Will he, won't he? Like teenagers seeking to divine their romantic prospects, Tamil Nadu (and much of the country) is plucking petals from the daisy to answer their anxious question. But, should Rajinikanth eventually decide to come in, would that be such a game-changer?
At one level, the answer is an obvious and resounding, "Yes!" For, there has never been a Superstar quite like Rajini. With at last 180 films under his belt, a large number of them unprecedented super-hits, Rajini is much more than a Tamil film star. He has appeared with practiced ease and guaranteed success in Kannada, Telugu, and Malayalam mega-hits, besides Bollywood, Hollywood and even Bengali hits. At the age of 67, with just a masterful flick of his cigarette, he can get his male fans whistling and his female fans swooning. The membership of his fan clubs has been estimated at 10 lakh - but it is also doubtful whether today's youth are as overwhelmed by Rajinikanth as were their parents and elders. So, were Rajinikanth to decide later this year to take the plunge, would they follow him into party politics as avidly as they have his numerous screen appearances in countless character portrayals from arch-villain to super-hero?
The easy answer is: that if NTR could do it, why not Rajinikanth? The easy negative response is that as comparable superstars like Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna have shown by failing so miserably to make it in politics, mere film stardom does not make for political stardom. There is no end of jewels in the crown of the film world who, despite trying, have not made their mark in politics: Chiranjeevi in Andhra Pradesh and Ambreesh in Karnataka have faded as rapidly on the floor of the House as they shone on the silver screen. Sivaji Ganesan and Sarathkumar were two other Tamil super heroes who left no mark on TN politics. On the other hand, Jayaprada and Jaya Bachchan, even Hema Malini, have enjoyed moderate success. Nargis did make an impression in the Rajya Sabha. Rekha has not even tried. Nor did Govinda. In Tamil Nadu, Capt Vijayakanth started with a bang but has ended with a whimper. From Bengal, we have seen Babul Supriya (who has made a name for himself for all his missteps) and Moon Moon (for no missteps at all) - but neither can claim to be the wave of Bengal's political future.
Then, where in the jigsaw puzzle does one fit in the extraordinary political careers of MGR and Jayalalithaa that followed their staggeringly successful careers in Tamil cinema? In the same slot, I would suggest, as CN Annadurai and Kalaignar (Great Artiste) Karunanidhi, who were a famed duo as a screenplay genius and a scriptwriter with a magic pen. All four of them founded or belonged to Tamil cinema's rich tradition of using cinema (particularly in the '50s and '60s) as the principal medium for propagating a radical ideology of social, economic and political revolution that came to fruition in the 1967 polls and has kept the Dravidian parties as the sole political arbiters of the state for the past 50 years! Hence the titles of
'Puratchi Thalaivar' and
'Puratchi Thalaivi' (Revolutionary Leader - male and female) bestowed on MGR and JJ, not by their fan clubs but by their ardently political followers. All four were politicians first and artistes later, not because their art was in any way inferior to their politics but because they saw the cinema in their film star heyday as today's inventive politicians see the social media - as an instrument of messaging their politics and mobilizing the masses behind them. That generation, which drew its inspiration from the anti-Brahmin, anti-Aryan, anti-North Indian, anti-Hindi, anti-priesthood movement of the Justice Party in the '20s and '30s, through the free-thinking of Periyar EV Ramaswami Naicker (who passionately advocated the trifurcation of India into Hindustan, Pakistan, and Dravidastan - or Dravidanadu), to Annadurai launching the Dravidian political movement (DMK) in the early '50s, has now drawn to a close with the passing away of Jayalalithaa, whose close association with MGR gave her the status of being a radical Dravidian despite her being an ostentatiously God-fearing Brahmin.
So, where does that leave Rajinikanth? He is reverentially called
"Thalaiva" ("Oh, Leader mine"), but without adding
'Puratchi' (Revolutionary). Rajinikanth's claim to a place in the political sun is not on account of any revolutionary agenda pursued through cinema but as building on his immense fan following to make the transition to politics. That is an altogether new and different ball game to TN politics as played out over the last century (The Justice Party was formed in TN almost a hundred years ago). Rajini might succeed, as Kejriwal did by taking off from Anna Hazare's platform of 'India Against Corruption' - or prove just as transient. But those who wrongly see the Tamil voter as besotted with film stars need to remember the many film star flops in national and TN politics, even while understanding that it was not because of the silver screen but because the Tamils used the silver screen to promote a fundamentally radical political cause that those film stars who succeeded grew into hugely popular political personalities.
