ABSTRACT
Introductory Note: The following paper, based on research I conducted in
Tamil Nadu in 1969-70, was published in 1973,1 in the wake of the split in
the DMK that led to the creation of the All-India Anna DMK (AIADMK).
In the years since, the two parties have remained the major political forces
in the state, the DMK under the continued leadership of M. Karunanidhi;
while, on the death of M. G. Ramachandran (MGR), the leadership of the
AIADMK passed to Jayalalitha, who was, when I interviewed her in 1969,
a young starlet in M.G.R.’s film galaxy. For an extended version of this paper see ‘When Stars Displace the Gods: The Folk Culture of Cinema in
Tamil Nadu,’ in my Essays in the Political Sociology of South India (1979,
