Dravidian Futures

Rajan Kurai Krishnan

Ravindran Sriramachandran

Narratives of degeneration have a peculiar charm. They align themselves to

nostalgia which affectively recovers past as some pure moment of ideological
distillation. Political parties, flagrantly populist in nature, easily succumb to
such narrative tendencies as favorite subjects. Dravidianism today, the
benighted sympathizers as well as detractors lament, has lost its way in the
swamps of realpolitik. Critical thought needs to separate such clichéd narrative
tropes from the analysis of insidious ways in which the workings of global
capital constrain democratic aspirations of every polity.

The half a century rule of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the
AIADMK, as many economists attest, has its comparative development score
card among the Indian states resoundingly favorable. The critics may say it is
just statistics but statistics are indicators. The beneficial yield of development
aided by democratic governance can easily be felt in the field. It is precisely the
reason why there are greater challenges and anxieties. The two major parties,
the DMK and the AIADMK, have remained intense rivals for about forty five
years now. The AIADMK lost its founder leader, MGR thirty years back,
succeeded by an ambiguous (ambitious?) legatee in Jayalalitha, who died last
year leaving the party with no definite leadership claimant. The DMK until last
year has remained under the sway of nonagenarian M.Karunanidhi, who has
been rendered inactive by old age, with his son M.K.Stalin taking over the
leadership. The current moment appears to be a transitional phase to some,
while some others think or even hope that this would end the grip of Dravidian
parties in the state, giving room for newer formations, about the nature of
which, many vague hopes compete.

Even granting that this is only a transitional phase in which the two party lead
electoral democracy in the state will reformulate to allow for the perpetuation
and/or reinvention of the Dravidianist ideals, the challenges that are faced by
both parties are many. The grass root level dynamism has to be revived to
shed the inertia that appears to have engulfed the party structure. The vast
swathe of youthful voters has to be politically inculcated. Of course, a lot
depends on how the last fifty years of Dravidian rule and hundred years of
Dravidian politics is narrated, criticized and internalized in the present.
 The difficulty of evaluating Dravidian parties stems from the unabashed
populism of the politics. This does not sync well with the right based liberal
understanding of politics or with the consciousness driven models of the left.
Populism seems to take too many(much) reactionary baggage of the past
through the filters (sieve) of modernity. Gender and caste inequality appear to
thrive unabated; superstitions, god men, cults and revivalist tendencies
flourish. The political sagacity of demagoguery falls far short of the demands of
social reformation that seeks to realize the ideal of equitable society. Hence it
is easy to understand the spread of commonsensical as well as critical
disenchantment with the processes of electoral democracy which condition
the critical assessment of political parties like the Dravidian parties. However,
if we are to benefit from critical thought, it is necessary to develop a
framework of criticism that dynamically responds to the messy processes of
popular democracy. This does not mean turning a blind eye to whatever
limitations these may have; this only means that we refuse to be blinded by
“commonsensical idealism.”

Before we get on to the specific challenges faced by Dravidian politics and in

order to approach them methodically, we would like to suggest that there are
two rubrics of analysis that may prove more helpful than the aforesaid liberal
or left approaches. One is the theorization of populist reason by Ernesto Laclau
and the other is the invocation of political society in the mapping of the politics
of the governed by Partha Chatterjee.

There are two key features in the operation of populist reason that Laclau has
listed which fit in with the political manifestation of Dravidianism. The first is
the identification of an internal frontier, imagined or real in varying degrees as
it may, which will allow various segments of the polity to come together
against a dominant group. Dravidianism began with the idea of the non-
Brahmin emerging as a historic bloc against the dominant group of Brahmins.
The second (arguably) is the emergence of an empty signifier that will become
sort of a political euphemism for the particular demands of various social
constituencies. It is possible to say that Dravidianism found such a signifier in
i.e. Tamil. The well being and flourishing of Tamil meant the particular demand
of a social constituency would also be taken care of. In a classic demonstration
of the signifier’s continued efficacy, a Dalit party and a party of landowning
caste (castes) could come together to launch a Tamil protection forum (even)
while there are adversarial relationships between them on (the) ground
everywhere.
What we take as a key insight from Partha Chatterjee’s work is the distinction
between rights and entitlements. While the civil society adopts right based
approach, the political society thrives on the notions of entitlements even if
there are constant flows of one into the other in democratic political
processes. There are ever expanding notions of rights. Oftentimes, the notion
of entitlement is spoken of in terms of rights. The key distinction, it appears, is
how the norms of the civil society are unable to address the demands of
entitlement, which opens up a huge vista for political processes that seem to
make a travesty of law abiding citizenship (I think this has to be expanded
Rajan). This closely ties up, if sufficiently stretched, with the alleged
insensitivity of the electorate to charges of corruption and the widespread
charge of distribution of money to the electorate for votes. We will return to
this problem later. A brief recap of the political history of Draivdianism is
necessary before we proceed to analyse such problems in the present and
speculate on possible futures.

