Follow the leader: Can Rajinikanth’s fans add up to a powerful political force? It might depend on how young they are.
In May this year, Rajinikanth said that he would like to change the “corrupt” system in Tamil Nadu and asked his supporters to wait for the “war”.
It was 1980, and Saidai. G. Ravi fell in love with a bell-bottom-clad “god”. Rajinikanth’s double act as don and village bumpkin in the film, Billa, left Ravi wide-eyed and eager to start a fan club. “I am an atheist, but I started to worship him as a god,” Ravi, in his forties now, told documentary filmmakers many years later, the windscreen of his auto-rickshaw plastered with photos of his Thalaivar (leader).
Earlier this year, he was expelled from the All India Rajinikanth Fans Welfare Association for “acting against the unity, discipline and regulations” laid down by the actor. Sources close to Ravi — he could not be contacted — blamed a disagreement between him and the association head. Some admitted that Ravi had opposed the idea of the actor’s entry into politics.
In May this year, Rajinikanth said that he would like to change the “corrupt” system in Tamil Nadu and asked his supporters to wait for the “war”. In Chennai, fans struggled to interpret the speech. Many saw it as a typical film dialogue. Television channels speculated that he was joining the BJP. “Nobody knows the meaning of ‘war’,” said a fan.
“Superstar” Rajinikanth’s “family” roughly extends across 40,000 fan clubs in Tamil Nadu, as well as multiple Facebook and WhatsApp groups. To place that in context: MG Ramachandran, who ruled Tamil Nadu politics from 1977 till his death in 1987, had 28,000 fan clubs when he floated the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1972.
The legions of Rajinikanth’s devoted fans are a socio-cultural phenomenon, but do they add up to a political force? How enthused they are by Rajinikanth’s possible reinvention depends, perhaps, on their age.
Those who were young men in the 1980s come with the baggage of having voted for one Dravidian party or another for years. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the AIADMK have ruled the state for 50 years. But the younger fans declare their love via the internet. They are cynical about party politics and will gladly offer their vote to a man they say they know intimately.
