The stalling of the release of a film primed to boost Tamil actor-politician Vijay’s prospects for the Assembly polls later this year is threatening to push the BJP into a corner.
The ruling DMK and its ally Congress — whom Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) seeks to displace — have slammed the legal hurdles, accusing the saffron party of attacking the culture of a state where cinema is treated as religion.
A day after the makers of Jana Nayagan moved the Supreme Court in a final attempt to secure the release of the film before Pongal on Thursday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi came to their support. The film was originally scheduled for release on January 9.
“The I&B Ministry’s attempt to block Jana Nayagan is an attack on Tamil culture. Mr Modi, you will never succeed in suppressing the voice of the Tamil people,” Rahul posted on X on Tuesday.
Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin had on Saturday posted on X: “Following the #CBI, #ED, and #IT, the Censor Board has also become a new weapon of the Union BJP government. Strong condemnation!”
The film’s producer, KVN Productions, approached the top court against a January 9 order of a division bench of Madras High Court, which stayed a single-judge bench order for a U/A 16+ certificate to the film. The production house pleaded that they had made cuts recommended by the censor board and were informed on December 29 that they would get a U/A certificate. However, on January 5, the board’s regional officer said the chairman had decided to refer the movie to a revising committee following a complaint by a member of the examining committee.
Several Congress leaders, including All India Professionals’ Congress head Praveen Chakravarty and MP K. Jothimani, have also condemned the delay. Last month, Chakravarty met Vijay and later criticised the DMK government for the state’s increasing debt. This divided the Congress, with many of its MPs, including Jothimani, countering Chakravarty.
The DMK is the Congress’s closest ally and makes up for the latter’s lack of a cadre base in Tamil Nadu. However, the Congress has remained out of the state government as part of an earlier understanding that both parties would support each other’s governments from outside in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, respectively.
The BJP has remained silent on Jana Nayagan, unlike Vijay’s earlier film Mersal, which the party had slammed for criticising the GST.
BJP leader and former Telangana governor Tamilisai Soundararajan told reporters that Stalin had no business talking about the matter as the censor board was “an independent body”.
BJP ally AIDMK’s Sellur Raja questioned the logic behind claims that the BJP was behind the film’s delay.
Vijay — who was quizzed by the CBI on Monday in connection with a stampede at his rally in September — has not spoken about the delay in the release of the film, which has got certificates for screenings in several countries with large Tamil populations. At the soundtrack release of the film in Kuala Lumpur last month, Vijay hinted that this would be his last film.
Vijay’s fan clubs on social media have shared AI images of him standing beside former chief minister M.G. Ramachandran with a burning palace behind them with a DMK flag on top. Parallels have been drawn with MGR’s film Ulagam Sutrum Vaaliban, which was released in 1973 despite administrative harassment and threats after MGR broke away from the DMK in 1972. MGR went on to win the next elections and remained undefeated in his lifetime.
Jana Nayagan, if it releases now, will have to contend with Parasakthi — a film on the 1965 anti-Hindi agitation, distributed by a production house owned by deputy chief minister and Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi. This film also faced several cuts by the censor board, perceived as the BJP’s backdoor attempt to distort the history of a state whose polity has historically positioned itself as a challenge to the establishment at the Centre.
