The Rajinikanth starrer Kabali opened to mixed reviews last weekend. The positive reviews tended to be from Tamil Nadu and the negative ones from the North. There were some negative reviews in the South too, but the ferocity of the naysayers from the North was remarkable.
Regardless of negative reviews, fans everywhere in India celebrated the new movie of the 65-year old Superstar. According to sources, the film has collected something in the region of Rs 250 crore over the first weekend – making it one of the biggest openings for any Indian film worldwide.
Rajinikanth plays an ageing crime lord in Kabali – one who uses his power to do good to the Tamils in Malaysia. He fights for dignity and equal pay for equal work. While the movie is unarguably long, it certainly does not warrant the acerbic putdowns from North India.
These reviews made much of two aspects of the film: its two-and-a-half-hour duration and its meandering story line. But talk to any Rajini fan; most of his movies are like that. There are few Rajini movies with a very strong storyline – like Thalapathi (Commander), or Padayappa. The rest are movies for the masses with Chuck Norris-style action sequences, emotional family drama, and a moral to end it all. Rajini’s movies aren’t known for portentous storylines.
Fans watch Rajinikanth movies for his style and charisma, his ability to outwit opponents, his celebration of the rags-to-riches story, and his care for family values. Kabali is true to those qualities.
The Malaysian Tamil problem
Kabali addresses three major concerns of Tamils in Malaysia – their desire for freedom from slavery, social dignity, and equal pay.
The movie shows how hard it is for Tamils to gain an education in Malaysia. It shows the susceptibility of Tamil youth to violence and drugs, and their vulnerability in a social structure that makes it tough for them to get jobs.
In a long Facebook note, a Tamil Malaysian, Visithra Manikam, says that the poorer segment of the community continues to earn very little in a recurring cycle of poverty. Young men have to start working by 15, usually in low-wage jobs. Some turn into gangsters. They are into relationships by 17, and may or may not marry their girlfriends when they get pregnant. So there is a single-parent dimension to this underclass. Kids grow up poor, lucky if they are lodged in orphanages. Some are recovered by their single mothers and put to work. And the cycle continues. These kids turn gangsters, not just for money alone, but for respect.
With the Malaysian government turning a blind eye to this plight of its Tamil citizens, almost half a million ethnic people left the country between 2007 and 2009 – a majority of them were ethnic Indians or Chinese. “Of course, one could argue that discrimination isn't new for these Chinese and Indians. Malaysia’s affirmative action policies for its Malay majority — which gives them preference in everything from stock allocation to housing discounts — have been in place for decades,” according to a Wall Street Journal article from 2011.
Tired of being treated as second-class citizens in their own country, denied opportunities in education, businesses and jobs, they left their country and returned to the land of their ancestors – the Chinese to China, and Tamils to Tamil Nadu.
North-South divide
While the hostile reviewers have tried to put the movie down in terms of the usual Rajini-isms and the supposed lack of a strong introductory scene for the superstar (seriously?), Kabali does strike a chord in the hearts of Tamils because it deals with something we care about – our place inside and outside India.
Being Tamils, we connect to the Malaysian Tamils’ need for dignity and upward economic mobility. While India turns a blind eye to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka and other counties, we in Tamil Nadu end up taking more than our share of refugees. Don’t get me wrong, we are happy to take in fellow Tamils who come to us fleeing persecution. But we are quite peeved that the Indian government won’t do more to deal with such situations.
Tamils understand the larger context of the story depicted in Kabali. The rest of India does not. In simple words, the reviews of Kabali, juxtaposed with the success of the film among Tamils, brings out the North-South divide: North India sees things in terms of nationalism, while Tamil Nadu sees them in terms of ethnicity. The success of the movie must therefore be befuddling to the movie critic. Post-facto, these critics are likely to put this success down to the ‘Rajini’ effect rather than the brilliance of Kabali’s director Ranjith, who has brought out a subject that touches every Tamil’s heart.
North India does not understand this because it does not know the context. Even when it does, its reaction is likely to be: “But they are not Indians, they are Malaysians, or they are Sri Lankans. We cannot interfere in another country's affairs.” While North India sees Tamils in Malaysia as Malaysians, we in Tamil Nadu see them as Tamils and not Malaysians.
This was the same divide we saw when India dealt with the Sri Lankan Tamil situation: we saw the Sri Lankan Tamils as Tamils, while North India saw them as non-Indians. The argument went, “They are not our people, they are not Indians. Why should we help them?”
Well, here’s why. When Tamil Nadu was asked to be a part of India, they asked all Tamils to be a part of it — not just the ones in Tamil Nadu. So, Tamils outside of India may not be Indians for North India, but they are very much Tamil for us – and that inherently makes them ethnic Indians.
(The writer is a former journalist, currently working in the US. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of the newindianexpress.com)