‘Captain’ Vijayakanth: Iconic actor who scripted a unique chapter in Tamil Nadu’s political history

Founder of DMDK, which challenged the dominance of DMK and AIADMK in 2011, passes away at 71.

Actor and Desiya Murpokku Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMDK) founder Vijayakanth in Chennai on November 12, 2015. | Photo Credit: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B

Actor-turned-politician Vijayakanth, whose regional party DMDK (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) shocked India by displacing the powerful ideological force, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), as the main opposition party in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in 2011, is no more. He had been battling health issues for several years.

A release from a private hospital in Chennai on December 28 announced his demise: “Captain Vijayakanth was on ventilator support following his admission for pneumonia. Despite the best efforts of medical staff, he passed away in the morning.”

Vijayakanth achieved what no other political leader or party in Tamil Nadu was able to in over half a century: to show categorically that there existed a space for an alternative to the Dravidian politics of the DMK and the AIADMK.

None of the other political parties—the Congress with the backing of successive governments at the Centre earlier, or the Bharatiya Janata Party, with the backing and the muscle of the current dispensation, or the many regional parties—could match the vote share that the DMDK managed in the successive elections. In 2006, the first election that the party contested, it received 8.38 per cent of the vote share. Only Vijayakanth won that election from the Vriddhachalam Assembly constituency. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, the party managed a 10.3 per cent vote.

The rise and fall of DMDK

In many ways, the 2011 Assembly elections were the watershed year for the DMDK: despite Vijayakanth’s reluctance, his wife Premalatha, his brother-in-law, Sudheesh, along with a few party senior leaders ensured that Vijayakanth accepted the tantalising prospect of an alliance with the AIADMK. The AIADMK under J. Jayalalithaa reasoned that if the DMDK went alone, the opposition vote would split, and the DMK could gain from such a split.

People gather to pay their last respects to DMDK founder-leader Vijayakanth on December 28, 2023. | Photo Credit: PTI

Predictably, the DMDK’s vote share dipped a bit because he had campaigned thus far on the plank that the DMK and the AIADMK were corrupt political parties. The DMDK got a 7.9 per cent vote share, but 29 of its MLA contestants won. When his party took the space of the main opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly in 2011, it was the first time in over four decades that a party other than the DMK and the AIADMK occupied the main opposition space. The DMDK was exactly a six-year-old formation at that time.

This was also the period that Vijayakanth was unafraid to ask probing questions of the AIADMK government in the Assembly—which led to a few heated exchanges and gesturing, most of which are now part of the Assembly records. An incensed Chief Minister Jayalalithaa wanted revenge. By the end of the tenure, as many as seven legislators had shifted loyalties to the AIADMK, and a few others were on the brink of leaving the party itself.

From the time the DMDK took the alliance route, largely because of the hold of the first family’s political novices over Vijayakanth, there was no going back. In 2014, the DMDK saw the first major slide in vote share (5.1 per cent) when it fought the Lok Sabha elections in a Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance. The decline continued into 2016, but this time the loser was the DMK. Ahead of the 2016 elections, the DMDK was in open talks with ideologically diametrically opposite camps. It was also in secret talks with the DMK. When asked if the DMDK would join the DMK alliance ahead of the 2016 polls, the then DMK president M. Karunanidhi remarked: “The banana is slipping. It will surely fall into the milk,” meaning that the DMDK would certainly join.

But if there was one thing certain about the DMDK, it was that nothing was certain. In 2016, after long and arduous negotiations with almost all the political party combinations in the fray, Vijayakanth announced that he would join the new combine, Makkal Nala Kootani (People’s Welfare Alliance), if he was made the Chief Minister candidate. The combine agreed.

In 2016, while the party’s vote share slipped badly (2.4 per cent), it still managed to eat into opposition votes and ensured the defeat of the DMK in one of the most closely fought Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

Thus, both in its ascendance and decline, the DMDK has impacted the politics of Tamil Nadu in a manner in which no other political party, barring the DMK and the AIADMK, has managed to.

From reel to real

“I have no fear,” Vijayakanth once told a well-attended public meeting of the DMDK at the peak of his prowess. “I don’t want a luxurious life… Losses that I incur do not crush me,” he added. This was an extension of his film dialogues into the political space, and his followers not merely loved it; they believed in it.

This is best exemplified by the party he founded in 2005, which, at that time, seemed to outside observers to be a way to prolong his acting career. The day before the party was founded, September 13, 2005, Vijayakanth and his main supporters from his fans association were closeted in a discussion at Chennai’s Taj hotel. The confidence in the room had to be seen to be believed! The name of the party was yet to be decided. But there was no discussion on that issue at all. The buoyancy at the meeting could be gauged by the fact that Vijayakanth spoke about contesting the 2006 Tamil Nadu Assembly elections and was confident of besting both the DMK and the AIADMK.

Vijayakanth and Radhika in a tamil movie “Poonthotta Kavalkaran”. | Photo Credit: PHOTO: THE HINDU ARCHIVES

Most of the discussions centred on what should be done after the party won the 2006 polls. At one point, Vijayakanth turned, and he noticed a dairy businessman from Salem. “Chandrakumar, since you know so much about milk, you should be the Dairy development minister,” he said. He noticed another ‘fan club’ senior Thangamani next to him and told him: “I have seen you deal so well with the media. You are the Information Minister.”

Contrary to popular perception, Vijayakanth did not decide to enter politics on a whim. In 1996, he had taken a side when Jayalalithaa’s administration was running amok. He did not campaign like Superstar Rajinikanth or actor Sarath Kumar, but he had issued a statement in support of the DMK–Tamil Maanila Congress combine. His release largely went unnoticed because he was not a big star like Rajinikanth; nor was he a political force then.

Like former Chief Ministers C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran, M. Karunanidhi, and Jayalalithaa, Vijayakanth used cinema as his vehicle to enter politics, even though at the outset there was no such intention. In some ways, it was the Pattali Makkal Katchi’s (PMK) reaction to some of his movies, such as the release problems surrounding the 2004 film Gajendra, that pushed Vijayakanth to move in the direction of launching a political party. The PMK had launched a campaign against certain kinds of movies, and he was among those affected.

A simple superstar

Unlike most other actors, Vijayakanth maintained a close rapport with Tamil Manila Congress leader G.K. Moopanar and DMK president M. Karunanidhi. His clarity on ideological issues can be attributed to the conversations with these two leaders. As a result, he was clear (and fearlessly articulated his stand) on issues such as the Cauvery water dispute, the Sri Lankan Tamil problem, and language politics, much before he entered politics.

In the film world, notorious for actor tantrums, Vijayakant’s work ethic endeared him to all. He was much sought after because he was one of the few actors in Tamil cinema–the others included Rajinikanth, Vijay, and Ajith–who could guarantee that the movie would make money. Young actors loved him because he was willing to cede space unlike the superstars of that time and, in some ways, helped the talented actors Surya and Vijay in the early part of their careers. Popularly called Puratchi Kalaignar, Vijayakanth entered the film industry in 1979 with Inikkum Ilamai. He played mostly patriotic heroes and rural good samaritans.

Many leaders, national and at the State level, have offered their condolences on Vijayakanth’s demise. Chief Minister M.K.Stalin announced that the leader would be laid to rest with State honours.

In the film world and in politics, Vijayakanth will be remembered for a very long time as lyricist R.V. Udayakumar noted (with Vijayakanth in mind in Chinna Gounder, 1992): Andha Vanathai pola manam padaitha mannavane (An emperor with the broadmindedness of the skies).