JUST SPAMMING | Hero Worship, A Bane To State Politics
The advent of social media, in which anyone and everyone can express their views without any hitch, has helped many faceless persons to defend their icons with unsavoury comments. But sometimes even politicians think that no one has the right to say anything that they feel offensive about anyone they admire even if it stems from truth
A senior actor in the Telugu film industry, Rajendra Prasad, had to openly apologize for a remark he made at an awards ceremony in Hyderabad last week. The 68-year-old actor’s words were construed to be offensive by a few film personalities in Tamil Nadu as he had said that former Chief Minister and matinee idol M G Ramachandran (MGR) was intimidated by the screen performance of veteran Telugu actor Tadepalli Lakshmi Kanta Rao. MGR passed away in 1987 and Kanta Rao in 2009. While it is remarkable that there are admirers for those actors even today, it was distressing to note how much hero worship continues to dominate the political discourse in Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil film personalities who took up cudgels on behalf of MGR pointed to the fact that MGR was a leader who ruled the State for a decade. They found the remark of Rajendra Prasad, made while eulogizing Kanta Rao, derogatory because MGR was a leader and not just an actor. Whatever one may have to say about the episode that was closed with an open apology, what was stark was the lack of tolerance to criticism of political icons. This was just a case of one actor praising a former actor from his State and just mentioning that even a celebrated actor from the neighbouring State felt intimidated by his performance.
Instead of dismissing it as a subjective view, those admirers of MGR took objection to the remark. So does that mean that because MGR was popular among the people of Tamil Nadu, who even placed him on the throne till his passing away, no one has the right to talk about him in a critical way? That is what those film personalities were saying, which of course is the modern trend because hero worship has touched it nadir that followers and admirers think that no one has the right to hold an alternative view. Such blind hero worship prevents the admirers from taking an objective view when it comes to their icons in film and politics – sometimes both.
The latest trend is, as everyone knows, the fandom of Vijay, actor and founder president of Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK), being converted into a political following. The blind hero worship of the actor has engendered a cult-like political party, whose ideology, principles and agenda remain as fantastic as celluloid fantasies. But it is not right to blame Vijay or his TVK for fostering hero worship, which was very much prevalent in parties like the DMK and Congress in the past. Then, when the AIADMK came with an actor at the helm, the boundary between the political and celluloid worlds blurred totally.
Keeping with that tradition, contemporary politics unfolds now giving no room for anyone to distinguish between the real and reel. So, hero worship has reached the zenith that no one can be criticized or questioned for whatever they do. The ascendency of hero worship in filmdom came at the cost of appreciation of artistic excellence. Art lost its beauty as people started appreciating films not for their cinematic excellence or the talents of the actors or movie makers but for the stars featuring in them. Similarly, politics is losing its original heft as an upholder of democracy based on principles and ideology with filmdom overrunning its basic concepts.
If film stars have been playing a domineering role in politics right from the beginning, they have to play by the political rule book. It means that actors entering politics doubled up as politicians and most people too were able to distinguish the political persona in the actor. But excessive hero worship has blurred the line that people now speak and prepare themselves to vote for the actor and not the politician in the same person. This trend has led to the State losing its political sagacity, for which it was known for since independence. Tamil Nadu was the first State to come up with a self-assertion based on language pride, rationalism and an ideology different from the rest of the country by giving hero worship the least priority.
But now even criticism of past leaders is not taken lightly by those professing to follow them. The advent of social media, in which anyone and everyone can express their views without any hitch, has helped many faceless persons to defend their icons with unsavoury comments. But sometimes even politicians think that no one has the right to say anything that they feel offensive about anyone they admire even if it stems from truth. One such instance in which a bunch of Congress leaders in the State, took hero worship to an extraordinary length was when they thought they were defending the memory of K Kamaraj but ended with eggs on their face.
When a prominent DMK leader, speaking at a meeting, said that former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had installed air conditioners in State guest houses after Kamaraj needed that cooling facility in his place of stay for health reasons. Angered by that suggestion that Kamaraj stayed in air-conditioned rooms, a few MLAs of the Congress, in a show of unabashed hero worship, went up in arms against the DMK leader saying their past leader led a humble life, only to be rebuked with the fact that the last air conditioner used by the great leader was on display at his memorial, his last residence.