The visual grammar of C Joseph Vijay’s politics

A walk through a sludgy field. A cup of tea with a villager. A pair of expensive goggles sliding up the wrinkled nose of an elderly woman. The images chief minister C Joseph Vijay create are cinematic. They are also political.The images have an unmistakable echo of MGR, whose politics was built as much around the projection of proximity to the poor as it was around organisation and ideology. For Vijay, the symbolism matters. He entered politics with the advantage of celebrity; it also came with a handicap: distance from people. Now he is bridging that gap. He still lives in a world of cameras, security cordons and carefully choreographed appearances, but he is also trying to convince people that he can inhabit their world.Politics in Tamil Nadu has always had a visual language. MGR had the cap, the dark glasses and the persona of a benevolent leader. Jayalalithaa had her own vocabulary of symbolism, though aloof. Stalin’s politics, too, evolved its visual grammar over the years. Vijay is now creating his own.An image can open a political conversation, but it is for the person to complete it. The MGR comparison will become increasingly demanding as the novelty of Vijay’s entry into electoral politics wears off. MGR had an extraordinary combination of cinema popularity, political organisation and welfare politics. His image was not merely manufactured by publicity; it was repeatedly reinforced through political action and an organisation that could carry his message to every street.Vijay has the image. Now he should demonstrate the rest. For this, the govt and the party should perform. The first five months of this govt has been one of both continuation and cancellation. On the welfare front, the Vijay govt has taken forward much of M K Stalin’s policies. Some cancellations have been welcome, particularly where tenders raised questions of probity; others, such as the decision on the Parandur airport project, remain more contentious.The party, however, seems to be still in infancy. By inducting politicians from other parties – some of them facing corruption charges – TVK hasn’t gained organisational heft. And the local units haven’t learned the art of taking the govt’s policies to the masses. TVK is still a crowd around star Vijay.The higher the expectations built around a new political force, the more unforgiving the scrutiny becomes. Every promise will cost. Every alliance will have consequences. Every appointment will be examined. Every administrative decision will be compared with the previous ones. This is where the MGR template becomes as much a burden as an asset.MGR demonstrated that charisma could be converted into political power. But he also showed that charisma alone cannot sustain a govt. The emotional bond between the leader and the voter should be continually renewed through policy, welfare and political delivery.A leader can drink tea with a villager. The tougher question is whether his party can listen to thousands of such villagers when they are not standing in front of a camera. A leader can walk through a muddy field. The harder walk is through the competing demands of farmers, workers, women, youth, and urban voters — all of whom expect politics to produce answers beyond images.Vijay’s biggest political challenge, therefore, may not be silencing his rivals. It may be preserving the emotional simplicity of his political image while confronting the complexity of governance and organisational demands. The difficult part often comes after the cameras are switched off.Disclaimer: Views expressed above are the author's own.