times/ANN
BENGALURU: Tamil movie superstar Vijay is set to take a decisive step into Tamil Nadu politics, launching a new party that he announced on Feb 2 would be called Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (Tamil Victory Party).
He said in a statement: “You are all aware of the current political climate. There is administrative malpractice and corruption on one hand, and divisive politics that strives to divide people on the basis of caste and religion, on the other hand.
“Tamil Nadu is yearning for a political change that can lead to a selfless, transparent, caste-free, visionary and corruption-free administration.”
In January, the general council of his fan club, the Vijay Makkal Iyakkam (Vijay People’s Movement), unanimously elected the actor as the new party’s president, while his long-time aide and former Congress legislator Bussy Anand of Puducherry union territory was named the general secretary.
Although India is expected to hold national elections before May 2024 with the current Parliament scheduled to end in June, Mr Vijay may skip this contest. Instead, he and his party will run in the next Tamil Nadu state election in 2026.
Born Joseph Vijay Chandrasekhar, but known to his fans as Vijay, or Thalapathy (commander), the soft-spoken 49-year-old actor is known for his dancing chops and films for the masses.
He often plays urbane heroes who use high kicks and colloquial Tamil to protect women from sleazy baddies and students from corrupt businessmen – all the while never losing his cool.
His dance moves, a signature blend of the energetic Tamil street “koothu” style, breakdance and hip-hop, which he performs with hundreds of extras in at least two songs in every film, have been widely recreated at weddings and dance contests.
He is immensely popular across Tamil Nadu, his smiling face gracing many a poster and two-storey-high cutout.
Tamil Nadu has a history of huge film personalities entering politics. The longest-reigning chief ministers in the state were two actors, M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa, and the screenwriter M. Karunanidhi.
They launched their political careers through their on-screen image, rousing monologues and off-screen philanthropy.
Mr Vijay is no different. He is now making a film, which many fans believe will be his last, although he has not confirmed this.
The avowedly secular actor will enter Tamil Nadu politics at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is trying to make inroads in the fiercely regional state, after the deaths of political bigwigs and arch-rivals Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, who took turns ruling for decades.
Over his 68 films, said film critic Sreedhar Pillai, Mr Vijay has “gone from light romcoms to making socially relevant films, which gave him a huge following in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala”.
His fans largely tend to be underprivileged, unemployed young people whose aspirations and frustrations about jobs, love and corruption the actor has depicted in entertaining blockbusters.
His fan club has more than 200,000 members in district and neighbourhood chapters. Mostly under 40 and male, they fill cinemas to ensure his films are a hit, style themselves like him, and may even troll critics who question the logic of some of his movie plots. Today, few reviewers analyse Vijay films beyond their mass appeal.
In Sarkar, Mr Vijay’s most overtly political film from 2018, the character learns that his vote has been cast by someone else, and confronts two corrupt politicians from different parties.
“After I watched Sarkar, I could imagine Thalapathy as a politician,” said Mr Kalaiarasan S., 35, a fan from Madurai who has the star’s face tattooed on his arm.
A hotel cashier with a master’s degree, Mr Kalaiarasan feels that Mr Vijay “gets what the common young Tamil man worries about”.
Always dressed like a college student, Mr Vijay has recently let some grey hair and social messaging show in his movies.
In Master, he helps juvenile prisoners; in Bigil, he coaches a women’s football team; and in Mersal, he battles corruption in hospitals and critiques Prime Minister Modi’s new sales tax regime in a monologue that went viral.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, “his movies started doing phenomenal business in cinemas and even an average theatrical grosser like Beast was picked up for an astronomical amount by digital streamers”, said Mr Pillai.
Tamil superstar Vijay meeting people in Tirunelveli city, Tamil Nadu, in December 2023 while distributing relief materials to those affected by a cyclone. - PHOTO: COURTESY OF VIJAY MAKKAL IYAKKAM
Film critic Baradwaj Rangan called Mr Vijay “the No. 1 star in Tamil cinema today”.
“He has been on a commercial spree of late with the latest movies Leo and Varisu. Everything he has touched recently has turned to gold, whatever the story, whoever the director or producer. It’s fascinating that he is entering politics at this peak of commercial success, not as a dying star,” he added.
Even as the star’s movies become massive hits, he has encouraged his fan club to do more social outreach.
“In the past two years, we have started an app for eye donations, done flood relief, distributed bread, milk and eggs to poor kids, and given free medicines,” said 28-year-old graphic designer S. Vignesh, who heads the fan club’s youth wing in the coastal neighbourhood of Tiruvottiyur in Chennai, the state capital.
In 2023, the fan club established coaching centres for high school students and libraries in all 234 constituencies in the state. In December, the actor distributed relief materials and donated money to people who lost their homes to cyclonic floods in the southern districts of the state.
But even his most ardent fans would be clueless about what ideology or cause Mr Vijay’s party would espouse.
On June 17, 2023, he asked his fans to learn about the works of anti-caste crusader and author of India’s Constitution B.R. Ambedkar, atheist and feminist Tamil ideologue E.V. Periyar, and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu and pro-poor leader of the Congress Party K. Kamaraj.
“Take the good thoughts, leave the bad, that’s all,” said the actor, who is married with two children.
Based on this speech, many fans believe he will be progressive.
The major parties in Tamil Nadu, the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and opposition All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, were both electoral offshoots of a grassroots Tamil nationalist and anti-caste movement called Dravidar Kazhagam that some movie stars of the day amplified, and sometimes personified.
After the deaths of their cinematic founders, both parties are led today by career politicians still drawing from the Tamil Dravidian ideology, but with no background in films.
Most political analysts The Straits Times spoke to did not seem optimistic about Mr Vijay’s political foray, likening him to megastar Rajnikanth, who also often hinted he would launch a party but never quit movie-making long enough to do so.
Another versatile actor, Kamal Haasan, did start a party and contested polls in 2022, but lost badly.
Requesting anonymity because he did not want to upset Mr Vijay’s avid fans, one analyst said that unlike the 1960s, when matinee idol M.G. Ramachandran swept the polls, today, “only established political parties have the kind of money, network, muscle power and the well-oiled machinery needed to contest elections”.
As Mr Vijay’s fan, Mr Vignesh swears to toil hard to ensure that the demigod he worships wins elections, but as a voter, he hopes the actor will “stay the political course seriously and attract sharp advisers for people-focused policies”.
“Middle class people like me want new, young leadership with old-fashioned commitment to doing good,” he said. - The Straits Times/ANN
