A lion has gone missing from the Vandalur zoo in Chennai’s outskirts. It is some coincidence that another self-styled lion, actor Vijay of Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), has also gone missing from the public eye, making it two AWOL lions at the same time.
Last heard, the wandering Vandalur lion has not caused any human casualties, while the screen lion has left a trail of blood, bones and bodies at Karur before lapsing into a deep self-imposed slumber, also in the outskirts of Chennai.
While the real lion is on the prowl somewhere in this civilisation, the reel one is hiding in his cocoon, very unlike the roaring ‘Beast’ (a Vijay film) he promised and paraded himself to be till just before the Karur stampede. There is very little evidence thus far that the Leo (another movie of Vijay’s) of celluloid is eager to return but a faint, belated ‘meow’ (of video-calling the families of the victims) has replaced his boastful roar, predictably inviting quite a chorus of, well, catcalls!
That now brings us to law, order and all the disorder that is TN politics. So let us leave the regal predator of the jungle to his inevitable homecoming and fix our gaze on Vijay, the pretender lion, whose insatiable Pride has singularly sent 41 souls beyond salvage. That the original sin lay with Vijay has been the constant refrain of these columns, as also of many in the public domain. The Madurai High Court’s admonition of Vijay’s party on similar lines is an open recognition by a constitutional forum of Vijay’s prime responsibility for the man-made tragedy.
The Honourable Bench asking of the TVK, ‘what kind of a party is yours’, is a spoof more eloquent than any legal proof! With everyone from The Boss to his band of (Anand) Bussies scooting from the scene within seconds — and now remaining incommunicado for days — the common people are in Honourable company, groping together in the dark to make some sense of the present happenings as also of the portends that this uncontrollable group holds for the State. The Court has appointed a special investigation team (SIT) to help it, and the laypersons, make sense of what happened at Karur.
Strikingly, however, there is no such confusion among the political parties, especially the opposition. To them, it is clear. Vijay is clean as a whistle. Forget Edappadi and his party, the AIADMK, who are sticking only to their karmic script. I am more amused as also alarmed at the remarkable clarity that prevails in the BJP. The pre-eminent national party with a notional presence in this rational State declared, even as the bodies were being counted, that the State government was wholly to be blamed. K Annamalai, quickly honed his cop’s instincts and led the charge. Though initially he suggested in the passing of Vijay’s inexperience, it was more of a friendly fire than hostile accusation. Within hours, other BJP leaders joined, clearly on cue from the central command, and even the semblance of guilt on Vijay was laid to rest. Instead, in an instant, Joseph Vijay (actor Vijay’s full name, which the BJP harps on to show his religious roots) has become just Vijay, now.
And then came the delegation from Delhi, headed by, of all persons, Hema Malini who, the pious party believed, is the best to judge this dance of dead. The Dream-y Girl, unable to grasp the Babel of voices babbling at her, kept nodding deliriously and took the easy route by telling the media, in chaste lingo with that much hated lisp in TN, that Stalin was the real Gabbar Singh. Tone deaf. It speaks volumes of the BJP’s complete disconnect with everything Tamil Nadu.
The BJP’s decision to stay at the vanguard of the Save-Vijay campaign shows its desperation to make a political dent in the state. Orphaned often and perennially ditched and then hitching on to anyone who happens to be on hand, the BJP is never a chooser here. So, in its so-called ideological hatred for DMK and its long-term itch to find some foothold in a state that has rejected it consistently, the BJP has to protect Vijay, someone whose actions and lack of it too, at a critical time during a grave tragedy, confounded the court itself. The TVK represents a new nadir amidst a populace already inebriated by a toxic cocktail of politics and cinema. Any effort to bail out this crowd would be tantamount to unleashing a reckless army of lumpen elements on this land as was witnessed in Karur.
All is fair in politics is a familiar refrain to live down the guilt of Karur and move on. With a mass mythmaker like Vijay and his hysterical ilk, one is not dealing in politics, but something incomprehensible, as was evident from the way mobs, mothers included, endangered themselves and their kith and kin, just for the kick of seeing him. The BJP can get away with blaming the regime here this time, but any bloody repeat which is highly possible if Vijay is resurrected, would have a saffron tint, too. The hatred for DMK should not push BJP to this other extreme.
So, what if the BJP has consistently failed here? Should not the party with a difference — with due deference to Tamil Nadu’s plight — and its tested tendency for a long haul, plough its own furrow and patiently build itself here, instead of aligning with all and sundry? After all, the party has riled over the ills of Dravidian rule and frequently declared Periyar and his progeny as the ideological enemy that needs to be rooted out of Tamil Nadu’s soil. That’s a fight worth the long haul. Vijay is an avoidable diversion that might lead it to a dead end in every way.
But that apart, first things first: It is really the right time for all politicos, good, bad and ugly, across the spectrum to come to the aid of this State and permanently eliminate this celluloid ‘culture’ that has slowly and steadily morphed from a public nuisance to an infectious epidemic to a mass killer, now.
