The Message Bearers

Nationalist Politics and the Entertainment Media in South India 1880-1945

By Theodore Baskaran

Published by Oxygen Books in 2008

Nothing defines Tamils most as the domineering presence of Cinema in their lives.   From a source of entertainment to lighten their hard and often painful lives, Tamils have embraced cinema as the over-arching and defining feature of their existence, so much so that their politics and even economy revolve around it.

A number of Tamils and certainly most of the non- Tamils have come to believe that the hold of cinema is a recent phenomenon, an off-shoot of the emergence of Dravidian politics in the 1960s.  This is incorrect as the nationalists were the early users of the cinematic medium to spread their ideology.  To give two examples, Mr. C. Rajagopalachari (popularly called Rajaji), who went on to become the first Indian   Governor General of India, wrote film-scripts and C. Sathyamoorthy, another towering Congressman wrote and acted in Plays and Drama, a precursor to entry into films in those days.  

Many would be surprised to note from Baskaran’s  work  the almost flawless movement of artists, directors and producers from Madras to Bombay and Calcutta and a similar movement from other regions into Madras.  This continues even today. 

One of the factors which contributed to the decline of Congress in the State was the neglect and a conscious distancing of the party from this popular medium, primarily based on elitist assumptions.  Congressmen came to view cinematic medium and a close association with the film industry adversely since the Dravidian leaders embraced it whole-heartedly.  Such a grand-standing spelt doom for the Congress from which it is yet to get out.

Another feature which surprises people of other regions about Tamils is their near-fanatical devotion to the Tamil language. In the introduction to the book, Dr. Christopher Baker dwells extensively on this curious aspect.  He says, “The Tamils are not a well-defined group in racial terms.  There is little to separate them from the Dravidian-speaking neighbours, and there is too much evidence in their early history (and their anthropology) of the admixture of a number of different peoples. Further, their more recent history has scattered a number of different and still distinct peoples throughout their country – particularly Telugus and Kannadas but also Gujaratis, Arabia Muslims and a number of other north Indians – and has distributed many of the Tamil-speakers in a Diaspora that stretches from the Caribbean, through South Africa and Sri Lanka, to southeast Asia.  Finally, the Tamils have probably never in their history at all owed allegiance to the same Tamil ruler.  The Pallava, Pandya and Chola dominions of early history were little more than sub-imperialisms of a single region, and the Tamil country since the fourteenth century has suffered from internal fragmentation and a constant stream of external invaders.  Against this background it is not surprising that the Tamilian defines himself so much by his language and the cultural inheritance that conveys the Sangam poems, the bhakti hymns, the Kural and Kamban’s epic story.”

Evidence galore in the present times to prove the correctness of  the conclusion of Dr. Baker that the Tamilian defines himself by his language and the cultural inheritance that conveys the Sangam poems, etc and not in terms of race.  The prominence of non-Tamils in the politics of the State life (often through the time-tested route of cinematic popularity)  such as Messers. Karunanidhi, (Telugu), M.G. Ramachandran (a half-Malayali) and Ms. Jayalalitha (Kannadiga) – all former or present Chief Ministers - and political party leaders such as  Vai. Gopalsami, Vijaykanth (again Telugus) and actors Rajnikanth (Maharashtrian) and Kushboo (Punjabi) is exactly the result of the self-image of Tamils.

This phenomenon represents a maturing of regionalism / sub-nationalism, which is a significant gain for nationalist politics, as it enables trans-political and cross cultural linkages. What is even more surprising is that the lead in this direction towards a mature and tolerant nationhood is being given by a State which was the first one to proclaim regionalism.  Could one declare confidently, “What Tamil Nadu practices today, the rest of India would practice tomorrow?”