Politics In Tamil Nadu Research Articles

Tamil Nadu Politics and Tamil Cinema: A Symbiotic Relationship?

From the second-half of the twentieth century, a nascent Tamil cinema became increasingly influential in Tamil society and more prominent in political life. The Dravidar Kazhagam, founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy in 1944, morphed into the DMK and AIADMK, two dominant state political parties in Tamil Nadu. Through the medium of film, some of its leading lights, C. N. Annadurai, M. Karunanidhi, M. G. Ramachandran and Jayalalitha, cultivated cinema audiences and the voting public in the political ideologies of the Dravidian movement and subsequently became Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu. The symbiotic relationship between politics and Tamil cinema has meant that political and social commentaries and the assertion of Tamil nationalistic ideas was commonplace in Tamil films. In recent years, Tamil cinema has become the vehicle for raising a wide range of concerns ranging from caste, class and gender and state/nation politics, marking a shift that focusses on everyday politics in the state. In this article, we present a critical survey of the role of Tamil cinema in disseminating particular realities and politics of identity that speak to an essentialised notion of Tamil cultural and linguistic identity, the concomitant disavowal of broader conceptions of Indian-ness or belonging to the Indian nation, as well as the use of cinema to address everyday politics in the State.

The Nexus of Piety, Power and Politics in Tamil Nadu: A View Through the Lens of Four Tombs in the Capital City Chennai

ABSTRACTThere are four conspicuous tombs with impressive monuments at a significant spot opposite to the harbour on the Marina Beach in Chennai (Madras), the capital city of Tamil Nadu, one of the southern most states of India. They contain four chief ministers of the state, from 1968 to 2017. The construction and maintenance of these tombs have been shrouded with controversies and the major factors are political power, piety of the people and the implicit ideological battles. The decisive moment was the formation and development of the Dravidian movement in opposition to the Brahmanic hegemony with the ancient Vedic cult, supremacy of Brahmin priests, the persistent caste system and various degrees of superstition. How the Dravidian force has been neutralized in a complex nexus is the fundamental question.

Writing Dalit assertion: early Dalit Panther politics and legal advocacy in 1980s Tamil Nadu

This article examines the development and early politics of the Dalit Panther Iyakkam (DPI), or Dalit Panther Movement, of Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1982, the DPI advanced a political programme that petitioned state authorities qua democratic citizens. By submitting written appeals through formal institutional channels, DPI organisers lobbied officials to perform their professional duties and advocated the delivery of rights, impartial administration of law, and equitable access to social and economic development. This article explores the initial phase of Dalit Panther politics in Tamil Nadu through its own documentary evidence, drawing upon DPI Chairman A. Malaichamy’s personal letters, written appeals, and received correspondence, as well as original pamphlets and handbills distributed at political rallies. Countering interpretations of Dalit assertion that accentuate ‘illiberal’ techniques as its natural form and state welfare as its principle target, the article shows that legal advocacy served as an integral feature of early DPI politics. But, when state institutions proved unresponsive and the movement developed a grassroots presence, DPI activists expanded their programme to encompass contentious street politics as a complementary means to make claims on state authority, amplify their voices to centres of power, and demand recognition as democratic citizens.

‘Anti-Casteist Casteism?’

In this essay I discuss Tamil social reformer ‘Periyar’ E. V. Ramasamy's discourse on caste and offer a Fanonist critique of the same. Ramasamy's interventions in caste politics in Tamil Nadu involved discursive strategies directed towards three groups: the intermediate castes, whose social status as ‘Shudras’ he used as a weapon to incriminate the Brahmins; the Brahmins, who were the Other who, according to Ramasamy, by their very presence condemned the rest of the population to the status of Shudrahood and untouchability; and the untouchable Dalit castes whose particularism he respected and whom he considered allies in the struggle against casteism. Comparing with Fanon's identity politics, I explore what are the pitfalls in Ramasamy's discursive strategies. Drawing from Fanon, I conclude that a transformative praxis in search of a post-casteist society must be based on a universalism that, while being cognizant of particulars, nevertheless unsettles both the identities of the oppressor and the oppressed.

