Vijay's Politics Of Spectacle And Spotlight Sans Substance

Madurai turned into a theatre of lights, sound, and orchestrated applause yesterday as actor Vijay’s fledgling outfit, Tamizhaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK), staged its second State conference in less than a year. For a party that was only born in February 2024, two such massive events in quick succession are telling.

But telling of what?

So far, what TVK seems to do best is command headlines, not conversations. The grand assemblies in Vikravandi last October and now in Madurai showcase the party’s ability to put up carefully managed spectacles. But they open questions on whether the enthusiasm on display translates into real politics.

Tamil Nadu has long blurred the line between cinema and politics, with MG Ramachandran, Jayalalithaa and later Vijayakanth harnessing the screen-to-street charisma that defines the State’s political imagination. But they earned their stripes not in convention halls but in the dust of village squares.

MGR was known for his tireless tours across the State, distributing welfare, funding local causes, and embedding himself in the memory of ordinary voters. Vijayakanth, when he founded the DMDK, personally went around in a way that lent him credibility as the “people’s captain.”

The problem is that Vijay has so far shown little of that instinct, as we noted in one of our earlier reports. His appearances are largely confined to stage-managed gatherings, where his speeches echo the cadence of a rehearsed film dialogue rather than the conviction of a leader shaped by struggle.

His much-publicised protest against the proposed Parandur airport (for Chennai), for example, struck many as convenient populism. Make no mistake, it was clearly timed for maximum visibility. Yet it has been devoid of follow-up or policy seriousness.

Borrowed language, blurred ideology

The resolutions passed at the Madurai conference underscore a lack of originality. The calls for women and child safety, a law to prevent “honour killings,” and the need to end outsourcing and fill vacancies through TNPSC are, at best, perfunctory.

Calling for infrastructure upgrades or promising job growth are safe, readymade agenda points that could have been lifted from any party’s manifesto.

Even the framing of his “Uncle” jibes at Chief Minister MK Stalin looked more pantomime than punch. Far from carving an alternative ideological space, TVK’s rhetoric appears lifted wholesale from the DMK playbook of earlier decades. There is not much ideological departure, and certainly no disruptive thought.

If anything, this has further fuelled chatter that the TVK is less a challenger to the ruling DMK than a convenient auxiliary, positioned to nibble away the opposition votes. After all, Tamil Nadu already saw Kamal Haasan’s insignificant Makkal Neethi Maiam play the role of spoiler in 2021 and then move comfortably into the national ruling bloc’s orbit.

Is Vijay angling at a similar arrangement? One can never rule out such a possibility in the puzzling theatre of Tamil Nadu politics.

To understand TVK’s limitations, one must return to Tamil Nadu’s unique political grammar. Beyond charisma and cinema fandom, parties here thrive on intricate networks. Caste-based mobilisation, welfare delivery, trade union muscle, and deep cadre penetration at the booth level are key.

The DMK and the AIADMK have honed this machinery for decades. That is why the national parties, which have tried every trick in the book in the past, have found it impossible to dislodge them.

Vijay, by contrast, has not yet shown how he intends to navigate this social landscape. His fan clubs, while widespread, are not the same as political cadre. They may be adept at pulling crowds for a film release, but converting them into booth-level agents who can deliver votes requires a completely different ecosystem.

MGR succeeded because he built on the Dravidian movement’s organisational skeleton. Jayalalithaa inherited the AIADMK machine. Even Vijayakanth’s political experiment, though short-lived, tapped into caste solidarities and a protest vote. Vijay’s TVK, so far, has offered little evidence of such grounding.

Also, the TVK appears politically gauche. Its appeal at Madurai for the AIADMK to join hands with it was more symbolic than realistic. For a party of AIADMK’s heft, aligning with a debutant would amount to ceding space. It would not fall for such an obvious bait.

Still, TVK’s nuisance value cannot be ignored. Even a small dent in the AIADMK-BJP vote bank can potentially tilt key constituencies in favour of the DMK in 2026. Both the AIADMK and BJP strategists have to assess how best to neutralise this threat, and whether to attack Vijay’s lack of substance or draw his potential voter base into their fold.

Follow the money

There is another question that begs to be asked but is rarely posed. Who is underwriting the TVK’s flamboyant exercises? Conferences of the scale seen yesterday, with massive cut-outs, elaborate stages, and choreographed logistics, are not stitched together cheaply.

Vijay, to be sure, has huge wealth that he rightfully made as an actor. But it strains credulity to assume he is spending his personal fortune in bulk on political maths that are, at best, uncertain. If not him, then who is footing the bill for his political extravaganza? And for what return? Follow the money, as they say, and some of the mystery around the TVK may unfold.

Anyway, for all its spectacle, TVK’s politics remains in rehearsal mode. Vijay the actor knows the power of performance, and he has deployed it effectively to keep cameras trained on him. But politics, especially in a State like Tamil Nadu, is a gruelling, everyday production where the stage is not lit with floodlights but with the problems of TASMAC, the aspirations of IT workers, the concerns of small traders, and the weight of caste calculations.

If Vijay wishes to be more than a spoiler, he will need to descend from the stage and enter the streets. Tamil Nadu’s voters can separate the screen persona from the political one.

The 2026 polls, as the cliché goes, will be “interesting.” The more pressing question is whether TVK will have matured into a credible force by then or remain a party of optics funded from the shadows.

Until then, the party’s conferences may dominate headlines. But headlines, it must be reiterated, are not votes.