Today is Tamil New Year – Puthandu. Across Tamil Nadu, millions of families welcomed the new year with prayer and tradition. From the Prime Minister to local elected representatives, wishes poured in from all corners. But two names were conspicuously absent from the Puthandu greeting list – DMK and Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) chief Joseph Vijay.
It is not a coincidence. It is a pattern.
The DMK Template
The DMK under MK Stalin has a well-established practice of not wishing on April 14 Tamil New Year, anchored in the Dravidian ideological position that the “real” Tamil New Year is Thai Pongal in January, not Chithirai Puthandu in April. Accordingly, DMK cadres and leaders flood social media on January 14 with Tamil New Year wishes, while April 14, observed by millions of Tamils as Varusha Pirappu, passes without official acknowledgment.
DMK chief Stalin had wished for Telugu/Kannada New Year – Ugadi on 19 March 2026.
The irony is thick: the same party that champions Tamil pride, Tamil language, and Tamil culture systematically refuses to wish Tamil people on the festival that the overwhelming majority of Tamils and indeed Tamils worldwide celebrate as their New Year. But they will wish Telugus.
Joseph Vijay Follows Suit, Again
Joseph Vijay, who launched TVK promising a break from old Dravidian politics, has now mirrored the DMK’s silence on Tamil New Year for the second consecutive year. In 2024, when TVK was newly launched, Vijay was criticised for skipping Tamil New Year wishes while his party’s handle posted Ambedkar birth anniversary greetings on the same day. At the time, defenders argued it was an oversight. In 2026, with Vijay fully embedded in electoral politics, the silence is harder to explain away.
Notably, Vijay had no such hesitation when it came to wishing on Ramzan – a fact that critics have pointedly highlighted. In January 2026, he did wish on Thai Pongal, carefully using the Dravidian framing of it as Tamil New Year, signalling that his silence on April 14 is deliberate, not accidental.
Interestingly, TVK followed DMK in wishing for Ugadi and not wishing for Tamil New Year.
— TVK Vijay (@TVKVijayHQ) March 19, 2026
The Christutva Dimension
What distinguishes Vijay’s case from DMK’s is the additional layer of his personal religious identity. Joseph Vijay is a practising Christian. His refusal to wish on Tamil New Year, while readily participating in Muslim festival greetings and Christian observances, reflects a Christutva political calculus: using cultural identity to consolidate minority votes while distancing from Hindu-associated festivals, even those rooted in Tamil tradition.
Puthandu is not a Brahminical festival imposed on Tamils. It is the Tamil astronomical New Year, rooted in the Chithirai solar transit observed by Tamil Hindus alike across Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Tamil diaspora globally.
The Double Standard Is the Message
The comparison is revealing. When Vijay’s film Beast released on 13 April 2022, the eve of Tamil New Year, he had no hesitation in wishing fans for Tamil New Year as part of his promotional messaging. But the moment he became a political leader seeking votes, Tamil New Year suddenly ceased to exist on his calendar.
What changed? His political constituency. And that, more than any ideology, explains the silence.
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