Actor Rajinikanth is one of the lucky few who could attend the Pran Prathishta ceremony in Ayodhya today. However, it wasn’t long ago when he advised his Hindu audiences about giving up their claim for Ram Janmabhoomi.
Just after the demolition of the Babri structure in 1992, Rajnikanth had a cameo in a film he produced called Valli (1993). Although the film was about a woman cheated on by her lover, the actor made it a point to insert agitprop messages discouraging the Hindus from pursuing the cause for Sri Rama’s birthplace.
Check out one of the scenes from the film in which he advises village folks to forgo their claim on Rama’s birthplace.
Valli (1993)
Translation – “What is the point of constructing Ram temple or mosque in Ayodhya? First, build the Ram temple and mosque in your heart. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Hindu, Christian, or Muslim; the day you think of yourselves as Indian first (and Hindu later) is the day this country will start to improve.”
So, the message is – Hindus practising their faith will impede the progress of this nation.
Did the Suryavanshi Thakurs of Ayodhya, who vowed that they would not wear a turban, neither use leather footwear nor shield their heads with an umbrella till they liberated Bhagwan Ram’s home (even after fighting 76 battles – from Babur to the British) didn’t have Ram in their heart?
Rajinikanth’s suggestion to relegate their struggle to “inner religion and patriotism” is dismissive and insensitive.
For lame monkey-balancing, he also inserts the words “mosque” and “Muslims” in the dialogue. This trick conveniently covers the fact that the movement was for constructing a temple, not a mosque.
His messaging reeks of the same propaganda that the Left Liberals, Dravidianists and radical Abrahamics have been peddling against Hindus for decades – Give up your cause for the greater good. Your religion is only in your head, anyway.
This film produced by Rajinikanth himself had a theatrical release when the watershed Ram Janmabhoomi movement led by Hindu outfits and the BJP, was at its zenith and had culminated in the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Here is a clip from one such film where Rajinikanth says that Ravana is a better gentleman than Rama.
“You’ve misunderstood Ravana. Not just you. Everybody (pointing at the camera towards the audiece) everybody has misunderstood Ravana. Ravana is a big man. I worship him. I am his disciple. Rekha, if Ravana wanted to dishonour Sita, neither he would’ve kept Sita in Ashoka Vanam and nor he would’ve waited for her to have a change of heart. In my view, more than Rama who separated from Sita, Ravana who waited for his desired woman is the true lover, fan and a gentleman.”
And this messaging wasn’t limited to his earlier films alone. The actor’s recent films too promotes unhealthy attitudes.
Kaala (2018)
Not too long ago, Rajinikanth starred in ‘Kaala’, a 2018 film about a community leader in Mumbai’s Dharavi and how he takes on a corrupt politician from the ‘Navbharat Nationalist Party’ or NNP.
The film has the same overused plot that Marxist-driven Bollywood films have been peddling for several decades. It is the story of a “leader of the masses” who will protect his poor community from greedy capitalist businessmen-politician nexus that wants to usurp their lands. The poor are Ambedkarites and Muslims, whereas the rich are practising Hindus who read the Ramayana.
About 15 minutes into the movie, Kaala’s wife, Selvi, screams at her son for being a “vegetarian” who won’t eat everything she can cook. She tells him to be more like his father, who eats beef lovingly.
One of Kaala and Selvi’s sons is called Lenin, and his neighbours call this boy a revolutionary leader. That’s correct – Kaala is happy to name his son after a traitor who used starvation, execution, and torture to kill more than eight million Russians.
Hindu festivals have been demonised shamelessly in this film. A young boy named Bhim is killed by the political leader Haridev Abhyankar’s henchmen on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi. In return, Kaala kills Hari’s sidekick ‘Vishnu’ on the day of Ganapathi Visarjan.
In another problematic scene, Hari (played by Nana Patekar) listens to a recitation of Ramayana while his workers kill Dalits and Muslims in Kaala’s slum. So, Hindu festivals make Hindus more demonic?
What makes this scene worse is that it includes an unusual narration of Ramayana’s Yuddha Kaandam, which makes Raavanan look like an inspirational figure (while drawing parallels with Kaala). This narration serves as a backdrop to Kaala’s men fighting the mean, fair-skinned Hindutva politician’s goons.
Doesn’t this portrayal sound eerily similar to a party’s repeated messaging that Rama is an “upper-caste” God worshipped only by North Indians and Raavanan is the real hero for the Dravidian stock?
Notably, every villain in the film, including the main antagonist Hari, is a practising Hindu who proudly sports a ‘tilakam’ on the forehead or wears the Rudraksham. It is hard not to notice a picture or idol of Sri Rama around villains.
