Self-punishment politics in Tamil Nadu

AS a form of political practice, the threat or act of self-punishment has a long and dubious tradition in Tamil Nadu. No political leader has self-immolated or threatened to do so yet, but there was this minister in Jayalalithaa’s Cabinet, a karate champion, who tied himself to a cross and reportedly had nails hammered into his palm for a few minutes to demonstrate his loyalty to her. Others in her Cabinet are known to have carried pots of burning coals. A woman minister, wearing a skirt of neem leaves, rolled on the ground in the precincts of a temple.

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Entertaining as all this is, it's not clear if such acts ever impressed the intended audience.

So, when K Annamalai, president of the Tamil Nadu unit of the BJP, decided to whip himself in protest against the sexual assault of a student at Anna University, sure enough, social media audiences brought out the popcorn (salted only) for the meme fest that followed. But no words of sympathy or fellow feeling came from the divided house that the Tamil Nadu BJP is. One rival within suggested that it would have been more appropriate for Annamalai to have been given a few lashes by party leaders in Delhi. No words of support whatsoever came from the high command.

As it seeks to make a dent in Tamil Nadu’s Dravidian armour, the BJP has tried various ploys. The charge of atheism and “anti-Sanatan” tops the list. But, as the last parliamentary elections showed, that failed to win a single seat for the BJP, with the DMK sweeping up all 39 seats. Even Annamalai, despite the build-up he got from national television channels, could not win the Coimbatore seat.

For sure, the party got its highest ever vote share of 11.38 per cent. But this was also the first time it had contested more than half the seats in the state, in alliance with the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and a breakaway group of the AIADMK.

With the PMK leadership’s father-son troubles coming to the fore in a very public way, the future of this caste-based party’s alliance with Hindutva is uncertain.

Simply put, nothing, including the search for the right alliance partners, has worked for the BJP in Tamil Nadu.

The AIADMK has held back steadfastly. Elections are still months away — due only in May 2026. But the word is that AIADMK boss Edappadi Palaniswami has already made a preliminary approach to actor Vijay, the latest entrant on the block and a megastar with a fan following that does not have to be paid to attend public rallies. Some within the BJP believe that it was a mistake not to weaponise the ‘rettai illai’ or two leaves symbol against the AIADMK after it was frozen in 2017 in the wake of post-Jayalalithaa splits in the party.

Some wonder why the threat or promise of the famed BJP ‘washing machine’ has not yet been deployed in this state.

Trying to turn the Anna University rape case into a political storm, Kolkata style, was a gamble.

The alleged rape of a student of Anna University in Chennai took place on December 24 when the woman was in the company of a male college mate in a secluded corner of the campus. The alleged rapist was known to the local police as a “history-sheeter”, but he seems to have had a free pass into the prestigious institution. He threatened the male companion into leaving the place and proceeded to assault the woman, videoed his crime and threatened her with blackmail.

If the security measures at the university were found wanting, the police did not cover themselves in glory either. The First Information Report was uploaded and made accessible to the public, with the victim's name, her address and contact details. The manner in which the FIR is worded questions the training of the police personnel at the all-woman police station where the woman made the complaint.

Shocking as this is, let’s face it. Tamil Nadu is not a state with a high incidence of crimes against women. And, the BJP, which rules states like Uttarakhand and Haryana where the incidence of such crimes far outstrips the national rate, can hardly point a finger.

Even BJP insiders here say they have no answer when they are asked why the PM has not visited Manipur yet.

The surfacing of a photograph of the accused with Udhayanidhi Stalin, the newly anointed Deputy Chief Minister and second-generation DMK first family dynast, may have given the BJP and the AIADMK confidence that they had enough ammunition to mount a direct attack.

But the Madras High Court's swift order on petitions by AIADMK party members demanding that the case be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation doused the attempt to turn this into a political conflagration for the DMK.

The high court directed the setting up of a Special Investigation Team to probe the crime and bring it to prosecution, and the police to pay Rs 25 lakh to the victim for making her identity public. It asked Anna University to bear the full cost of her further education at the institute.

While Annamalai charged that the state had become unsafe for women and announced that he was taking up the case as the ‘brother’ of the woman who had been assaulted, the woman herself was confident enough to take her complaint to the police the very next day, with a university official by her side.

For Annamalai, back from a sabbatical at Oxford University where he went after the BJP’s anticlimactic Lok Sabha elections, his failure to whip Tamil Nadu into a frenzy with his self-flagellation is hardly the comeback he might have hoped for. In any case, whipping oneself is no act of Hindu penance in Tamil Nadu, as some admirers up north have sought to describe it. Lord Muruga’s bhakts will hang from hooks, skewer their bodies and cheeks with spears and walk over burning coals. But whipping one's own body is known only as a practice among itinerant alms-seekers.

Annamalai, who also announced that he would observe a fast for 48 days and eschew footwear until the DMK was defeated, may be better off eating proper meals and putting his sandals back on for the BJP’s rocky journey ahead in Tamil Nadu.