Will new found love for Lord Murugan and targeting DMK help BJP?

“Vetrivel, Veeravel”, a slogan raised by devotees of Lord Murugan, now occupies prime space in the social media timelines of BJP leaders in Tamil Nadu. Lord Murugan, who is believed to have lived in his six abodes across the state, seems to be the new poster boy of the BJP, which is desperate to make inroads into the Southern State.

With less than a year to go for the Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu, the BJP that hardly has any base in the state is attempting to project itself as a major player and trying to take advantage of a controversy surrounding Kandha Sashti Kavasam, a song in praise of Lord Murugan.

A YouTube channel known as Karuppar Kootam released a video in which the anchor makes disparaging and controversial remarks against the devotional song, evoking condemnation from across the board. The anchor and his colleagues were arrested, and police are pursuing the case.

Add to BJP’s new-found love for Lord Murugan, its “ideological battle” with Dravidian legend E V R Periyar, who propagated the anti-god theory, that has now become shriller, a new target in C N Annadurai and portrayal of the DMK as “anti-Hindu.” Incidentally, BJP’s alliance partner AIADMK is named after Annadurai.

Tamil superstar and aspiring politician Rajinikanth, who is perceived to be close to the BJP, also condemned the video on Wednesday and chanted “Kandhanukku Arogara” (Hail Lord Murugan) on Twitter, making a political statement even as he dithers on his much-awaited political plunge.

Flaunting their Hindu identity, BJP leaders are going all out to milk the controversy over the devotional song by giving open calls to Hindus asking to unite to defeat forces that are inimical to the faith, which is first-of-a-kind in the state. The party is also facing criticism that it was “appropriating” Tamils gods like Murugan to further its political interests.

The BJP has also taken the fight to the DMK’s doorsteps asking it to “clarify” its stand on the controversy surrounding Kandha Sashti Kavasam. No wonder the BJP is targeting DMK, which is at the forefront of vociferously opposing the policies of the Narendra Modi government, especially the measures that “weaken the federal structure” of the country. As the BJP’s campaign projecting DMK as “anti-Hindu” gets sharper, the Dravidian party has also gone on the defensive mode by taking pains to explain that it was certainly not “anti-Hindu”.

And this is not the first time that the BJP has forced the M K Stalin-led DMK to clarify its stand on Hindus. In the thick of the Lok Sabha poll campaign in 2019, Stalin had to clarify that the party was not “anti-Hindu” after the saffron party attempted to polarise voters in parts of the state.

This was unimaginable in the DMK that was helmed by Karunanidhi. The late party patriarch, who came under all-round attack for his taunt whether Lord Ram was an engineer to have built the Ram Setu, had never come out to clarify on such issues.

Political analysts believe that the BJP “appropriating” Lord Murugan is a “well thought out” strategy ahead of the assembly polls and that the saffron party was trying to polarise the votes. They believe overt courting of the majority community by a political party in Tamil Nadu could be counter-productive as the state never voted on religious lines and the BJP is also not popular among the people.

“Religion does not matter in Tamil Nadu. If it had mattered, the Dravidian movement would have never flourished. Right from the beginning, people have distinguished between anti-god theory and spirituality and I can say that Tamils have a deeper sense of spiritual belief than anyone in the country. But they do not vote on the basis of religion alone,” P Ramajayam, Assistant Professor, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, told DH.

Even before the controversy over the devotional song died down, there was an attack on a statue of Periyar in Coimbatore, which the BJP appeared to welcome with a glee, with its leader H Raja, known for his penchant for controversies, even going one step ahead to brand the Dravidian icon as an “unadulterated British stooge.”

But the BJP’s strategy of boxing Periyar just into an “anti-God activist” is unlikely to work, political analysts say, as the long-bearded and bespectacled man is known more for advocating path-breaking reforms that his political proteges Annadurai, M Karunanidhi and M G Ramachandran implemented during their tenures.

Periyar has been BJP’s punching bag for a long time now but every time his statue is attacked, there is a renewed interest in his works, which his supporters say is relevant till date.

BJP, though ruling at the Centre, is still a marginal player in the political scheme of things in Tamil Nadu and had won seats only when in an alliance with the Dravidian parties, except for 2014, when it won the lone Kanyakumari seat, riding high on the Narendra Modi wave, and with help from the rainbow coalition that it cobbled up.

BJP’s criticism of DMK and Periyar would only be sharp and harsh in the coming weeks and months, but whether the strategy would work in a state that has voted largely on personalities than anything else is anyone’s guess.