Where MGR is 'hard currency', parties evoke him, his 'golden era'

While the DMK, the BJP and even Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam are going hammer and tongs to invoke MGR, the AIADMK has been caught napping

Sometime in the 70s in Tamil Nadu, hospitals noted a record number of blood donations. It was as if everyone in town was eager to donate blood. Oddly enough, this was not linked to any blood donation campaign encouraging people to donate blood. The number of donors peaked on Thursdays, declined on the following days and rose again from Wednesday. It was a strange phenomenon indeed.

The donors were paid Rs 5 for a pint of blood. This money was used by them to buy movie tickets for new releases on Fridays. It was later confirmed that whenever a new MGR movie was released, the queue of donors lining up to donate blood to buy movie tickets was the longest.

Marudur Gopalan Ramachandran aka MGR, the matinee-idol-turned-politician, straddled the intertwined worlds of Tamil cinema and politics like a colossus figure. In his films, MGR was the quintessential do-gooder, who never drank or smoked and treated all women as sisters and mothers. For the common folk, he was one of their own, speaking their language, voicing their hopes and aspirations. It did not matter that the man was not born in Tamil Nadu but in Ceylon. That he was born to parents who spoke Malayalam and not Tamil did no harm to his carefully crafted image. The Tamil masses loved and adored MGR- first as an actor and then in his later avatar of a politician. As the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, he scaled up the mid-day meal scheme originally started by Kamraj in 1956 to provide free mid-day meals for over eight million school children in the state. Freebies like sewing-machines, plastic pots for slum dwellers, tooth powder, uniform and footwear were doled out - MGR hailed as a modern-day Karna had thus laid the foundations of welfarism and populism in Tamil Nadu.

Fondly called 'Makkal Thilagam', MGR’s name and enduring legacy continue to be a potent vote bank in the Dravidian heartland. None before or after has been deified like MGR. Becoming a legend in his own lifetime, he is now a part of Tamil folklore and continues to wield an uncanny sway over the parties, politicians and voters of the state. Not surprisingly, political parties, especially the AIADMK founded by the venerated leader, have used the ‘MGR’ card to gain political mileage over the years.

This election is no different. In fact, unlike the previous elections where only the AIADMK and parties floated by actors-turned-politicians like Vijayakant’s DMDK (who called himself Karuppu MGR or dark-skinned MGR) were fighting it out to stake a claim to MGR’s legacy; unexpected claimants have entered the fray to appropriate MGR’s legacy.

In a recent interview, DMK Chief Stalin fondly remembered MGR as his 'Periyappa'. He was quoted as saying, “MGR was the treasurer of DMK then and gave us certificates. I am not your father but Periyappa (Uncle - father's elder brother), he told me. I advise that you concentrate on your studies. Your father can't say so I am telling you to study.”

Originally a Congress member, MGR, who cut his political teeth in the DMK, changed the course of Tamil Nadu’s politics by floating the AIADMK in 1972 and turning it into a contest between the two Dravidian parties. Karunanidhi struggled to shake off MGR’s description of him as an ‘evil force’ till the very end. MGR’s positioning of himself as a rival to the Karunanidhi-led DMK made him the ultimate mascot of anti-DMK politics in the state. Stalin’s subtle praise for his Periyappa MGR is actually a part of the DMK’s strategy of wooing a section of the AIADMK’s voters who are miffed as they feel that the party is now being remote-controlled by the BJP’s top brass. In 2019, Stalin had made an open appeal to cadres loyal to MGR and even Jayalalithaa to join the DMK. A number of MGR loyalists, including S Jagathraksha and KKSR Ramchandran, have been inducted into the DMK.

After the death of Kamraj, the god-fearing, anti-DMK votes shifted from the Congress to MGR- which was one of the biggest reasons behind MGR’s maiden victory in 1977. As a consequence, MGR had to whittle down the rationalist aspect of Dravidian politics to retain these non-Dravidian voters. The MGR regime was also generous in doling out funds for renovations of temples. As Chief Minister, MGR frequently visited shrines like the Kollur Mookambika temple. Often blamed for giving a pro-Hindu slant to Dravidian politics, MGR’s tenure was marked by two landmark communal events in the history of the state - the Meenakshipuram conversions and the Mandaikadu riots. There was a paradigm shift in the state’s policy towards minorities and handling communal tensions.

Bereft of any local icons and keen to expand its footprints in the state, the BJP has tried to appropriate or rather misappropriate MGR’s legacy by trying to portray MGR as a Hindu icon. Two videos released by the Tamil Nadu BJP featuring MGR prominently grabbed attention and left ally AIADMK miffed. One of the videos takes a dig at the Dravidian parties and its followers with the lyrics going - ‘Black crowd and the red crowd will be defeated by the saffron crowd’. An image of MGR fades then into PM Narendra Modi’s picture as the lyrics say, 'We see Modi as the man with a golden heart (MGR)', thus likening Modi to MGR.

The saffron party contesting 20 seats in 2021 is probably chalking out its strategy of becoming the main opposition to the DMK by 2026. The BJP which has mastered the art of misappropriating regional icons, realises that in Tamil Nadu, it is MGR- who watered down the regional thrust of Tamil politics and was open enough about his religious beliefs despite being the supremo of a party linked to the rationalist Dravidian movement, happens to be their best bet.

Both the DMK and the BJP seem to be suffering from collective amnesia. While the DMK leaders only remember MGR as the treasurer of the DMK who was instrumental in installing Karunanidhi as the CM post-Annadurai’s death, they seem to have completely forgotten the post-1972 MGR, who fought tooth and nail against the DMK, keeping it out of power for 15 long years.

The BJP seems to be blissfully ignorant about the ideology of its new mascot. MGR did tone down the anti-Hindi, regionalist and rationalist facets of Tamil politics but the Puratchi Thailavar had described his ideology as Annaism- a heady mix of Dravidiansim, Communism and Capitalism. Surely, the BJP can not be comfortable embracing all elements of MGR’s Annaism.

While the DMK, the BJP and even Kamal Hasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiyam are going hammer and tongs to evoke MGR, the AIADMK has been caught napping. Riddled by factionalism and in its desperate attempts to project itself as Amma’s government, the party has provided an opportunity to its rivals to stake claim to the legacy of its founder. The Palaniswami government celebrated MGR’s centenary year across the state only in 2018- a year after the centenary year was over!

Which side will profit the most by using the MGR card will only be known on May 2. But for now, one thing can be said with certainty — in Tamil Nadu’s political markets, MGR continues to be characterised as ‘hard currency’. Profitable political transactions are impossible without evoking him or his ‘golden era’.

(The writer is a Mumbai-based freelance journalist)