Decode Politics: Behind Kashi Tamil Sangamam, BJP’s game plan for the long run

For this year’s event, the first batch of the Tamil delegation comprising a group of students from Tamil Nadu reached Varanasi on Sunday to attend the 15-day Sangamam. Six more groups comprising teachers, professionals, spiritual leaders, farmers and artisans, writers, traders, and businessmen are also scheduled to arrive in the city.

Why is the event crucial for the BJP?

The BJP was born of a political movement with a relatively short history and lacks visible philosophical links with stalwarts of significant social movements in the South. But keen to claim an organic affinity with all of India, there have been several initiatives to build familiarity with the cultural icons from the region.

Taking a cue from the RSS, the BJP leadership has evoked many icons from the South while it attempts to find its foot in the region. BJP leaders claimed the Sangamam last year found resonance with Hindus in Tamil Nadu. While the event is an initiative from the government for national integration, party leaders admitted that it was also an attempt to build a bridge between the party and the electorate in Tamil Nadu. “It is all about getting familiar with various sections of the society and allaying the misunderstanding about the ideology of the BJP,” said a leader.

Are there similar initiatives?

The Centre also held a Saurashtra Tamil Sangamam in April in a bid to “bridge” the North-South gap. According to educationist Chamu Krishna Shastry, chairman of the Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti under the Ministry of Education, there are over 12 lakh people with roots in Saurashtra, spread over 12 districts of Tamil Nadu, particularly Madurai, Kumbakonam and Salem. “The BJP’s calculation is the lingering attachment of this section to what they left behind in Gujarat several hundred years or so,” he added.

There has also been talk of the government considering a Tamil Ayodhya Sangamam since there is a town in the state called Ayodhyapattanam, corresponding to Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, the birthplace of Lord Rama.

In the past, the BJP has made efforts to appropriate cultural and political icons in Tamil Nadu. While Modi often evoked revolutionary Tamil poet Subramaniya Bharathiyar — in 2021, he announced the Bharathiyar chair at the Banaras Hindu University — the BJP after coming to power nationally in 2014 made attempts to appropriate even Congress stalwart K Kamaraj, the former Tamil Nadu CM. The state unit of the BJP has also observed the anniversaries of freedom fighters Muthuramalinga Thevar, V O Chidambaram, and Alagumuthu Kone.

What has the Opposition said?

Last year, Modi emphasised there was no political motive behind the Kashi Tamil Sangamam. But the CPI (M), the ally of Tamil Nadu’s ruling party DMK, urged the state government to stop the event and accused the PM of holding it to “induct college students into the RSS”.

Though the DMK and the AIADMK have officially refrained from commenting on the matter, the DMK’s IT wing last year linked the event to the issue of “Hindi imposition” and alleged that through the event the BJP government was trying to “spread Hindi and saffron thinking”.