Considering that, in Tamil Nadu, the Tamizhaga Vetri Kazhagam (TVK) was formed just about two years ago and that Mr Vijay’s election campaign was restricted to less than three weeks, the party’s victory is phenomenal. Pollsters and political commentators are at a loss to understand how this happened. Those who laughed when astrologers like Radhan Pandit predicted a “tsunami victory” for Vijay are dumbstruck now.
It appears Vijay focused on a massive digital-first strategy designed exclusively for Gen Z and first-time voters, and it paid off. Analysts are waking up to this now. Vijay, they say, used his personal reach – over 16 million followers on Instagram and a massive YouTube following – to communicate directly with voters. Additionally, the party used his holograms to create a high-tech spectacle: that of Vijay appearing “live” with local TVK candidates even in remote villages. A “digital army” of over one lakh trained volunteers strove hard to create appealing content like memes and Instagram reels, so much so that a single selfie video of Vijay from a Madurai meeting garnered as many as 90 million views in 24 hours. As a result of this massive virtual campaign, his fans, given their parasocial trust in him, turned into committed virtual warriors, as it were, who influenced their families, friends, and neighbours.
I got a sense of the extent of this influence while talking to a friend this morning. He said he had gone to a mutt in Triplicane in Chennai to book his father’s shraddham. While waiting for the manager to arrive, he overheard a conversation between two pundits. The subject was Vijay’s victory.
“Three votes in my family went to waste,” said one.
“Waste? How?”
“My daughter was dead set on us voting for the TVK. We agreed just to please her, not really taking it to heart. But the grandchildren? They weren’t having it. They took things to a bizarre level, practically cornering us and demanding we swear an oath on the Lord of Thiruvallikkeni just to prove our faithfulness.”
I asked my friend whether the influence of this nature was widespread. “It’s just a tip of the iceberg,” he said. “For many children in Tamil Nadu, Vijay was not just an actor or a politician but ‘Vijay Mama.’ They therefore felt they had the right to ask the voters in their families to support Vijay, just as they had the right to ask them to buy chocolate for them. Supporting him thus became a kind of moral obligation to the family.”
It looks as though some kind of reverse socialization was at work here. Traditionally, political socialization is top-down – parents passing their beliefs to children. The reverse seems to have been the case here.
It was also a case of emotional persuasion – families being driven not by rational political thinking but by the fear of disappointing the passionate young members, especially children.
I look forward to seeing how sociologists deconstruct this historical mandate – one that was secured swiftly, efficiently, relatively effortlessly, and through a digital bond that traditional politics simply didn’t see coming.
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