AA Edit | Stalin Jr Arrest a Message to Curb Sexism in Politics

Distasteful and vulgar as Tamil Nadu Opposition leader Udhayanidhi Stalin’s double-entendre comment on Cauvery water was, his arrest was an act of political excess that clouds the message the government may wish to convey against misogyny.

By grandstanding through the drama as if this was a great conquest, Udhayanidhi may have tried to give the impression that he was hoping to make political capital out of the mess. Truth to tell, his objectification of women will only lead to his alienating further at least half the population which has always found the state’s Dravidian political environment toxically loaded against them.

This was by no means the first time that the Opposition leader, who earlier was deputy chief minister before the regime change this year, has invoked women and sarcastically touched upon the private lives of rivals when speaking at public forums. Given the history of his own family and his stint as a film actor, he is skating on thin ice when he gets invasive on the chief minister’s private life.

What the chief minister, who represents a desire for change in the public from the tired old politics of the Dravidian majors, has been aiming at is to curb the sexism that has been embedded in the state’s politics. He may have kept a studious silence on personal attacks, but he has demonstrated that he is willing to act when Opposition leaders try to drag women into the political slang.

Udhayanidhi may have skirted such bigotry in attacks on Jayalalithaa’s aide Sasikala and in denouncing Sanatan dharma in language that often crossed the boundaries of civil debate and responsible public speaking, especially in career politicians and, in his case, a dynastic politician at that. It is in dragging the actor Trisha often into his political rivalry that he invited the wrath which led to unseemly scenes of arrest, a 300-km police convoy drama that triggered demonstrativeness in the DMK cadre.

Given the fact that courts are always hyper-sensitive when it comes to the arrest of political leaders and celebrities — which, however, comes in sharp contrast to the helplessness of lesser mortals in such matters like police action — detaining Udhayanidhi for interrogation was unlikely to fetch results in the legal domain, nor political dividend. Too often such acts only trigger law & order situations and an invitation to anti-social elements to take disruption as a political ploy.

The fact that the arrest and brief detention at least conveyed the message strongly about dishonour to women not being tolerated symbolises the change that Vijay wishes to bring into the state’s political culture, which had too often in the past descended into vitriol. As an actor who turned politician with the promise to bring about a change in thinking and action, Vijay needs to stop arresting Opposition politicians for crude comments, which is their wont, and oppose them in the lively political theatre that exists in the state.

Vijay’s point about misogyny is well taken and, perhaps, appreciated most by women, but to give crass people mileage in such arrests can prove counterproductive. Yet if his action brings the curtain down on toxicity involving women in state politics, he would have achieved something. The cost in proving such things can, however, be too high in a male-dominated society that is high on ingrained prejudices against women.