In Tamil Nadu, too, this is a season of rallies though there is no election on the horizon. Even as we are yet to get over the hangover of a rally organized by the women’s wing of a party seeking to eliminate alcohol and narcotics from the country, we are seeing the foundation being laid for the venue for another political rally marking the launch of yet another party. Of course, like the Trump rallies across the US, the conferences at home, too, throw up interesting vignettes. Male participants of the temperance rally sneaking in alcohol, particularly on the day all liquor shops are closed, for consumption amidst the crowd mobilized by women was not only a study in contrast but also an illustration of supreme irony.
In the launch conference of the nascent party that promises great things for the State in future, however, alcohol has been succinctly banned through a decree. While one has to wait for three weeks to know if such diktats actually work in political congregations, from which alcohol has been found to be inseparable in the past, it is pertinent to figure out the importance of political rallies in Tamil Nadu and also find out why they are organized periodically. Historically, rallies have facilitated the propagation of ideas and ideologies among the masses much before the advent of mass media.
Even ancient Rome has seen public rallies like the march on Rome to free the city from tyrants in 88 BCE. Pre-independent India had seen too many such rallies. When General R E H Dyer indiscriminately opened fire with his Indian troops in 1919 at Jallianwala Bagh, the crowd that bore the brunt of the massacre had actually gathered there for a political rally to protest against the Rowlatt Act, among other things.
Chennai has a rich tradition of political rallies. Apart from Robinson Park in Royapuram that entered into the annals of Dravidian history as the founding place of the DMK in 1949, there were many famous venues for political rallies. One was the Seerani Arangam on the Marina beach, which was totally done away with in 2003 through the demolition of the open-air stage on the sands that was built during the DMK’s first tenure on the area that had seen several public gatherings, celebrations and protests since British rule.
When Seerani Arangam was demolished at night, it evoked no perceptible anger. For not many saw a future for the rallies that the place had seen in the past. With mass media taking the message to the drawing rooms of the people, drawing the crowds to the beach was redundant, many might have felt then. Whatever, the rally, particularly the political variety, survived by finding alternative venues in spacious auditoriums and sprawling grounds, all over the State..
But the question is why political rallies are still being held when ideas and ideologies could be conveyed through mass media channels and social media forums that have proliferated in recent years. A survey taken in the US in 1976 in the belief that political speeches made a powerful impact on the listeners found that audience motivations were complex. The strongest of all motivations were of a cognitive-orientation nature with reasons related to the excitement of the event being prominent.
That perhaps explains the huge crowds of men at the anti-liquor conference organized by women on Gandhi Jayanthi Day. Even if the men could not restrain themselves from imbibing the same substance that the women want to abolish, they would still like to be part of the crowd in the event organized by their party. The same reason may bring people in hordes to the coming conference for the maiden public show of the new party, too, with the supporters getting excited over the event itself. But what purpose would it serve the founders, leaders and supporters of the party?
In fact, what purpose did the conference demanding the abolition of alcohol and narcotics serve towards realizing the avowed goal of closing down liquor shops? Well, it was just a show of strength by the organizing party to proclaim to other parties with whom they may strike electoral alliances that they command the following of so many people. Similarly, the new party too wants to tell the people that they can consider voting for them since so many people have thrown their weight behind it.
But judging the election prospects of a party by the crowd its rallies attract could send calculations awry. For there is a bevy of coiffed, flamboyant women attending each of Trump’s rallies since 2016. ‘Those beautiful ladies from North Caroline are here again without their husbands,’ Trump introduced them to the audience at Mosinee in Wisconsin recently. What he was suggesting is anybody’s guess.