Chennai/Coimbatore/Nilgiris: Late Monday afternoon, as the dusk was setting in along the slopes of Nilgiri hills shrouding the picturesque Aruvankadu township, a group of young men and women danced on the road, holding lotuses in their hands. Songs blared out from a jeep carrying posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president K. Annamalai and the party’s candidate in Nilgiri Lok Sabha constituency, Union minister L. Murugan.
Onlookers watched the song and dance, albeit dispassionately. As the dancers wound up with Jai Shri Ram slogans and boarded cars to head to the next destination, curiosity hung in the air.
ThePrint approached the onlookers to seek their views on Murugan and the BJP. They sounded unsure. “But what chance do they have here?” quipped one, before sauntering away.
An hour before that, ThePrint was with A. Raja, the sitting MP from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and former telecom minister of 2G spectrum allocation infamy. He was dismissive of Murugan’s challenge to him and also of the BJP to the DMK in Tamil Nadu. “Come back after June 4 (election results day) and then talk to me,” he told ThePrint, rubbishing the BJP’s electoral prospects in the state and yet refusing to discuss its future in Tamil Nadu until D-day.
The previous day, Modi had made a stinging comment on the DMK, saying that it was born out of hatred for ‘Sanatan Dharma’. Raja, who made headlines with his comments on ‘Sanatan Dharma’ in the past, wouldn’t talk about it. He even threatened to walk out of the interview if ThePrint persisted with questions about his stance on the issue. The reason he cited for his refusal: ‘The matter is sub-judice.’ Of course. DMK leaders would rather keep silent on Sanathan.
Travel around Tamil Nadu — in the Nilgiris, Coimbatore or Chennai. Talk to non-BJP politicians. Like Raja, they are dismissive of the BJP and yet circumspect. “We will see on June 4” is the refrain. What explains their diffidence? It’s not because the BJP’s Hindutva ideology is changing the state’s political lexicon. Also, not because they see Modi’s popularity — and his seven visits to the state since January — propelling Hindutva to a level where it can challenge the domination of Dravidianism. They are diffident because they are said to be unsure how Modi’s persona and developmental pitch would boost the BJP’s decade-long endeavour to break its image as a ‘Brahmin party’ through assiduously built social coalitions.
“Your (BJP’s) problem is that you want three percent to rule but we are fighting for 97 per cent,” A. Raja told ThePrint. Upper castes constitute around three percent of Tamil Nadu population. That’s how the Dravidian parties project the BJP. That was the reason the BJP couldn’t expand its footprint in the southern state even though its ideological patron, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had established its first shakha in the state in Kanyakumari way back in 1948.
It hasn’t done much for the BJP beyond Kanyakumari and Coimbatore. It won in Coimbatore in 1998 and 1999 Lok Sabha elections. That was following serial bomb blasts there in February 1998. The blasts were said to be retaliation for the riots in November the previous year in which at least 18 Muslims were killed following the murder of a police constable allegedly by an Islamist group. The BJP never won the Coimbatore seat since.
The BJP emerged as a force to reckon with in Kanyakumari, where both communities are almost numerically equal, after the 1982 Hindu-Christian riots. It won its first assembly election in the state in 1996 from Padmanabhapuram constituency in Kanyakumari and won the Lok Sabha seat in 2014. But the Hindutva sentiments haven’t taken root beyond these two constituencies, say political analysts in Tamil Nadu.
“Because of those riots in Kanyakumari and the demographic equations, there has been a Hindutva vote bank in Kanyakumari, but not elsewhere. Nobody cares about Sanatan here. Dravidian movement got them jobs, education and welfare schemes. So, they go to temples but their inherent faith is in Dravidianism, not Hindutva,” said Arun Kumar, who teaches political science at a private college in Chennai.
Kumar, who did his Ph.D. on BJP’s rise in Tamil Nadu, didn’t want the name of his college to be published. Interactions with students at PSG College of Arts and Science and Hindusthan College of Arts & Science in Coimbatore showed their curiosity — and appreciation, to some extent — for Modi and even Annamalai. But they didn’t see the BJP’s “future” in DMK-AIADMK-dominated Tamil Nadu. Questions about Hindutva drew a blank.
A key DMK strategist in Chennai told ThePrint: “It’s a misconception that the BJP is rising in Tamil Nadu because of Hindutva or Modi. It’s all about their focus on cultivating different castes and sub-castes through their own efforts as also through alliances.”
“They used to appoint mostly Brahmins as state BJP presidents earlier but look at their caste profiles in the past decade or so,” the strategist said, explaining that efforts to woo backward castes and Dalits gained pace after an OBC PM, Modi, took over the party’s affairs in 2014.
Annamalai is a Gounder. His predecessor L. Murugan is a Dalit. Before him, it was Tamilisai Soundararajan, a Hindu Nadar, whose predecessor, Pon Radhakrishnan, belonged to the same community. Modi also went about empowering each of them. Radhakrishnan and Murugan became ministers in the Modi government while Soundararajan became a governor.
With an OBC PM becoming the BJP’s face, these efforts to promote and empower OBC and MBC (most backward classes) leaders helped the BJP break its image of a ‘Brahmin party’. What is giving jitters to the BJP’s rivals is the fact that the party has aligned with parties and individuals with influence in powerful caste groups.
Ramadoss’ Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), for instance, represents Vanniyars who constitute around a fourth of the state’s population and dominate politics in northern Tamil Nadu. Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam’s T.T.V. Dhinakaran and former CM and expelled AIADMK leader O. Panneerselvam — both BJP allies — are influential leaders of Thevars, who are concentrated in southern districts. Nadars, the community to which Soundararajan and her predecessor belong, also wield considerable influence in some southern districts. Gounders, Annamalai’s community, are concentrated in western Tamil Nadu. Dalits constitute around one-fifth of the population and the BJP has attempted outreach to them by projecting Murugan.
It is this social engineering by the BJP, which is giving jitters to its rivals, not in the context of the ongoing polls but about its long-term prospects. For a party that received less than four percent votes in the state in the last general election, the BJP seems to be pulling punches much above its weight in Tamil Nadu — in the eyes of its rivals, at least.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)