It’s been 16 years since Rajinkanth quit smoking on screen, or so it was until the release of the Nelson Dileepkumar directorial Jailer. But it still remains impossible to separate the famed cigarette toss from the Superstar’s on-screen swagger — so completely is it etched in our memories. Rajini eventually went on to quit smoking, citing his health and crediting his wife Latha Rajinikanth for helping him make the choice. The history of how the state’s politics and the dropping of his famed cigarette flips mutually influenced each other is, however, a tumultuous one.
Rajinikanth debuted in director K Balachander’s Apoorva Raagangal in 1975. His very next Tamil film, Moondru Mudichu, released the following year, would introduce him on a terrace, sneering at his co-star Kamal Haasan before tossing a lit cigarette to his lips with languid ease. This was the pre-superstar Rajini, still playing the villain or the morally grey character. He would retain his cigarette trick for decades to come, even in his superstar years, before entirely stopping in 2005 with Chandramukhi.
Somewhere along the 30 odd years between Moondru Mudichu and Chandramukhi, Rajini’s cigarette toss alone developed a sub-cult. Even now, there are YouTube videos dedicated exclusively to such scenes. The period also witnessed an important political development during the release of Baba (2002). The devotional film was preceded by a furore over posters of Rajini smoking. The backlash was primarily from the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), a Vanniyar-majority (an intermediate caste) regional party in Tamil Nadu currently allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. Theatres were attacked and fans clashed with party supporters. Several fans were even wounded, particularly in Madurai, enraging the Superstar who went on to threaten legal action on behalf of his fan base.
The film, which was ultimately a resounding flop, released under immense pressure and threats. It was released with no changes to the smoking scenes, triggering a feud between Rajini and the PMK. Two years later, when the star gave an interview to the Tamil magazine Kumudam, he said that it had been the intervention of late chief minister M Karunanidhi that had led to the feud ending peacefully. “Kalaignar [Karunanidhi] has helped a lot in this issue. The clash between me and [PMK founder] Ramadoss could have taken a different turn. During and after the [general] elections, if it has been peaceful on both sides, it is because of Kalaignar. Both I and Dr Ramadoss should thank him for that.”
The clash with the fans of an actor of Rajini’s stature brought the PMK headlines. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, the party won all five constituencies it contested from.
When the Superstar returned to the screens with Chandramukhi, it was a CGI chewing gum that he tossed into his mouth instead of a cigarette. Since then, it was only director Karthik Subbaraj’s Petta (2019) that has featured Rajini’s trademark cigarette flip, but with a statutory warning condemning smoking by the actor himself. In the Petta scene, the primary antagonist played by Vijay Sethupathi (fondly called VJS) asks for a cigarette after being taken captive by Rajini. The Superstar lights the cigarette in his trademarked style and hands it to VJS, but not before saying, “This is not good for you. I’m telling you from my experience”.
Interestingly, Jailer seems to have changed that line of thinking. In a crucial scene, Rajini does the flip, with a fat cigar no less, and fans hollered and cheered in theatres. So far, it appears that there has been no political backlash for this scene.
However, a few months ago, actor Vijay came under fire when promotional material for his upcoming, much-awaited Leo, directed by Lokesh Kannagaraj, was released. A police complaint was lodged against the actor alleging that the now popular single “Naa Ready” sung and danced to by Vijay himself, promotes rowdyism and smoking.
This is not the first time the actor has taken the heat for smoking scenes in his films. Earlier, in 2018, ahead of the release of Sarkar, posters showed the star with a cigarette, inviting the ire of the PMK.
The Hindu reports that at the time, Ramadoss said, “There is nothing worse than planting poisonous seeds in the minds of young people. Cinema can be used to create a positive impression amongst the people and a negative impression. How is it good to show an actor smoking a cigarette?” Ramadoss also pointed to how Rajini had stopped smoking on screen after taking into consideration the PMK’s earlier opposition to smoking scenes.
Similarly, Dhanush too was criticised by the PMK for smoking scenes in Maari (2015). However, neither Vijay nor Dhanush appear to be heeding the criticism.
As for Rajini, senior journalist Thillai observed, “Rajini is a director’s actor. He is willing to do what the director asks of him, that’s all. That’s possibly what happened with Jailer as well.” With regard to the PMK’s demands against smoking scenes in Tamil films, Thillai recalls that the party has held a sustained opposition to tobacco use over the years. When Anbumani Ramadoss, the son of the party founder, was the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare in 2004, he brought in several stringent regulations against tobacco use. “On the one hand, it is a social cause. On the other, it may also be that the PMK needed a political issue to mobilise support for itself, and this issue of stars smoking in films presented itself,” Thillai said.
Rajini is an important component of the history of larger-than-life Kollywood stars smoking to project swagger. The Superstar was preceded only by MGR in attracting a massive fan base. MGR, with close ties to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) during his rise as an actor, was cautious of how he presented himself on screen. His characters, after all, mouthed the DMK’s ideals of the time, so they were hardly seen smoking or drinking.
MGR’s biographer R Kannan recalled that so cautious was MGR about his image-making, that scenes that would show his character smoking would always be due to a plot twist such as separated twins (with MGR in a double role) or because they were under disguise. Rajini’s biographer Namma Ramachandran, on the other hand, noted that Rajini came to represent in many ways an antithesis to, or at least a dramatic shift from, MGR.
It must also be noted that while the PMK’s opposition to smoking scenes may be viewed as commendable, the party’s stance on caste violence against Dalit communities continues to be a pressing concern. It won a lone Parliamentary constituency in Dharmapuri district – now its electoral stronghold – in 2014 off the back of claims about ‘naadaga kaadhal’ (drama love). This bogeyman of ‘naadaga kaadhal’, as spurious a claim as ‘love jihad’, was directed at Dalit men and against inter-caste marriages. Ramadoss fearmongered against young Dalit men, claiming that they were enticing upper-caste women by wearing fashionable outfits like “jeans and sunglasses”. If one is interested in how far political rhetoric, cinema, and social beliefs can intermingle, one only needs to note that ‘naadaga kaadhal’ has made its way into Vanniyar caste pride films like director Mohan G’s Draupadi (2020).