Rajinikanth's one-word agenda is the same as Anna Hazare's: "anti-corruption". He has asked his followers "to prepare themselves for war" against "a rotten system". While lauding current Tamil Nadu political leaders such as MK Stalin of the DMK as "an efficient administrator" and Anbumani Ramadoss of the PMK as "very educated, knowledgeable, (a) modern thinker (who) has good plans", he then adds the rider, "The system is rotten. We should change the system" - but does not spell out why the "system" is "rotten" or how he proposes to "change" it. Yet, there is no denying the strength or appeal of his principled opposition to self-evident political corruption.
But along comes Subramanian Swamy and warns that he has "substantial proof" of Rajinikanth's alleged financial irregularities. But while the world waits with bated breath for Swamy, the BJP maverick, to reveal his "proof", mainstream BJP leaders are falling over themselves to woo Rajini to their side. Gurumurthy, the leading ideologue of the RSS in TN, argues that even if Rajini were to form his own party, "he must have an alliance with the BJP" because there is "a lot of convergence" between the two. But in saying so, he forgets Rajini's fan following among the minorities, who are most unlikely to follow him electorally into a BJP alliance. Also, many - probably most - of his fans are, politically speaking, dedicated followers of the principal Dravidian parties and are unlikely to switch their political allegiance only on account of their being fans of his films. So, a novice in politics joining hands with a non-existent party in TN seems an unlikely proposition - except on the ground that a party without a leader (the BJP in TN) is in need of a leader without a party - Rajini! This can hardly be a tempting prospect for Rajini.
Most important of all, Rajini is, of course, a man of religion, imbued with a deep spirituality, but that does not make him an obvious choice for the Modi brigade - for, like most Hindus, Rajini does not equate Hinduism with Hindutva. He tellingly refused to endorse the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election despite sharing a platform with Modi in Chennai.
Others advance a quite different argument for Rajini indeed having a place waiting for him in the current "vacuum" in TN politics. They point to his political debut in 1996 when his voice played a decisive role in overthrowing Jayalalitha (as she then spelt her name) and bringing to power in Chennai, as in Delhi, the DMK-Tamil Maanila Congress alliance. That alliance did not last beyond its immediate 1996 objective. It came apart even in 1998, and by 1999 was dead in the water when the TMC on its own lost every seat it contested (even P. Chidambaram's) and Rajini went back to filmdom, bitterly remarking that his role in the 1996 election was a "political accident". At that time (1996), it was speculated that a Congress-Rajini alliance might have won 130 seats in the TN assembly but GK Moopanar's breakaway politics ended both his own distinguished political career and the Congress party's only chance in half a century to distinguish itself in elections in the state. So that precedent is hardly the happy augury it is sometimes painted as.
A somehow naïve and unpleasant argument has been made that as Rajini is a Maratha Gaekwad born and brought up in Karnataka, there can be no place for him in the politics of Tamil Nadu. The fact is that Periyar was a Telugu-speaking Naidu from Andhra Pradesh; MGR a Malayali Nair born in Kandy, Sri Lanka; and Jayalalithaa a Mysore Iyengar: all of them made it big because they were, and seen as being, Tamil nationalists. Indeed, because of his hits in every Dravidian language, Rajini might be better placed than any of the earlier Dravidian leaders to realize Periyar's grand scheme of a Dravidanadu covering all the diverse linguistic regions of the composite British-engineered Province (earlier, Presidency) of Madras extending to large parts of Andhra Pradesh (Seemanadhra) and even Odisha (up to Behrampore), besides large tracts of what is now Karnataka and the Malabar segment of present day Kerala.
Besides, Rajini has rarely been behind hand in taking up popular Tamil causes, particularly farmers', once having gone on fast to protest Karnataka's refusal to release Cauvery waters to downstream Tamil Nadu.
But he is yet to make up his mind. Time and again, he has gone to the brink of tumbling into active politics only to rear back and withdraw. In politics, there is little doubt, he would be a "reluctant debutante". No wonder, then, that Vaasanthi, the renowned writer and biographer of J. Jayalalithaa, has rather cruelly
remarked, "He is a confused man and he never seemed to have any ideology". There may be something to that but it is Rajini himself who has famously remarked of himself,
"En vazhi, thani vazhi thaan ("My way is, of course, just my way" - echoes of Frank Sinatra singing, "My Way"!). He is churning matters in his mind, and while he reflects on the course to take, Tamil Nadu wonders, "What next?"
Watch this space.
(Mani Shankar Aiyar is former Congress MP, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.