Cut-Outs, Caste and Cine Stars : The World of Tamil Politics

Contents: Acknowledgments. Introduction. 1. Prophet of the new age. 2. The anti-Hindi agitation. 3. The medium is the message. 4. The coming of age and the dramatic ascent. 5. Karunanidhi's ascendance and the big split. 6. MGR: the myth and the mystique. 7. Death and resurrection. 8. The fury of Panchali. 9. Kannaki and Tamil honour. 10. Personality cult. 11. Birthday Bash. 12. The Tiger man. 13. Eighth world Tamil conference. 14. G.K. Moopanar's Tamil Nadu Congress Rebels. 15. Intolerance of dissent. 16. Mother of all weddings. 17. The iron butterfly behind iron bars. 18. The damning of Karunanidhi. 19. Ideology takes a back seat. 20. Caste politics in Periyar's Tamil country. 21. Puthiya Thamizhagam Krishnaswamy. 22. All in the name of caste. 23. Election melodrama. 24. The predawn knock. 25. Karunanidhi: forever the scriptwriter Kalaignar. Bibliography. Index.

"Tamil Nadu is a state very different from the rest of India, both culturally and historically. It has retained a fundamentally separate identity for itself in language and caste structure, and this is most evident in its politics.

Cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars: The World of Tamil Politics tells a unique and gripping political story where ironies and larger-than-life characters abound: Periyar, a Kannada-speaker, who introduced the notions of Tamil self-respect and regional pride, yet dismissed Tamil as 'a Barbaric language': the matinee idol MGR, a Malayalee born in Sri Lanka, who became Tamil Nadu's most popular mass leader; the Dravidian Movement which, by its own ideology, should have helped the Dalits but has instead supported only the upwardly mobile middle groups; and parties that rose to power by propagating anti-Hindi and anti-Brahmin sentiments but have now allied themselves with the BJP. It is fitting that this reel-like scenario is presently dominated by the electoral politics of Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, one a scriptwriter and the other a former actress. Through all this, the author discusses the successes and pitfalls of politics in the state, from the free-meal scheme for students and the elevation of leaders to a divide status to the anti-conversion law and the rising importance of the Dravidian parties in national politics.

Well-known writer and journalist Vaasanthi has observed the dramatis personae in this epic drama at close quarters for a decade, and cut-outs, Caste and Cine Stars offers an objective and insightful view of a political world that is both fascinating and perplexing." (jacket)