The love affair between cinema and politics in TN looks endless. With Sarath Kumar throwing his hat into the political ring, the stage looks set for yet another celluloid adventurer making a bid for the hot seat at Ft St George, which seems to be ‘reserved’ only for Kollywood veterans or wannabes, from actors, actresses to script-writers. But, while film personalities, with their wider appeal, are generally believed to transcend caste barriers, Sarath Kumar’s raison d’ etre is his caste. Yet another miletone indeed in the ‘puratchi-politics’ that TN is famous, or rather notorious, for. Obviously, the hero has done some demographic homework, primarily vote-bank arithmetic and wants to put two and two to make it twenty two, as political calculations generally go.
Building memorials for popular leaders and then building political edifices besides political careers over them is a time tested technique and a rewarding business plan in TN. So even as a memorial for Kamaraj is all set to spring up, the late leader however must be turning in his grave over the grave things happening in his name. For one, like Muthuramalinga ‘Thevar’ and several other leaders with national stature and nationalist credentials, Kamaraj too now runs the risk of getting converted posthumously into a caste leader. He would be introduced to the future generations that Sarath hopes to enlighten, as Kamaraj Nadar! ‘Kamaraj legacy’ meaning ‘Nadar vote bank’ would be the currency for future political transactions and ‘Kamaraj rule’, will be the carrot for the consolidation of that vote-bank. Pity Kamaraj could not be consulted on this project of dwarfing his towering personality, a physical and metaphorical fact!
Politics has always walked with caste and cinema on either side in TN. Now the latter two have joined to form a vicious triangle. The Justice Party, the purported ancestor of the present Dravidian parties, was touted to stand for social justice and a caste-less society, but the leading lights of that party rarely gave up their casteist leanings. In fact they made it a point to be known by their caste appendages. Even the ultimate reformist, Periyar, seemed to entertain no particular objection to being addressed as Ramaswamy Naicker. It is perhaps owing to such hypocritical political genetics that caste reigns supreme in the polity today even as several self-styled champions have been busy ‘erasing’ it. Or may be they thought wiping out caste is as simple as wiping off caste names from street corner plaques. A symbolism typical of rationalists.
Caste is a well-entrenched historical and social reality of India. According to researchers on the subject, castes are a result of ‘religious distinctions, tribal and racial differences and still more out of hereditary crafts, occupations and even modes of life’. Social classifications existed even in the pre-Vedic periods. Manu probably only codified them. But assuming that he was the one who started it all, as some allege, how did the four ‘rigid’ varnas of Manu proliferate into the thousands of castes that we see now? Clearly, down the ages there has been a consistent intermingling of castes through marriage. There are even historical instances of Kings ‘elevating or demoting’ people on the caste hierarchy by decree. Thus social reform is not a brain-child of rationalists or reformists but a natural historical phenomenon.
However all that inter-mingling has not erased caste but only created more castes explaining the numerous sects and sub-sects. The caste cauldron which has been on boil since millenia is churning out new castes even today, say, with every so-called reformist marriage. If anything we can look forward to more castes in the future. Hindu converts to other religions religiously carry their caste baggage with them, despite claims to the contrary. In such a milieu, caste is also a personal reality and a fact of life in India:It catches up with you at some stage. It is both unnatural and impractical for anyone to shed his caste identity or affinity. It rarely happens. And none would admit openly the positive spin-offs of caste for fear of being on the wrong side of political correctness. Kamaraj’s own castefolk were in the social dumps in 19th century. The Nadar community’s remarkable rise to economic glory of the present is a success story directly attributable to its caste cohesiveness, that cut across even religious faiths. Many cases of caste spawning economic growth and thereby social status can be listed.
Bharathi is often invoked to make a case for erasing castes. But in the very next line of that much quoted lyric, he says that it is sin to classify a caste as upper or lower. Clearly, his target was caste discrimination and not castes per se. That is real reform; nearer to reality and within the realms of possibility too. That differences exist in God’s world is a fact. It is in rising above those differences that humans become divine. But humans beings are rooted in notions of superiority, on some count. Ethnic, racial and linguistic biases are universal phenomena and it would need more than our kite-flying politicos to fight them. It would be of interest to find out how many ‘reformist marriages’ the rationalists have conducted in their own families involving their kin. Indeed, it would be obvious that caste would survive its ‘reformers’.
Caste, in its monstrous avatar of today, is largely a political creation. Just as through their dubious atheism, they increased the attendence in temples, the rationalists and reformists have achieved the opposite of what they set out to do vis-a-vis social justice. The TN government while impleading in the quota case a couple of days back quotes its Justice party lineage and its pioneering efforts. Now, if we may ask, would anyone be so feverishly discussing caste but for the perverted quota system that tends to ignore true inadequacy in favour of caste labels? Again, in their bid to fight casteism, they have only caused reverse discrimination –the castes have changed places, but discrimination prevails.
Caste politics is sheer monkey business with politicos aping the fabled ape with aplomb in fooling the gullible cats, read, caste groups. Of course, the monkeys have always prospered personally by walking away with the entire cake. Small wonder that so many aspiring politicos see much potential and promise in caste politics. So what next? A cas(t)e study of all late historical greats for launching political parties?
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