An unintended consequence of the Pawan Kalyan-Karthi tale is that fan wars between Telugu and Tamil movie buffs are only going to get intensified. Karthi's Tuesday tweet apologizing to Pawan Kalyan for his Tirupati Laddu-related remarks amassed more than five million views.
On social media, Telugus are found glorifying Power Star for making a Kollywood actor appear to be caring for Hindu sentiments. The Tamil film industry has been known to be a DMK stronghold; celebrities in Kollywood take pride in "mocking" Hinduism but not other religions. Tamil films question Hindu beliefs on rationalist grounds but not other religious beliefs.
In the future, we could see Pawan Kalyan questioning Thalapathy Vijay's utterances on Hindu interests. The Tamil superstar, after floating a political party recently, has been making ideological moves. It is likely that he will take pro-DMK ideological stances, in which case the Jana Sena could go against him.
Social media-enabled fan wars between Telugus and Tamils have always been there. With time, they are going to acquire an ideological colour.
While Telugu stars don't have much market in Tamil, Tamil stars like Rajinikanth, Suriya, Kamal Haasan and Karthi vie for the Telugu market. So, they can't antagonize Telugus so openly. At the same time, their films will make ideological noises to please the ruling DMK from time to time.
