<\/p>\n
And now comes Vijay.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through films like\u00a0Mersal\u00a0and\u00a0Sarkar, Vijay cultivated the image of a crusader against corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice\u2014a familiar cinematic pathway into politics in Tamil Nadu. His political arrival has electrified his massive fan base, which is youthful, digitally connected, and emotionally invested in his rise.\u00a0The excitement surrounding his entry\u00a0shows that the ancient alliance between cinema and politics in South India is far from over.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To outsiders, this fascination may appear irrational. Why should acting ability qualify someone to govern a state?\u00a0But that question misunderstands the emotional grammar of South Indian politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Voters are not merely choosing administrators. They are choosing symbols\u2014protectors, embodiments of regional pride, and familiar faces who have inhabited their imaginations for decades. In societies where politics often appears cynical, corrupt, and emotionally distant, the cinematic hero offers reassurance, familiarity, and hope.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The actor first enters people\u2019s lives as a saviour on screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, one day, he steps off the screen and asks for votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And millions\u2014already emotionally prepared by years of devotion in darkened cinema halls\u2014hand them over willingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
(The author is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Explorers Club USA, and Editor of \u2018Indian Mountaineer\u2019. He is also the founder of Bharatiya Yuva Shakti, an organisation that ensures good leadership at the village level. He tweets @AkhilBakshi1. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed above are the author\u2019s own.\u00a0The Quint<\/strong>\u00a0neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.thequint.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" And now comes Vijay.\u00a0 Through films like\u00a0Mersal\u00a0and\u00a0Sarkar, Vijay cultivated the image of a crusader against corruption, inefficiency, and social injustice\u2014a familiar cinematic pathway into politics in Tamil Nadu. His political arrival has electrified his massive fan base, which is youthful, digitally connected, and emotionally invested in his rise.\u00a0The excitement surrounding his entry\u00a0shows that the ancient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2411647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[471768,469140,467517,469427,471766,471765,471562,468922,382271,471767,471769],"class_list":["post-2411646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-actor-politicians","tag-karunanidhi","tag-mgr","tag-ntr","tag-south-india-politics","tag-south-indian-films","tag-tamil-nadu","tag-tvk","tag-vijay","tag-vijay-cm","tag-vijay-tamil-nadu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Vijay-Sworn-in-As-Tamil-Nadu-CM-South-India-Continues.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411646"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2411648,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411646\/revisions\/2411648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2411647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}