Chennai, (Samajweekly) The BJP, which is desperately trying to break the hegemony of the Dravidian political parties in Tamil Nadu, is evoking Tamil cultural identities and icons to make a place for itself in the social realm of the state.
All said and done Dravidian culture is deeply rooted in Tamil psyche and for the BJP it’s a Herculean task to break into Tamil society and politics.
After several years of experimenting with the Brahminical leadership like Jana Krishnamurthy, L Ganesan and A Raja, the BJP tried to enter Tamil society through Pon Radhakrishnan, CP Radhakrishnan, Tamilisai Soundararajan, L Murugan and now K Annamalai.
While these leaders have done their bit to make the party strong at the grass roots, the Dravidian ideology propagated by its icon, EV Ramaswamy Periyar and taken forward by CN Annadurai, who was the first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from a Dravidian political party, has stayed in the psyche of Tamilians.
The BJP has already conducted two Tamil-Kashi Sangamams in its bid to connect Tamil Nadu to Varanasi and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that it was taking the culture of Mahadevas from one abode to the other.
The first Tamil-Kashi Sangamam was held from November 16 to December 16, 2022, the second edition was held from December 17 to December 30.
Students, professionals, businessmen, social activists, writers and thinkers from Tamil Nadu attended the two sangams. This was part of a culture tour to understand a city like Kashi as well as other north Indian states for select Tamilians.
In addition to the Tamil-Kashi Sangamams under the ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ programme a Saurashtra-Tamil Sangamam was held in multiple locations of Gujarat from April 17-30, 2023.
Significantly, there are around 12 lakh people with roots in Saurasthra in Madurai, Salem and Kumbakonam.
The Saurashtra-Tamil Sangamam was held in Somnath, Dwarka and the Statue of Unity at Kevadia.
The Sangamam stressed on the cultural bonding between the people from Saurashtra who had settled in Tamil Nadu.
There are also plans to organise a Tamil-Ayodhya Sangamam as there is a place in Tamil Nadu named Ayothiyapattanam named after the Ram temple in the town that is located in Vazhapadi Taluk of Salem district.
The temple is believed to have been built by Maharishi Bharadwaja and later developed by Adhiyaman kings. The temple is special as it even has a mention in the Ramayana and hence the BJP is trying to evoke the belief and culture associated with this temple to derive social and political mileage in Tamil Nadu.
The BJP is also trying to evoke the memories of Tamil poet and writer Thiruvalluvar who is one of the most iconic cultural heroes of Tamil society. The Tamil masterpiece, ‘Tirukural’ with a collection of 1,330 couplets on various subjects was written by Thiruvalluvar and the BJP is now trying to bring Thiruvalluvar into its fold by wrapping his statues in saffron or rather bringing out images of senior BJP leaders like L Murugan and K Annamalai prostrating before the statues and photos of Thiruvalluvar in saffron robes.
The party had to face stiff opposition in the state after this as Thiruvalluvar was always seen in white robes.
In 2019, the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP courted controversy by sharing a photograph of Thiruvalluvar in saffron robes on the micro-blogging site, X.
The DMK has come out strongly against the BJP for trying to politicise Thiruvalluvar and to hijack his ideals and teachings to get a foothold in Tamil Nadu politics.
Another major move made by the BJP was to evoke the memories of the great Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi by opening a Subramania Bharathi Chair on Tamil studies in his memory at the famed Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi.
The BJP also conducted several programmes as part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav at the Bharathi Memorial in Ettayapuram in Thoothukudi district of the state.
The BJP of Tamil Nadu does not have any cultural or political bigwigs to look up to and hence the saffron party even tried to usurp the identities of Congress stalwart and former AICC President, K Kamaraj and AIADMK founder, long-term Chief Minister and matinee idol, MGR during its earlier election campaigns.
The Congress had then made scathing attacks against the BJP and had stated that the Sangh Parivar had even tried to kill Kamaraj while he was living in Delhi.
The AIADMK, even while it was in the NDA, had come out strongly against the BJP for putting the cutouts of its founder leader MGR in BJP public functions since 2021.
With the 2024 Lok Sabha polls a few months away, the BJP is busy trying to evoke cultural identities and to piggy ride on the popularity of these icons to gain political mileage for the ensuing general elections.
