Caste and Cultural Icons

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may be an insignificant entity in the electoral arena of Tamil Nadu as the party won only one seat in the 2014 parliamentary elections. However, its efforts to expand its support base in the state where ideologically hostile political dispensations have near hegemonic presence demand a thorough scrutiny. BJP’s endeavours to expand by vernacularizing itself are arguably met with resistance, yet the party’s desperation to project itself as a Tamilized Hindutva party must be dissected. While tracing the genealogy of the BJP’s electoral performance and its modus operandi to expand its support base, this chapter elaborates a two-way process of ‘vernacularization’ and ‘pan-Indianization’.