Explained: This article explains the political background, key decisions, and possible outcomes related to Explained : When the silver screen becomes a battleground and Its Impact and why it matters right now.
“Parasakthi taught people to listen differently,” said Salem Dharanidharan, national spokesperson of DMK, recalling how cinema became the Dravidian movement’s classroom. In 1967, when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam captured power, the ideological groundwork had already been laid not in pamphlets or speeches but in cinema halls across the state, where voters had been emotionally prepared long before they were politically mobilised.
Seventy years later, the new Parasakthi draws directly from the anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s, especially 1965, when Tamil Nadu erupted against what was perceived as cultural and linguistic domination by the Centre. That agitation, more than any manifesto, cemented the emotional foundations of Dravidian federalism. Language became resistance.
This history is not archival. It lives in family stories, in school lessons, in political memory that resurfaces whenever linguistic uniformity is pushed from Delhi.
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The release dates sparked speculation of a proxy on-screen political battle between actor-politician Vijay and the ruling DMK: Jana Nayagan on 9 January and Parasakthi on 10 January. Even before audiences saw a single frame, the clash was framed as symbolic. Social media amplified it. Political camps interpreted it.
Then, Jana Nayagan was postponed. The delay only sharpened the political reading. In Tamil Nadu, timing is never accidental. Release dates, festival slots and first shows have long been instruments of political signalling.
Parasakthi is distributed by Red Giant Movies, now owned by Inban Udhayanidhi who succeeded his father, deputy chief minister Udhayanidhi Stalin. Inban is also the grandson of chief minister M.K. Stalin and the great-grandson of Karunanidhi, the original Parasakthi’s scriptwriter and the Dravidian movement’s most effective communicator. This lineage matters deeply in Tamil politics.
The 1952 Parasakthi was Sivaji Ganesan’s debut and Karunanidhi’s ideological breakthrough, establishing cinema as the Dravidian movement’s most potent instrument of mass persuasion.