The Justice Party, the precursor of Dravidianism, formed the first government
in Madras Presidency under diarchy in 1920. It was at a time when the Indian
National Congress abstained from participation in colonial governance. When
the Congress decided to join governance it came to power with ease in 1937.
Since the electorate was not based on universal adult franchise but was
restricted to the propertied and the educated classes, despite the support of
Periyar E.V.Ramasamy, who had done a widespread mobilization through the
Self Respect Movement, the non-Brahmin Justice Party lost to the Congress,
making C.Rajagopalachari the Premier. Ironically, Rajagopalachari presented
the historical opportunity to invent Tamil as the most powerful signifier when
he imposed learning Hindi in schools. This since then, as M.S.S.Pandian
suggests, i.e. Brahmin – Hindi – North India became transitive categories in the
political common sense (of the Tamil speaking region).

While this is the well known pre-history of the movement, what actually laid
the foundation of sustained Dravidian rule was the eighteen year sprint to
power of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam founded in 1949 by C.N.Annadurai,
who was the lieutenant of Periyar (Periyar’s lieutenant) in the Dravidar
Kazhagam formed in 1944. When formed in 1949, the DMK was a party lead by
young people with youthful idealism which was not backed by the rich and the
elite (with no backing from any propertied or elite class). The party
painstakingly built an organization from the grass root network of the parent
body, Dravidar Kazhagam, which was decidedly against electoral participation.
The DMK used print journalism, political oration, drama and cinema as means
of forging a powerful rhetoric in service of the discourse of Dravidian and Tamil
difference and liberation. C.N.Annadurai and M.Karunanidhi excelled in
alliterative and rhyming prose that rendered Tamil as specific marker of
political awareness. They used it in print, in speeches, in drama and cinema
dialogues to create a web of political signification in which the message of
democratic self rule and egalitarianism was relentlessly propagated marking
the Congress as the party of the outmoded feudal values and the rich. The
DMK overtook the communists and the Congress as the party of the masses
whose political aspirations came to be marshaled into Dravidianism and Tamil
identity. The political success of the DMK owed itself to the ability to reach out
to illiterate masses and the subaltern political energy through the deployment
of its political rhetoric and imaginary in the emergent media.

The film industry in the state gained immensely from this political connection.
The Congress and anti colonial nationalism had seeped into popular theater
and cinema early on, as documented by Theodar Bhaskaran. The DMK widened
the scope of the fictional narrative encryption of historical narrative which
appealed to the masses and captured their imagination. As a result several
actors who played key roles as champions of underdogs in films also became
lead campaigners of the party, gradually synchronizing their roles on and off
screen. M.G.Ramachandran was particularly successful in the effort through
meticulous cultivation of his public image and the film narratives, as
documented by M.S.S.Pandian in his work suitably (aptly? fittingly?) titled
“Image Trap”. When C.N.Annadurai died soon after coming to power in 1967,
MGR who had by then garnered immense popularity through his association
with the DMK and the film narratives that intoned its politics, developed a rift
with M.Karunanidhi and with due external abetment, split the party to form
the AIADMK. If the Congress had hoped that this would weaken the
Dravidianist politics, it was soon belied as the two regional parties vying with
each other pushed the Congress and other political aspirants to the margins.
Since then, the Congress, the Communists and all other parties and outfits
have mostly had to align with either of the two Dravidian parties to have
political representation in the state and the center.

It will be useful to think in terms of three key dimensions in which the parties
can be evaluated. One is the adherence to the core constituent elements of
political ideology; the second is the quality of governance; the third is the
social function of the party organization. It will be appropriate to begin with
the third which is often ignored in such analyses.
The two parties have the most elaborate organizational network covering the
entire state nurtured and strengthened in the last five decades which is hard to
be matched (hard to match) by any aspiring formation. They function as the
(a) federation of interest groups, castes and professions at every level. Since
they have alternated regularly in power, their capacity to mediate between the
people and the structures of governance is considerable. As is well known,
they can also mediate between contending parties over many a disputes
(dispute) since seeking legal resolution would often be time consuming and
costly. The uses of political connections are many; hence, political parties
provide a career opportunity if one has the skills to secure a firm link in the
party structure.

The fierce competition and rivalry between the party formations to secure
positions of power has lead to different political outcomes. While on the one
hand there is a premium on rendering services to different sections of the
polity in order to secure votes, on the other hand electoral concerns also yield
to majoritarian and utilitarian calculus that cultivates indifference towards the
vulnerable sections of the society. As the real downside of the competitive
politics, the political actors have often succumbed to greed for the spoils of
power. Furthermore, elections become end all of all democratic concerns,
freezing a power status quo in the interregnum between the elections. This
necessitates alternating the ruling party to keep equilibrium of power in
various sites and contexts. The increase in capital inflow and economic activity
has increased the stakes in garnering power and perpetuation of political
strongholds. With all these, the parties have sunk deep into the social fabric in
their competing power dynamics. It is possible that such ground level
networking may sustain the two parties irrespective of changes in leadership.

