Until recently, Udhayanidhi Stalin was apolitical newbie. A lighthearted Kollywood actor who engaged in playful banter with rival politicians. But his recent comments on Sanatana Dharma have put him under national spotlight and he has become the pivot of the BJP’s campaign to taint the Congress-led opposition bloc as “anti-Hindu”.
In Tamil Nadu politics, dissent against the age-old traditions of Sanatana Dharma is at least a century old. Perhaps, that’s why when Udhayanidhi made the comments on September 2, the news died, reduced to single column in a few newspapers.
But after BJP’s IT cell chief Amit Malviya uploaded the clips of his speech on social media, Udhayanidhi became national news in a few hours. Starting from Home Minister Amit Shah, several BJP and other right-wing outfit leaders launched trenchant attacks on Udhayanidhi for likening Sanatana Dharma to “malaria & dengue”. The reactions surprised people who knew Tamil Nadu politics as leaders like Thol Thirumavalan have been making even more strident criticisms on Sanatana Dharma for decades.
Of course, with Lok Sabha polls around the corner, BJP was only too eager to consolidate its vote base. Also, BJP has been particularly targeting DMK in recent months more than any other regional party of the INDIA bloc.
PM Modi and Shah have repeatedly picked DMK for their broadside against dynastic politics and corruption. Though DMK doesn’t have electoral heft outside TN, political observers say the party’s ideological moorings and the role it plays in the Congress-led alliance make it easy for BJP to use it as a cat’s paw to exploit and paint the opposition alliance as “anti-Hindu”. Udhayanidhi’s comments and the national brouhaha it has triggered can be understood only against this backdrop. The actor-turned-politician, who continued to assert his position, too, soon tempered down by claiming that he spoke against regressive practices in all religions and not just Hinduism.
Where does this all leave Udhayanidhi? A section in the DMK feels the controversy has inadvertently achieved what the party leadership wanted -- establish Udhayanidhi as the next strong face of the party. The 47-year-old had bypassed several steps to become a minister in his short political life because of his surname. He was sent across the state to campaign for the DMK-led alliance during the 2019 elections. When the party-led alliance won the elections, Udhyanidhi was appointed as the DMK youth wing secretary, a position held by his father, MK Stalin, for 40 years.
Two years later, he emerged as the party’s star campaigner in the 2021 Assembly poll and won from his grandfather’s seat of Chepauk-Thiruvallikeni. Inside the Assembly, he occupied a seat strategically positioned behind CM, ensuring that he was in every frame of the picture or video of his father. Several members of the House spent half their allotted time showering accolades on the first-time MLA.
In his earlier days in the assembly, he was visibly reluctant to accept the respect of party seniors, and being called ‘chinnavar’ (junior leader) by fellow MLAs. Later, he embraced the title and justified that by saying that since he was junior to them, they were calling him chinnavar. His other titles include ‘Ilam Gnayiru’ or young sun, a clear reference to the party’s symbol rising-sun.
At the helm of the movie production house, Red Giant Movies, which dominates the Tamil film market, Udhayanidhi has acted in two movies on caste-centric themes in the last two years.
During the Odisha train tragedy, he led the team from the state to rescue Tamils struck there. He is spearheading the protest against NEET and his strong comments on Governor RN Ravi have raised eyebrows.
Unlike his father who took nearly 17 years to become a minister after being elected MLA in 1989, the son may not be ready to cool his heels. While Udhayanidhi’s promotion has been too quick, the BJP’s attempts to ensnare the INDIA alliance around his Sanatana Dharma comments seem to have taken him beyond Tamil Nadu’s borders.
Will this episode harm the poll prospects? DMK has little reason to worry as TN voters have been voting for the party clearly knowing its ideology. Negative impact, if any, could be limited to northern states.