Veteran actor Kamal Haasan says Makkal Needhi Maiyam, the political movement launched byhim, will not accept a one religion, one language, one attitude, one-kind-of-education approach for the country. In an interview in Chennai, the actor says that he finds polarisation on religious lines reaching levels earlier seen only during Partition. Edited excerpts.
What are Makkal Needhi Maiyam's priorities?
We will present it at Tiruchi [at a public meeting on Wednesday]. The ideology can simply be welfare of the people and honest democratic government. The rest will fall between these two brackets. People are probably looking at plans that we have for them. But if it is about ideologies and that’s the way they choose their party, how have they chosen these two wrong parties [in Tamil Nadu]? Why did you elect them again and again and again?
Everybody can cook up an ideology. Some parties make fantastic books of their manifestos, I can cull from that and create one. What we are trying to find out is what ails Tamil Nadu and sculpt out a tool.
On water while we have been complaining about Karnataka not giving us enough Cauvery water; we are using 60% or more of our groundwater for agriculture [and other] use. If we can tell them [farmers] that they will get water for a fixed period, after which we will shut it down, they will listen.
How do you see the public participating in MNM?
I feel a traction now. The software application that we are building [for participation] is not for the general public. It is for party men to begin with. This whistle-blowing is not about solving the problems, [though] it can get solved sometimes. The purpose is to be aware that so much ails us, and keep reporting it, until it piles up into a responsibility that they can’t ignore any more.
But why do people vote for the two major parties — is it because they see a direct benefit?
I have come to challenge the status quo. At least they must know that the third alternative could be made. For everything. Life cannot end with a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’.
Then there is this question, why would they vote for you? The two [Tamil Nadu] parties have shown their inability to please over time. The happiness quotient is way below. I am leaving the corruption part out. We will have to take that head-on. And we have all been accessories to that crime. By evading, not questioning.
What I feel about TN politics is that the new first-time voters are more educated than the new first-time voters of my time. They are much more educated in politics. That’s why I am saying they must learn more of it. As I am learning belatedly. I should have started doing this 40 years back, so two generations have been lost, including my daughter Shruti. It is going to be 60% of youth, and that will make a dramatic change to the politics of India and definitely Tamil Nadu. You can see that in the jallikattu protests, the upsurge which the government is trying to contain abortively.
For the 2019 poll, there is an effort to have a national alternative...
I am not talking about 2019 alone. I am saying the southern States are very high contributors to the exchequer, and it is high time they got their share and attention from the Centre.
We should have the authority to decide our agriculture and educational policies, we need more autonomy in a federal way.
Will it bring electoral gains?
Absolutely, people have seen suicides because the Centre has been pressuring us in a certain way of education. You get a very stepmotherly treatment. We are not talking of thani Tamil Nadu [secession of Tamil Nadu]. Give us more autonomy.
What do you think of the view that the Prime Minister is running the country, and hence should get all credit?
That might be the personal attitude of a person, but that is not how democracy runs, according to me. If he is a very efficient man, why overload him? Give him space and let him do the job, and take the load off the man and share it. Let us have diverse opinions and still be united as a country.
Makkal Needhi Maiyam will not accept a one religion, one language, one attitude, one-kind-of education approach.
Is there increasing polarisation on religion and identity now?
I think never since 1946-47 have we spoken so much about religion and differences. We stopped [then] out of guilt for what it did to so many lakhs of people who died on the borders of Pakistan and India. And another was a bloody full stop that came in the form of three dots on an old man, done with lead. We came away from the haze and fog of war and hatred. Today the celebration of differences is on steroids.
Unemployment is a major issue. Your views?
Nowhere in Tamil Nadu's history has education, which should be in government hands, gone to private parties, auctioned to the highest bidders. And what could be done by any small entrepreneur is taken over by the government and run as a big business, like TASMAC [running liquor shops]. There are so many engineers now who are jobless. Instead of crying themselves hoarse, they can augment their basic degree with additional skills.
MGR used films for political communication. Do you think that is possible now?
The reason I took up Big Boss is not to make money — I wanted communication. I will again do that if it is useful. Now it cannot be me just singing around the trees or playing to the gallery.
Is the Cauvery Management Board formation delayed by the BJP's political imperatives?
They don’t have stakes in Tamil Nadu and they have stakes in Karnataka. The final award is something that I am disgruntled with. But this is an award and the Supreme Court clearly says there cannot be any more appeals and we should have this Board.
You have said the Sterlite copper unit should be shut. What’s an acceptable form of industrialisation?
We are nitpicking that it does not cause cancer as such, but it might cause lesser diseases! The plant wants to expand from four lakh to eight lakh tonnes. Soon it will become a ghost town. I am not against industries coming up. But why would you take a red zone classification into a populated area?
Realistically, how many constituencies will you be able to contest in an election?
I wouldn’t like to talk, but would like to win gloriously. From the kind of looks and firm handshakes from the people, it makes me believe that it is possible.
Is Rajinikanth an ally or someone on the other side?
You know which direction I am going in, and which I won’t. This machine will not run on rails, it has tyres and a steering and will go where it wants. I don’t know what Mr. Rajini’s ideologies are going to be, except broadly spiritual. Which is ... not unnerving, but makes me apprehensive about where it is going to go. But we don’t know, so let’s see whether they see reason.
