In Land of Dravidian Rationalism, Rajinikanth Unleashes His 'Spiritual' Politics

Chennai: On the last day of 2017, megastar Rajinikanth rode to Tamil Nadu's political stage in his inimitable style and cleared the haze over his future. He declared that he would form his own party and contest on all the seats in the next assembly election.

If elected, he said, his government would be honest, transparent and secular. If the performance does not match his promises, he would dismantle the party.

In a land where for half a century, the Dravidian movement, with rationalism and atheism as its founding principles, has spread its roots and no leader has dared to oppose it, here was a larger than life celluloid figure turning everything upside down.

And from the torchbearers of the Dravidian cause, there was no angst or angry posturing, just silence.

From Annadurai to Periyar EV Ramasamy, and MG Ramachandran to M Karunanidhi, Dravidian movement has been a binding theme across political parties in the state.

This is also why the Hindutva, and by extension the BJP, failed to make an impact in Tamil Nadu. But Rajinikanth's entry could change the dynamic by making religion and spirituality mainstream ideas.

"It's time for political change. We have to create a spiritual politics with no caste and religion barrier. My cornerstones would be honesty, transparency, secularity and spiritual politics. Spiritual politics according to me means fair and just politics," he said.

It still remains unclear what Rajinikanth's ideologies would be and one has to wait for the blueprint to know what he means by "spiritual politics".

But a few political analysts claim 'spiritual politics' will not work for a state like Tamil Nadu. RK Radhakrishnan, associate editor of Frontline, said: "Rajini wants to transform Tamil Nadu from a state of Dravidian ideology centered politics to one that has the spiritual path as its pursuit."

"Common sense tells us that this can possibly happen in a contended society, which has no major social ills affecting it. Unfortunately, Tamil Nadu is not in that space, and I believe that this is the essential contradiction in his newly articulated approach to politics," he added.

Vaasanthi, author and a political analyst, said Dravidian identity is very strong in the state and has seen resurgence lately.