Chennai: Ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up to take at least 1,500 people from Tamil Nadu to Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, also referred to as Kashi by many — for the second edition of the Kashi Tamil Sangamam or KTS 2.0.
KTS 2.0, which “aims to revive the bonds between Varanasi and Tamil Nadu, two important centres of learning and culture in ancient India, via people-to-people connect”, will have the PM in attendance on its launch day in Varanasi Sunday.
The cultural exchange programme aims to build the “Modi factor” in Tamil Nadu, BJP leaders in the state told ThePrint.
“Varanasi is an example of how a city can develop and Tamil Nadu can also become like that when people choose the correct leadership,” said a senior BJP leader.
Unlike the 2022 edition, KTS 2.0 will be a “crisper event”, said a statement released last month by the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), which has been chosen as the implementing agency for the event in the state.
The first trains carrying participants to Varanasi for the event are scheduled to leave Chennai on 15 December and will be flagged off by Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi and Union Minister of State for information and broadcasting, L. Murugan, said M. Nachiappan, BJP’s state president for spiritual and temple development wing.
After the first Kashi Tamil Sangamam in 2022 and Saurashtra Tamil Sangamam in April this year, KTS 2.0 is the third cultural exchange programme to be held under Modi government’s ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ initiative.
“At a time when there is a lot of divisive politics going on in the country in the name of north and south, KTS 2.0 is an initiative to talk about the similarities of different states and how we have unity in our diversity as well. BJP karyakartas are working for KTS 2.0 just like for any other initiative of the government, as it is part of party activities meant to take the central government’s initiatives to the people,” said Nachiappan.
Political analysts feel, however, that the event will ensure little “political gain” for the BJP.
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All about KTS 2.0
KTS 2.0, an eight-day (including travel time) immersive tour, will begin in Varanasi on 17 December — the first day of the holy Tamil month of Margali — and end on 30 December. While IIT-M is the implementing agency in Tamil Nadu, in Uttar Pradesh the event will be executed by IIT (Banaras Hindu University) or IITBHU.
Registrations for KTS 2.0 were opened on 27 November by IIT-M, and till 4 December, 30,000 people from Tamil Nadu were reported to have registered for participation.
“There are seven special trains planned from Tamil Nadu — three from Chennai with the first one starting on 15 December, and two each from Coimbatore and Kanyakumari, starting on 16 December,” said Nachiappan.
The participants will be divided into seven groups of around 200 each. The delegates selected for the programme will include students, teachers, farmers, artisans, traders and businessmen, besides religious figures, writers and professionals, said the organisers.
Participants have been divided into seven groups, each named after a ‘sacred’ river — such as Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Sindhu, Narmada, Godavari and Cauvery.
“KTS 2.0 would have a crisper format with emphasis on awareness generation and outreach, people-to-people connect and cultural immersion. The focus would be on increased engagement and interaction with local counterparts (weavers, artisans, artists, entrepreneurs, writers, etc.) to get insights into best practices, enhance learning and cross-pollination of ideas,” read the IIT-M statement.
During the two-day stay in Varanasi, participants are also scheduled to visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple, Vishalakshi temple, Annapurna temple and Kaal Bhairav temple.
They will also be taken to the house of Tamil poet Subramanian Bharati, on a cruise to view the Ganga aarti and also to the Hanuman Ghat for bathing in the river. The participants are also scheduled to spend a day each in Prayagraj and Ayodhya before returning to Tamil Nadu.
An initiative under the National Education Policy 2020, KTS 2.0 has the ministry of education as the nodal ministry for the programme, with participation from the Archaeological Survey of India, the ministries of culture, railways, including Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, tourism, textiles, food processing, micro, small & medium enterprises, information & broadcasting and the government of Uttar Pradesh.
‘No political impact’
The BJP has been aggressively trying to make inroads into Tamil Nadu since the demise of AIADMK supremo J. Jayalalithaa, but has not had much luck.
While the concept of KTS 2.0 has been appreciated, political analysts in the state believe the party still has a long way to go to win over voters in the state.
“The Kashi Tamil Sangamam is a great concept, but politically this will not bring any gain for the BJP. These are all activities that the BJP can speak about if there is any allegation of Hindi imposition (in the south of India). This will not have any huge political impact,” political analyst Sumanth C. Raman told ThePrint.
Raman’s views were echoed by DMK spokersperson A. Saravanan, who told ThePrint that the BJP was organising the event for political gain, “but they won’t gain anything from this”.
He added: “The BJP is saying that they are doing this for promoting language and culture but the BJP does not do anything without a political angle. They want to project themselves as if they are the gaurdians of Tamil culture. But when you impose Hindi, when you don’t recognise pluralism, doing KTS is just a lip service and will not be accepted by people of Tamil Nadu.”
In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had got only 3.66 per cent votes in Tamil Nadu. The polls saw the AIADMK-BJP alliance facing a major defeat, with the DMK winning 38 of 39 parliamentary constituencies in the state.
In the 2021 Tamil Nadu assembly polls, the BJP managed to win four seats after contesting 20, but had a mere 2.62 per cent vote share.
BJP leaders dismissed KTS 2.0 being billed as “an election campaign” and said the importance given to the initiative was the same as for any other initiative of the BJP.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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