When it comes to governance, each of the two parties claim all credits while
discrediting the other party of an array of failures. It is a political task to
evaluate the parties to determine which one has fared better in terms of
governance. The leading role played the DMK in various governmental
initiatives set the model for the AIADMK to emulate and improvise.
Karunanidhi has been widely credited for his skilful governance and democratic
disposition in responding to criticism and providing easy access to media. MGR
and Jayalalitha are also credited for their characteristic styles of governance by
their followers and admirers. Largely, governance has been characterized by
welfare initiatives, keenness to implement the reservations, sharing of power
among caste groups and the developmental thrusts that are mandatory.
However, on the flipside the government has come to depend on income from
selling alcohol which is a state monopoly. In the recent decades the
possibilities of enhancing the standard of living of the most of the working
class is hugely compromised (plagued?) by rampant alcoholism. The DMK
promised total prohibition in its electoral manifesto in 2016. It is a matter of
speculation whether this had a role in its defeat by thin margins in many
constituencies.

What is crucial for the sustenance of the parties is obviously their adherence to
core ideological values. The non-Brahmin tenet has egalitarianism in its core;
the caste hierarchy itself was sought to be identified with Brahmin hegemony.
In the last twenty five years, the political mobilization and assertion of Dalits
has (justifiably?) lead to a widespread criticism of the alleged failure of the
(this) egalitarian thrust. While the political processes set in motion by electoral
democracy does not allow the political parties to exclude Dalits totally, the
persistence of discrimination and social exclusion particularly in the
developmental processes has created certain alienation of more articulate
Dalit sections from the two Dravidian parties. The Brahmin apologists
conveniently located in media and academic institutions are keen to
appropriate the legitimate criticism of Dalits to discredit Dravidian politics tout
court. The most prominent Dalit political party, Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi
(VCK), and its sagacious leader Thol. Thirumavalavan, appear to understand the
situation with sufficient nuance. However, the very credo of Non-Brahmin
movement depending on egalitarian anti caste principles, the Dalit criticism
has exposed a certain fault line in the way the political parties have failed to
materialize their goals. The parties need to prioritize integration of Dalit
sections through social transformation if they are to take forward the
ideological thrust of creating egalitarian, non-hierarchical society. It should be
acknowledged that several measures were initiated to support inter caste
marriages. However, it needs to be seen that they don’t ossify into state
initiatives but remain as vibrant political initiatives.

Allied to the question of caste inequality is the question of economic disparity.

The political parties do not appear to be sufficiently geared to meet the
challenges posed by capitalist thrusts through foreign direct investment. The
ecological disturbances caused by industrial development affecting the lives of
the masses are not sufficiently addressed. There is a tendency witnessed in
Jallikattu protests and the recent struggle against the Sterlite Copper Smelting
factory operated by the multi-national corporation Vedanta to distance the
two major political parties or even any political party aligned with them. The
protestors repeatedly proclaim their non-affiliation to political parties. It is a
question whether the political parties have come to be seen as “establishment
friendly”, not capable of distancing themselves from the imperatives of
governance. If such is the case, it needs to be seen how the parties are going
revitalize their organizations to become responsive to people’s concerns.

Finally, the most crucial question of the political value of Dravidian and Tamil
difference comes to the fore. It is fundamentally aligned to the question of
state autonomy and the nature of federalism in the country. The DMK to its
credit had been in the forefront of several initiatives to redefine the federal
structure with more power to the states. In fact, it was only in the mid sixties
the party officially dropped its long term goal of sovereign Dravidian-Tamil
State following the charges of “separatism”. It coined the slogan “Self Rule in
the State; Federal Governance at the Center”. The emergence of ADMK, which
took the appellate “All India” to become AIADMK during the national
emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, perhaps resulted in certain set back in
pursuing such goals. If the AIADMK of MGR aligned with Indira Gandhi in 1977
general elections after emergency, the AIADMK lead by Jayalalitha supported
the Kar Seva by sending bricks to Ayodhya in 1989. These instances clearly
indicate how the rivalry between the two parties has possibly compromised
the political will for achieving substantial state autonomy. An issue of far
greater ramification is the alleged failure of the Dravidian parties to determine
and steer the Union government’s approach to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka,
where the Sinhala majoritarian state could unleash genocidal violence to
suppress Tamil militancy which itself was caused by political discrimination.
Jayalalitha did not fail to take advantage of the political fallout of the
assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by Srilankan Tamil militants, consisting of political
manoeuvres to isolate the DMK resulting in the collapse of the United Front
government of which the DMK was a constituent. Even in emotive and
substantial issues like the Kavery water dispute with the neighbouring
Karnataka, the two Dravidian parties find it hard to come together, while in
Karnataka even the Congress and the BJP easily come together to defend their
claims. It would be necessary for the parties to evolve into a more nuanced
agonistic relationship from the bitter antagonism that characterizes the
exchanges now. It is no secret that the despotic personality of Jayalalitha had
much to do with the deterioration of political culture in the state. There can be
no doubt that this needs to be urgently corrected if the two parties and their
allies are to gain some respectability among the voters.

It is the primacy of electoral politics marked by rivalry that leaves no stone

unturned in the quest to garner power, the reason for the erosion of the
credibility of political parties. When all politics get reduced to electoral
considerations, it is hard to make voters take ideological considerations
seriously. The Draividian parties need to reorient their politics to sustain their
hold on the electorate and achieve the original political aspirations.