After the death of former Chief Ministers Jayalalithaa and M. Karunanidhi, the political situation in Tamil Nadu offers a national party an opportunity to gain greater space than in the past, according to a section of political observers.
A recent Tamil publication, Desiyamum Dravidamum (Nationalism and Dravidianism), gives an account of the birth and growth of parties, including the Congress, the Justice Party, the DMK and the AIADMK. It also analyses whether national parties will be able to stage a comeback in Tamil Nadu.
Senior journalist Durai Karuna, who has authored the book, feels that making use of the current situation, the BJP leadership, which is more pragmatic than what it was under A.B. Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, is working on a plan to shake the State’s two principal parties: the DMK and the AIADMK. “It is going in a big way to make its presence felt, with the Congress having lost much of its ground in Tamil Nadu and at the all India level,” he explains.
An AIADMK veteran says it is a “smart strategy” on the BJP’s part to project leaders such as L. Murugan and K. Annamalai, who belong to the Scheduled Castes and an intermediary caste (Vellala Gounder) respectively; otherwise, its image of being a “Brahmins’ party” would have stuck. “It remains to be seen how long they [the BJP leadership] are going to persist with this strategy.”
However, there is another section which feels the BJP’s plans will not materialise. A young functionary of the AIADMK says no other party has such an extensive network as the DMK and the AIADMK. “Without such an organisational infrastructure, you cannot become a principal force in Tamil Nadu. The BJP is lagging far behind both of us,” he observes.
A. Gopanna, senior vice-president of the Congress, says that for the last 50 years, national parties have invariably been contesting the elections in the company of either the DMK or the AIADMK. “So, nationalism and Dravidian philosophy are sailing together. Where is the question of one fighting the other? That phase was over long ago,” he points out. The type of nationalism, as represented by the Congress, is deeply rooted in the traditions and values of Tamil Nadu, unlike the BJP’s variant of nationalism.
H. V. Hande, a Minister in the Cabinet of AIADMK founder M.G. Ramachandran, and now in the BJP, asserts, “Given the size of the god-believing and ritual-following population of Tamil Nadu, I would say there is nothing called Dravidian philosophy.” For the last 50 years, politics had been polarised between two leaders — Karunanidhi and MGR initially and Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa later. The key challenge for any party to become a major one in Tamil Nadu lies in communication and connecting itself with people.
