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His acerbic wit appealed to an urban, largely Tamil Brahmin middle class, frustrated with
the ills of government.
Cho Ramaswamy, writer, playwright and editor, who died in Chennai on Wednesday morning, started
his political life as a satirist, a relentless critic of power and its misdeeds. His Thuglak, a political
weekly in Tamil, was founded in 1970 – it came into its own in 1975, with its implacable opposition to
the Emergency. Subsequently, Cho remained active in the civil rights movement in the state: he was the
formal President of a campaign against Tamil Nadu’s first so-called encounter death – the murder of
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) activist Sreelan, by the police under MG Ramachandran,
who was chief minister at the time. He also took up cudgels against the attempt by MGR’s government
to rein in journalists by declaring “objectionable and scurrilous writing” a cognisable offence.
Cho’s defence of civil rights, however, was hemmed in by a particular understanding of democracy. For
one, it had more to do with ensuring good governance, rather than supporting rights and liberties. Good
governance often meant corruption-free rule, and not bending in to popular demands. Secondly, Cho’s
democracy came up against his sense of sovereignty – identified, unsurprisingly with the state, rather
than the people. In the 1980s, he fell out with the People’s Union of Civil Liberties over the question of
violence by what we today refer to as “non-state” actors. His resolution which sought to condemn
Naxalite violence, proposed at the National Council meeting of the PUCL, was roundly defeated.
Thirdly, Cho’s democratic sensibility was rather scornful of the demotic. Apart from satirising the
corrupt minister, or the sincere politician who turned authoritarian, Cho reserved his ready wit for the
plebeians, the everyday actors in a democracy: the panchayat-level, taluk-level political actor,
opportunist and fixer. By that token, his acerbic wit appealed to an urban largely Tamil Brahmin middle
class, frustrated with the ills of government, unsure of their place in the public sphere, and uneasy with
the plebeian support enjoyed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Cho’s novel, Koovam Nadi
Karaiyinele (On the Banks of the Cooum River), was rather telling in the manner it identified bad
governance and corruption with the DMK and its constituency. Interestingly, he never failed to include
in his writing the figure of the well-meaning and zealous Brahmin who turns bad, on account of
ambition and greed.