TAMIL NADU MINISTER Udhayanidhi Stalin’s defining moment as an actor-turned-politician came at a book launch in Chennai in September this year. It was just weeks after the release of his last film, Mamannan, a well-received political revenge drama about dalits and Dravidian politics. The book was titled Indihiya Viduthalai Poril RSS-in Pangalippu (The RSS’s contribution in India’s freedom struggle), a large and weighty tome whose pages were totally blank except for two caricatures―one showing a man licking a boot, and another showing a gun.
As if launching the book wasn’t just enough to anger the saffron brigade, Udhayanidhi threw in a fiery speech for good measure. He declared that the brahminical concept of Sanatana Dharma was against B.R. Ambedkar’s idea of social justice. “Sanatana is like malaria and dengue, and so it must be eradicated, not opposed,” he said.
A firestorm followed. Protests erupted across the country, cases were filed, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself condemned Udhayanidhi’s speech. Social media brimmed with fake news that the Tamil Nadu minister had called for a genocide. Rattled, the INDIA bloc of opposition parties cancelled their planned rally in Bhopal to contain the damage.
But Udhayanidhi stood his ground, and matched his critics word for word. “People are being childish when they say that I called for a genocide,” he said. “When PM Modi says ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’, does that mean Congressmen should be killed?”
Observers say the controversy has boosted Udhayanidhi’s political heft. One of his friends recently used a cricket analogy to explain how things have changed: “Udhayanidhi is like the sixth bowler in a cricket team who is suddenly being treated like the main bowler by the rival team.”