Two high-profile Tamil films, Vijay’s Jana Nayagan and Sivakarthikeyan’s Parasakthi, have found themselves embroiled in parallel controversies.
Thalapathy Vijay’s Jana Nayagan (People’s Leader), widely billed as the actor’s farewell to cinema, was scheduled for release on January 9.
The date was meant to mark Vijay’s transition from screen icon to full-time politician through his party, Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK). Instead, the film remains stuck in a legal and Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) certification limbo.
Its theatrical debut is now delayed indefinitely.
On the same day Jana Nayagan was expected to hit screens, the CBFC cleared director Sudha Kongara’s period drama Parasakthi.
According to reports in NDTV, the board asked for 23 edits, with the film reviewed on January 7.
Parasakthi carries a title heavy with political memory.
The 1952 classic of the same name helped popularise DMK ideology and launched Sivaji Ganesan as a political-cultural force. The new film, starring Sivakarthikeyan and directed by Sudha Kongara, revisits the student movement during the 1965 anti-Hindi protests.
Released in theatres on January 10, the film received 25 censor cuts, with several scenes labelled as fictional.
On Monday, three days after the release, it drew opposition from the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress, which demanded an outright ban, alleging distortion of historical facts and a misrepresentation of the Congress and former PM Indira Gandhi.
Senior vice president of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress, Arun Bhaskar, claimed the film contained “condemnable scenes” and portrayed Indira Gandhi in a poor light.
While he alleged that the film shows a Congress flag being burnt, it is to be noted that the makers added disclaimers reading “fictional/construed” in several sequences, and the film does not explicitly mention the Congress.
Bhaskar objected strongly to the film’s depiction of the 1965 language controversy.
“In 1965, the Congress government never officially announced that post office forms must be filled only in Hindi across all states. This is a complete fabrication deliberately created to malign our party,” he said.
According to Bhaskar, the film shows Sivakarthikeyan’s character meeting Indira Gandhi to oppose Hindi imposition, followed by scenes that portray her negatively. “Indira Gandhi never visited Coimbatore on February 12. This meeting did not happen at all. She was not in Coimbatore on that day,” he said.
He also took objection to another sequence showing a burning train falling in front of Indira Gandhi. “This is utter nonsense and has no connection to reality,” he claimed.
Criticism extended to the climax, which, according to Bhaskar, flashes real-life photographs of Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri and K Kamaraj, while accusing the Congress of shooting and killing more than 200 Tamil people in Pollachi.
“There is not a shred of evidence to support such a serious allegation,” he said.
“We strongly condemn this film. Parasakthi is a deliberate distortion of historical facts and should be banned,” Bhaskar said, demanding the immediate removal of the scenes in question and a public apology from the production team.
He warned of strict legal action if the demands were not met and called on party workers to protest, saying, “I call upon all Congress workers to raise their voices against this injustice.”
A day after the release,Congress MP Manickam Tagore had also said that the film promotes anti-Congress propaganda.
He criticised the film, saying that money should not be wasted. Pointing to a photo that was reported to have dialogues against the Congress in the film, the Congress said on his X page, “Is this news true? Those who have seen the film, please post a video.. My friends said that this Parasakthi film is a failure. Why should we waste our hard-earned money? I did not watch the film.”
Directed by Sudha Kongara Prasad, Parasakthi stars Sivakarthikeyan, Ravi Mohan, Atharvaa and Sreeleela, Parasakthi film has received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike.