The solar in Valaipatti is sharp. Males in white vesti and girls in shiny saris collect in a free circle on the dusty highway. The drums sound. A number of boys dance unscheduled. Within the middle stands physician, politician and ‘our man’ C. Vijayabaskar. “When you come to this facet, it is sunny,” he calls out to the shade of the banyan tree. “Are you doing nicely below the leaves now?” he asks. The group applauds. It’s not a response however an acknowledgment of the ‘leaves’ (AIADMK’s Two Leaves image) and the bond slowly cast through the years.
He evokes the soil, Valaipatti, as “the soil with which we now have at all times been in love…the soil through which we now have entrusted our lives.” He evokes the emotional terrain of lineage, his father’s Chinnathambi Iyer, and loyalty extra broadly. That is the “Fortress of MG Ramachandran and J Jayalalithaa”.
In Tamil Nadu politics, such calls are extra than simply nostalgia. They’re claims of continuity. And Vijayabhaskar, 51, has constructed a profession on exactly that continuity, closeness and virtually studied ordinariness.
He has received 3 times from Virarimalai in 2011, 2016 and 2021 and is at the moment searching for a fourth time period. He was additionally one of many AIADMK ministers who got here below intense scrutiny after Jayalalithaa’s demise, dealing with revenue tax raids on suspicion of illicit belongings. However even his opponents acknowledge that it has change into one thing of a cliché within the district. That’s, he might win even when his social gathering misplaced. “It is a fixed journey with individuals,” he stated as he rode in his SUV on his option to go to the city secretary, who had gone into cardiac arrest an hour earlier. “Actually being with them. No matter they like, I like. No matter I like, individuals like.” He paused. “I like jallikattu, they prefer it too. I like kabaddi, individuals like kabaddi too. I like cricket as all of them like cricket. I like them, they like me.”
It might sound easy, however the phrases he speaks are imbued with a sure type of philosophy. “Look, I feel it is vital to be only a regular particular person.” In a state the place politics usually oscillates between charisma and calculation, Vijayabhaskar presents himself as one thing else: a practitioner of presence. He speaks of late nights, of biking across the village, of attending “all of the features,” of being often called a behavior moderately than an thought. “There isn’t any deliberate technique or social media crew. We have to handle individuals, not media,” he says.
When requested why individuals ought to vote for him, he seems to infrastructure moderately than emotion. “It is for growth,” he says, and begins making a listing with the precision of somebody who takes this stock usually. “This bypass highway we’re operating on is one thing I introduced. I additionally introduced a medical faculty in Pudukkottai. A second dental faculty as nicely, a authorities agriculture faculty and an IT faculty. There are bus stops in each city panchayat. All main faculties and excessive faculties have been upgraded. Fundamental services are in place.”
Then, virtually in abstract, “I’ve introduced in a Cauvery consuming scheme value Rs 700 crore for all the district. Folks learn about it.”
Improvement will not be an abstraction, however an accumulation of seen interventions. It is usually a product of political and private relationships, he suggests. “If the Minister of Livestock was my pal, I’d construct a veterinary hospital right here. If the Minister of Highways was my pal, I must get 4 bridges from him,” he says. “Use every part from the energy of your social gathering to your private friendships to profit your district.”
He believes that is what makes politicians extra sturdy. “My first precedence is to satisfy all their wants.” He explains that in locations like Viralimalai, close to Pudukkottai, wants begin early within the day and barely finish. “The day begins with an issue, a request, a grievance,” he says. It is a donation for a shrine competition. Request for medical help. A younger athlete in search of help. The physician returns right here. “I’ve a whole lot of associates who’re medical doctors, so I am going to do the primary go to for them,” he says. “If there isn’t a cash in any respect, I’ll get them admitted to the appropriate place…to get the perfect remedy.”
Mr. Vijayabaskar says that politics is a collection of small interventions, a series of reactions that over time builds a repute for availability moderately than ideology.
Welfare applications are solely efficient if they are often monitored, he says. “Your job does not finish once you announce and roll out a plan,” he says. “There’s at all times the opportunity of a leak, so we now have to keep watch over it. That is the large problem.” It is a technocratic reply, virtually administrative in tone, nevertheless it displays the last decade he spent as well being minister below Jayalalithaa and Edappadi Okay. Pakraniswami, which he claims reshaped the state’s well being infrastructure.
“Over the past 5 years of DMK, there was not a single medical faculty within the state. I’ve attracted three medical schools on this Pudukottai area alone,” he says. “Tamil Nadu at the moment has the very best variety of medical schools in India.”
But, the shadow of 2016 and Jayalalithaa’s demise nonetheless lingers. For a lot of within the AIADMK, this meant not only a political break, however a private one. “Madam’s demise is a superb loss,” he says. “If Madame had lived, there would have been no division inside the social gathering… She gave me the chance to contest on the age of 26.”
“She solemnized my marriage ceremony. Each of my daughters had been named after her. It is a loss for the household.”
In that loss lies the query of succession, the query of vacuum and, inevitably, the query of latest entrants like Vijay. Vijayabhaskar’s evaluation right here is cautious however agency.
“I am not denying that folks have an affinity for films,” he says. “Nevertheless it’s troublesome to translate that into politics and maintain it.” Then, in a metaphor that weaves generational variations into political continuity, he says, “I like Ilayaraja’s songs. My daughter likes Anirudh Ravichander’s songs. However we each vote for ‘Two Leaves.’ I like rice and my daughter likes pasta. However we each vote for ‘Two Leaves.'”
For him, films could form the creativeness, however politics, he argues, is one thing slower, extra ingrained, virtually natural. “No person can develop at rocket velocity; it is like a plant rising,” he says. He did not utterly dismiss Vijay, saying, “I would say he isn’t a recreation changer, he is a recreation spoiler.” As unfavorable as that will sound, it’s also revealing. For Vijayabhaskar, politics will not be an occasion however a situation, one thing that should be lived repeatedly within the public sphere.
“Events like AIADMK are in all places,” he says. “The AIADMK flag can even be hoisted within the village throughout the filth highway.” Outdoors, greater than a dozen ladies of assorted ages stand on the roadside of the quiet village. The automobile slows down. He raises his hand and waves, however they are not there for that. they wish to discuss. he stops. He addresses them one after the other, calling them by identify. he listens. he solutions. There isn’t any hurry for him. The solar is troublesome. That is how he works. Not as an thought imposed on individuals, however as somebody who lives amongst individuals, is formed by them, and may reply to them. Or, as he places it, plain and easy: “I like them, they like me.”