Populism and politics in contemporary Tamil Nadu

Commentary on Indian politics frequently uses the term populism narrowly to refer to short-term, electorally driven expenditure. However, the term is more insightfully used when referring to an ideological construct that celebrates the importance of the people as an undivided group. Politics in Tamil Nadu has had a strongly populist character since the 1960s with both the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All-India Anna DMK (AIADMK) making appeals to the ‘people’ of the state. In the last decade, the DMK has adjusted its populist appeals to better connect with lower status groups, a constituency traditionally targeted by the AIADMK. The AIADMK re-worked its approach, using a technocratic populist discourse during its campaign to win the 2011 assembly elections, addressing concerns of higher status voters while still acknowledging its poorer supporters. Populist appeals have been adjusted to compensate for political weaknesses in the two governing parties. Economic and social changes since the late 1990s have created opportunities, as well as imperatives, for reworking populist appeals.

Canvases of Political Competition: Image Production as Politics in Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACTIn this article, I explore the production of political images in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The state is known for the ubiquitous presence of banners, murals and posters in its public spaces, featuring prominent politicians and actors. It is commonly argued that these images help to convey the heroic or exclusive status of political leaders. However, such images are actually produced by party workers and therefore do not simply transpose status and image. Instead, political supporters praise their leader via these images and act as ‘kingmakers’ in constructing reputation and power. Simultaneously, by putting political images on display, supporters also authorise their own power. While praise is important in showing a person's dedication to a political party, the images, in the motivations of their producers, are suffused with ambivalence and competition as well. Hence, I argue, political image practices are not representative of politics, they are politics.

Combining clientelist and programmatic politics in Tamil Nadu, South India

This article examines the use of material appeals for voter support using evidence taken from the case of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Two types of material appeal co-exist in this case. Clientelist politics, in the form of vote buying, and the distribution of public resources as political patronage, are features of state politics. Parties also use programmatic policies which offer benefits to beneficiaries regardless of partisan affiliation. The provision of such universal benefits has expanded since 2006. Yet the interest in universal provision significantly pre-dates 2006 and can be traced back to elite policy preferences in the early 1980s. The article shows that competition within a clientelist political system need not lead to the intensification of clientelism. Political parties may dilute their clientelist strategy by the addition of some programmatic policies. The wider implication of this study is that future research on material appeals should pay more attention to parties and party systems as causal variables.

“To persuade them into speech and action”: Oratory and the Tamil Political, Madras, 1905–1919

AbstractAll the elements of twentieth-century politics in Tamilnadu cohere in 1918–1919: human and natural rights, women's rights, the labor movement, linguistic nationalism, and even the politics of caste reservation. Much has been written of how this politics was mediated by newspapers, handbills, and chapbooks, and the dominant narrative of such events privileges the circulation of print and print culture of vernacular language. This paper explores the relatively lesser-known story of the role and impact of vernacular oratory on the development of the mass political in Tamilnadu from the Swadeshi movement (1905–1908) to the formation of labor unions (1917–1919), and the explicit attempt to persuade non-elites into speech, action, and ultimately politics. I argue that Tamil oratory was an infrastructural element in the production of the political, at least the political as we understand it in twentieth-century Tamilnadu, where oratory became the defining activity of political practice. When elites made the conscious move to begin addressing the common man, when Everyman was called to join into the political, a new agency was formed along with a new definition of what politics would look like. The paper considers what such new agency and definitions entail in pursuit of a better understanding of what constitutes the political generally and the Tamil political in particular.

