“Our identities are being taken from us very quickly, such as dressing Thiruvalluvar’s image in saffron or depicting Raja Raja Cholan as a Hindu king,” Director Vetrimaaran said recently during a speech. The popular filmmaker, known for hit movies such as Vada Chennai and Asuran, was speaking at the 60th birthday celebrations of MP and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi’s (VCK) leader Thol. Thirumavalavan. In celebration of his birthday, October 1, VCK conducted a short film and documentary festival under the title ‘Makkal Ezhuchi, Ondru Seru’ (loosely translated as a call for people to ‘Rise and Come Together’). At this event, Vetrimaaran highlighted the need for politics in cinema. “In cinema, right now, too many identities are being erased. We must save these identities,” the director added.
Interestingly the filmmaker’s comments come barely two days after Mani Ratnam’s adaptation of Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan, a historical fiction novel on the Chola empire, hit screens worldwide.
Vetrimaaran, during his speech, also recalled a conversation he had with Thirumavalavan in the past: “He said to me, ‘please stop showing how a single hero alone is changing society in your movies. All filmmakers make the same mistake. Show how change happens through a movement. That will be better.’
The Vada Chennai director went on to add that “art is inherently political, but Thirumavalavan went a step ahead of that and once told me that ‘our very being is political. Knowingly or unknowingly we are occupying a certain politics.” Vetrimaaran added that it was Thirumavalavan who made him realise that the way each person dresses, speaks etc., is a reflection of a political ideology that they have absorbed at some point.
The director also made a reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) route march across 51 locations in Tamil Nadu that was initially slated for October 2. In protest, VCK and Left-parties had called for a human chain on the same date. “If we are going to fight for our freedom, we need political clarity. The resistance to the event that was supposed to happen tomorrow [the RSS route march] itself is a great example, in my view,” said Vetrimaaran.
On September 22, the Madras High Court granted permission to RSS to carry out their march at various locations in Tamil Nadu on October 2. Following outbreaks of violence and arson in several locations in the state due to the National Investigative Agency’s (NIA) crackdown on the Popular Front of India (PFI) and the subsequent ban of the organisation, the Tamil Nadu police and the state government had denied permission for the march, fearing further violence. The RSS, in turn, filed a contempt petition at the Madras High Court and has now obtained permission for the march to be conducted on November 6 instead.
At Thirumavalavan’s birthday event, Vetrimaaran further said that he believes it was only because the Dravidian movement took up cinema that “Tamil Nadu remains a secular state and is still able to resist many external factors. Because cinema is a medium that can reach people with the greatest ease, so it is essential to make cinema a political centre-point.” He further said that before cinema came into the hands of the Dravidian movement there were people who said ‘art for art’s sake’ instead of ‘art is for the people’, adding that there was a belief that aesthetics alone is important. “ Aesthetics is important, but the arts belong to the people, it must respond to the people. We must use these arts correctly today,” Vetrimaaran said. The director also pledged his “unconditional support to people who came together” for a political cause.
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