Hari frequently talks about Krishna and Rama while justifying his evil deeds. But, Kaala threatens him, “If stealing my land is your God’s Dharma, then I won’t spare your God either.”
Now, imagine if the villain were from any other religion. Would Kaala have used a similar language and tone? Furthermore, if this Kaala’s attitude towards Dharma, is he even capable of understanding what the Pran-Prathistha meant to millions of Hindus?
Audiences are already calling out similar scenes in Bollywood films for portraying Hinduism as the religion of criminals and barbarians. It is not okay to show that listening to Ramayana and celebrating Dharmic festivals makes Hindus demonic, villainous, and anti-Dalits. The truth is it is the conversion mafia that commonly uses such narratives to mislead susceptible minds.
We didn’t miss noticing that Kaala is intelligent enough not to promote offensive messages against Muslims. He does namaaz with them, has the best friendships, and even has a Muslim ex-fiance. It goes without saying that in this film, the good guys belong to just one faith, and all the bad guys are from another religion that worships Rama.
Kaala even swears by ‘Khuda’ while threatening the NPP leader. So it is okay for true Tamil lovers to learn Urdu and Islam, but not acceptable for them to watch Hindi shows, practice vegetarianism, and worship Rama.
And guess what? This film was produced by Wunderbar Studios, the production house of his son-in-law Dhanush who also attended the Ram Mandir consecration.
Petta (2019)
In 2018, Rajinikanth and Sun Pictures again collaborated for Petta directed by Karthik Subbaraj , a known sympathizer of LTTE and naxals like Daniel Gandhi. Petta too took potshots at Hindutva that showed anyone with a tilak on a forehead as a religious bigot. On the other hand, Rajini helps in Anwar getting married to Anu.
Both Kaala and Petta came at a time when Tamil Nadu anti-Modi and anti-Hindutva sentiments were being brewed, thanks to the toiling efforts of the DMK and allies that used every opportunity to portray Modi as anti-Tamil while in fact, Tamil people have been the biggest beneficiaries of the Centre’s efforts.
And looks like he isn’t going to stop there.
Upcoming Woke Projects
Just a month after the furore over the crowd in Ahmedabad chanting Jai Sri Ram as Muhammad Rizwan during the India-Pakistan World Cup match, a trailer of Rajinikanth’s upcoming movie was released on 12 November 2023.
Rajinikanth plays Moideen Bhai, the good Muslim while another villain (Adithya Menon) is portrayed with a nice red tilak.
A dialogue uttered by Moideen Bhai looking on the side where saffron-shawl clad Senthil stands says “What have you guys done! You’ve mixed politics with religion! You’ve injected venom in the kids playing!”
Will there be a scene showing Muslim players doing namaz on the ground as the Pakistani players do? We’ll know the answer soon but given that the film is being released by Udhayanidhi Stalin’s Red Giants, we can safely presume the answer.
On 2 March 2023, Lyca Productions announced that they would be producing Rajinikanth’s next film which will be directed by TJ Gnanavel of ‘Jai Bhim’ fame. The film has been titled Vettaiyan.
The makers of the Jai Bhim movie found themselves facing heat after they were caught red-handed peddling false propaganda trying to create rift between different communities. In the movie which revolves around the custodial death of a tribal man, the sub-inspector who is responsible for the death of members from the Irular community is shown as a person belonging to the Vanniyar community with their sacred motif ‘Agni’ being situated in the frame. While the makers of the film chose to retain the name former Justice K. Chandru for Suriya’s character, they had deliberately distorted facts showing the inspector as a Hindu Vanniyar when in fact the sub-inspector was a Dalit Christian.
Admittedly, we can’t expect every actor to control the script of his film. Sometimes, actors in their early stages have no choice but to accept accept whatever scripts come their way. However, Rajinikanth is not an ordinary or struggling actor. He is widely popular, and his fans take his messages seriously. He is in a position to choose scripts and even make directors modify the script to convey the message he wants to. But he didn’t. He CHOSE TO DO Kaala. He CHOSE to demonize Ram Bhakts. He CHOSE TO DO Petta which attempted to show Bajrang Dal in bad light. He has CHOSEN TO DO Lal Salaam. He has CHOSEN TO DO a film with another Letist-Dravidianist propagandist. Giving the benefit of doubt to him would be akin to making a fool of ourselves.
Rajinikanth may be a spiritual god-fearing person who today speaks of justice being done after 500 years when talking about Ram Mandir consecration.
But his real life and reel life cannot be seen in isolation.
Jayasri Viswanathan is a journalist and columnist who watches how media and popular culture engages with the Hindu society. She has written on propaganda movies for Gems of Bollywood.
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