Canvases of Political Competition: Image Production as Politics in Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT

In this article, I explore the production of political images in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The state is known for the ubiquitous presence of banners, murals and posters in its public spaces, featuring prominent politicians and actors. It is commonly argued that these images help to convey the heroic or exclusive status of political leaders. However, such images are actually produced by party workers and therefore do not simply transpose status and image. Instead, political supporters praise their leader via these images and act as ‘kingmakers’ in constructing reputation and power. Simultaneously, by putting political images on display, supporters also authorise their own power. While praise is important in showing a person's dedication to a political party, the images, in the motivations of their producers, are suffused with ambivalence and competition as well. Hence, I argue, political image practices are not representative of politics, they are politics.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• vernacular politics
• praise
• celebrity
• visual culture

Acknowledgements

This article is based on my PhD research (Leiden University) on Tamil film fan clubs, vernacular politics and street images in Tamil Nadu. This research was made possible with the generous support of the Catharine van Tussenbroek Fund and the Leiden University Fund. I thank the three anonymous reviewers of Ethnos, Kajri Jain, Tong Lam, Patricia Spyer and Dorien Zandbergen for their invaluable comments and sharp insights on this article.

Notes

1. Mirzoeff (2000: 7) coined the terms ‘interocularity’ and ‘intervisuality’ to describe the ‘interacting and interdependent modes of visuality’. Appadurai and Breckenridge (1992: 41) identified the influence and reinforcement of linked visualities as the ‘inter-ocular field’ in which ‘meanings, scripts and symbols transfer from one site to another’.

2. In 2006, the Union Territory of Pondicherry officially changed its name to Puducherry in a larger movement in India to vernacularise names of cities.

3. Darshan is the religious practice of seeing and being seen by the divine. Hindu temples have special hours of darshan in which the deity is shown and people take darshan.

4. This resulted in protests from opposition parties and the Christian community after which Jayalalitha ordered that the posters be removed immediately.

5. When the DMK subsequently came to power again in 1996, they put a stop to the cut-out culture as a reaction to Jayalalitha's colossal presence in the public sphere. Instead, the DMK began to assert itself by means of murals, only occasionally putting up cut-outs during party rallies.

6. Janaki, MGR's wife led one of the factions of the AIADMK after MGR's death, Jayalalitha another. In the end, Jayalalitha took over the leadership of the entire AIADMK.

7. Figure 3 depicts a similar poster for a deceased man.

8. I have illustrated elsewhere that at wedding rituals this presence of a cameraman or photographer is part of the ritual and not simply meant for the recording of the event (2006).

9. See Bate's (2009) eloquent work on these praising texts and Tamil political oratory.

10. Filmi is the word indicating popular film music in India. Here, however, I use the term more freely to indicate a relationship with film. So filmi images are images of or relating to films.

11. Geschiere starts his article with the strong opposition that he encountered when he presented his comparison between witch doctors and spin doctors at a conference. I realise that the comparison with the Tamil Nadu image producers might also be considered too farfetched, but I still believe the parallels with the production of reputation is helpful in understanding the images beyond the context of Tamil Nadu alone.

12. A dhoti is a cloth garment worn by men. Colours, borders, type and manner of wearing can indicate religious, political, class or caste affiliations.