Angry snarls, hoisted dhotis: the wonderland of Tamil Nadu

In the countless action films in which Tamil actor Vijayakanth starred before he turned to politics, the ‘Captain’, as he is known, was known to intimidate his diabolical detractors with a distinctive mannerism. His lips would curl back in a snarl (that some women find borderline obscene), and he would bite his tongue – as if to choke off the torrent of foul-mouthed abuse that was waiting to tumble out. If the resultant effect, complemented with an upraised clenched fist, proved insufficiently intimidatory, the ‘Captain’ would go on to pound his opponents to pulp, employing the same techniques that won Muhammad Ali much distinction. [caption id=“attachment_201726” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“However indecorous Vijayakanth’s conduct may have been, it isn’t the crudest thing to have happened inside the august chamber of the Tamil Nadu Assembly. Screen grab from IBNLive”]  [/caption] In the wonderland that is Tamil Nadu politics, it isn’t just his cinematic detractors who have been at the receiving end of a Vijayakanth’s right hook. In April 2011, campaigning for the Assembly election in Dharmapuri constituency, an evidently inebriated ‘Captain’ got his DMDK candidate’s name horribly mangled. When the candidate made bold to correct him, the ‘Captain’ clobbered him – and kept clobbering him – in full view of the crowds and TV cameras. ( Catch the action here.) But Vijayakanth is learning that the mannerisms that proved eminently successful on cinema may be a losing proposition in real life, particularly now that he is an MLA – and the Leader of the Opposition, no less, in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. On Wednesday, when Vijayakanth pulled out his big guns in the Assembly – that same angry/obscene snarl and the raised fist directed at the Treasury benches, headed by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa – he and his fellow-DMDK legislators were evicted from the chambers, and were subsequently suspended for 10 days. ( Watch a video of his Assembly performance here.) Jayalalithaa, whose AIADMK had contested the May 2011 Assembly election alongside the DMDK, effectively severed the alliance and slammed Vijayakanth’s conduct as “disgusting and crude”. The Opposition Leader’s conduct… is an example of what will happen if undeserving persons suddenly find themselves in high positions,” she said. Even so, however indecorous Vijayakanth’s conduct may have been — and it was — it isn’t the crudest thing to have happened inside the august chamber of the Tamil Nadu Assembly. Assemblies in other states may have lowered the bar with disorderly conduct, complete with footwear in full flight and mikes and even furniture as projectiles. But in plumbing the absolute depths of legislators’ conduct, Tamil Nadu stands alone. Jayalalithaa herself ought to know. In this very chamber, she was virtually disrobed in March 1989 by DMK MLAs when she, then an Opposition MLA, objected to then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi’s very public slight directed at her. DMK MLAs tugged at her sari (now you know why she wears a cape!), and she was roughed up, forcing her to flee the house in a dishevelled state. Of course, being Jayalalithaa, she extracted every ounce of political mileage out of the outrage, by likening herself to Draupadi and the DMK leaders to Duryodhana. By 1991, she was in power. The Tamil Nadu Assembly also has the dishonourable distinction of being the only legislative chamber where the police force-entered – and lathi-charged MLAs inside the house! That happened in Januaray 1988, amidst the jostling for the political mantle of actor-turned-politician MG Ramachandran soon after his death. Then too, the faction headed by Jayalalithaa was at the receiving end of the lathi blows. But perhaps the crudest and most obscene display in the Tamil Nadu Assembly happened in the 1980s when an AIADMK MLA  made a definitive, but indeterminable, political point by lifting up his dhoti and (as the newspaper accounts of the day delicately put it) “displayed his wares”. Political commentators suggest that such displays of indecorous conduct – of the sorts that Vijayakanth gave in to – happen because newbie MLAs in Tamil Nadu don’t get the kind of training in legislative behaviour that some neighbouring states offer their MLAs. For instance, Kerala Assembly MLAs were offered lessons in good legislative conduct at a two-day retreat, and were trained by IIM-Kozhikode faculty. Yet, even such grooming hasn’t exactly tamed the animal spirits of Kerala MLAs. In October 2011, the state agriculture minister KP Mohanan found himself at the centre of a controversy after he lifted his leg and his dhoti, revealing a bit more of himself than he may have intended, when he attempted to jump over the legislature benches in response to taunts from the Opposition members in the well of the house. Pilloried for conduct unbecoming of a legislator, Mohanan defended his leg action as the instinctive response of a Kalaripayattu fighter. But as the Captain learnt to his dismay in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, martial arts capabilities aren’t well received in the Assembly chamber, even one that has lowered the bar and its reputation with its legislators’ conduct in the past.