Party Political Panthers: Hegemonic Tamil Politics and the Dalit Challenge

The Viduthalai Ciruthaigal Katchi (VCK, Liberation Panther Party) has successfully transformed from the largest Dalit movement in Tamil Nadu into a recognised political organisation. Social movement theorists like Gamson (1990) view political recognition and engagement as one of the main aims and successes of social mobilisation. Despite the obvious achievements of the VCK, however, activists and commentators express disappointment or disillusionment with its performance. The Panthers clearly reject the caste hierarchy, but they increasingly adopt hegemonic forms of politics which can undermine their aims. This paper, thus, engages with the questions of movement institutionalisation by tracing the political trajectory of the VCK and charting its resistance to and compliance with Dravidian hegemony. It argues that institutionalisation needs to be understood within particular socio-political contexts and notes how the hegemony of Dravidian politics partly explains the disjuncture between activist and political perceptions. It portrays how the dominant political parties have set the template for what it means to ‘do’ politics in Tamil Nadu which serves as both an opportunity and a constraint for potential challengers.

Mental health in Tamil cinema

Tamil cinema is a vibrant part of the lives of many in south India. A chequered history and a phenomenal growth have made this medium highly influential not only in Tamil Nadu politics, but also in the social lives of the viewers. This paper provides an overview of the growth of Tamil cinema, and discusses in detail the way mental health has been handled by Tamil films. Cinema can be used very effectively to improve awareness about mental health issues.

Nutrition and Its Politics in Tamil Nadu

This article offers important insights into the interrelationships between political change and nutrition policy in Tamil Nadu and their impact on nutrition levels among a range of rural households. Based on new primary sources (both documentary and interviews) and secondary data provided by other research, this article offers a substantive study of current nutrition problems in Tamil Nadu. The first part provides a framework for examining the politics of nutrition. The second section offers an account of village level differentiation in nutrition over the last quarter century and traces the role of alcohol in household nutrition, and the third focuses on the implementation of public policy in food and nutrition.

Poverty, Policy and Politics in Madras Slums: Dynamics of Survival, Gender and Leadership.

Introduction Policy, Politics and the Urban Poor Theoretical and General Perspectives Tamil Nadu Politics Slums and Slum Policies in Madras The Proposed Relocation of Chitra Nagar Conclusions

Factions and Filmstars: Tamil Nadu Politics since 1971

Factions and Filmstars: Tamil Nadu Politics since 1971

Factions and Filmstars: Tamil Nadu Politics since 1971

I CANNOT INTRODUCE contemporary politics in Tamil Nadu better than by musing on the row of gaudy political calendars which at present adorn the wall of my study. In the place of honor is a large benign portrait of the late C. N. Annadurai, the leader who led the Dravida Munnetra Kazhiagam (DMK) ever since it split from its parent body, the Dravida Kazhagam, until his death in 1969. He died as the first DMK Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, not only a successful politician but a man hugely by the masses. He smiles gently in the picture, calm, relaxed and elderly, his eyes looking steadily far into the distance. He is everybody's father, or uncle, or big Beside Annadurai's picture hangs the filmstar-politician, M. G. Ranachandran, with Anna's head appearing against a backcloth of the red and black party colors beside his right ear, as if he were whispering advice and counsel to his anbuthambi, his beloved little brother. Ramachandran is the leader of the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Anna DMK or ADMK) which split away from the DMK and became its chief rival. His mystique depends only in part on his claim to be the true inheritor of Annadurai's mantle, however; his film personality is the real basis for his political hold on large numbers throughout Tamil Nadu. Another of my calendars shows MGR, the romantic celluloid hero, in a world of fantasy and long ago. In splendid archaic costumes we see him gallantly gathering a dozen sword points into his own breast so that his friends may be safe; or showing the path of righteousness to a young and impressionable prince; or delivering poor damsels from distress; or duelling with a personification of evil. This is the hero for whom the masses vote. Karunanidhi, the DMK Chief Minister until January 1976, appears in a different style of calendar. He smiles confidently, exuding an air of