Why Stalin is better than Karunanidhi for DMK

The inheritor can lead the party from dynasty to democracy

By naming MK Stalin the deputy chief minister of Tamil Nadu on Friday, his father and chief minister M Karunanidhi has surprised none. It was a promotion long pending, a logical progression towards the ultimate coronation.
Karunanidhi cannot dodge accusations of promoting dynastic politics, but none can dispute that Stalin deserves the rise. After the aborted bid to propel his son MK Muthu into the high-orbit of politics, Karunanidhi’s perseverance with Stalin has yielded ground results.
From campaigning for the 1967 elections as a 14-year-old to remaining in the Dravidian political limelight during the dark days of Emergency, Stalin has enough roots to withstand the winds of anti-dynasty flak. Stalin, now 56, has been a slow learner alright, but he did learn, to be what he is today. Even after becoming the Mayor of Chennai and a legislator, Stalin remained in the shadows of his father, not interacting much with the media.
Assigned the managerial post of the DMK campaign, the 2001 assembly elections was the litmus test for Stalin. And he failed. Not that it affected the chances of his ascension, but the father wanted Stalin to prove his mettle before taking over the mantle. Stalin was made the deputy general secretary in 2003. Probably he started showing results after that. From revitalising party units across the state, even while filling them with his loyal men, to the dazzling show of the DMK in the recent general elections, Stalin can claim much credit and eligibility to fill his father’s shoes.
Karunanidhi’s retirement will no doubt be an emotional episode in the Dravidian mega serial, but a dispassionate, clinical analysis shows that Stalin would make a better leader for the party. Here is how: Right now, Karunanidhi is under tremendous pressure from different members of his extended family. While apportioning the power pie between the warring Dayanidhi Maran and Azhagiri, the octogenarian is also answerable to Rajathi Ammal when she asks how the patriarch could ignore her daughter Kanimozhi.
On another side, Karunanidhi has to keep his daughter Selvi, who is married to Murasoli Maran’s brother, by keeping the interests of the Marans fulfilled.
Stalin need not yield to such pressure groups within the family. By virtue of being an inheritor and not the patriarch, Stalin will have to only keep the family members happy, not bend over backwards to accommodate their whims and fancies. This would augur well for a party, which still preserves some remnants of its cadre-based past. As more voices within the party units will resonate over the cacophony of warring family members, party cadres may redefine and rediscover the purpose of their toil. In other words, the DMK will become more party-centric and less family-centric. That it takes an inheritor to lead the DMK from dynasty to democracy is a case of classic irony.

Karunanidhi pulls a fast one

As Tigers face extermination, Dravidian leaders roar for votes

When Muthuvel Karunanidhi went on a surprise fast this morning on the Tamil Eelam issue, some thought he was a bit too late, considering that his bete noire and AIADMK prima donna J Jayalalithaa had already gone on a fast more than a month-and-a-half ago on the same. When he called off the fast before lunch hour and after "assurances" from Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh, things got clearer: Tamil Eelam issue has become an election issue in Tamil Nadu.

And this should be a specimen of study for journalists, political observers and just anybody desperately trying to make sense of the political cauldron called Tamil Nadu. For, this is a classical case of politicians competing to assemble, if not invent, an emotional election issue in the absence of one. This beats the conventional design of campaign rhetoric that is catalysed around an already existing public mood.

But for the sporadic spurts from Vaiko, Nedumaran, Thirumavalavan and S Ramadoss, Tamil Eelam has more than less remained a subdued issue till Jayalalithaa went on a fast on March 10. It was easy to presume that Jayalalithaa had heeded to some bad advice. That presumption still appears valid, but the fast did stun Karunanidhi and, for the first time, triggered serious discussions if Eelam would be an election issue.

Karunanidhi waited an uneasy wait and, as the war in Sri Lanka reached a crescendo, took the plunge on April 19, saying Prabhakaran is his friend and that the LTTE leader is not a terrorist. As his ally Congress made its distaste clear, Karunanidhi tried to eat his words the very next day, but kept chewing on his options as Sri Lanka refused to entertain India’s and international communities’ call for a ceasefire.

Then came Jayalalithaa's bombshell last Saturday: Eelam is the only solution to the Sri Lankan problem. Amidst reports of Prabhakaran planning to escape by a submarine, as Sri Lanka prepared for the final assault on the 12 sq km coastal strip where the LTTE’s left-over fighters and a debatable number of civilians were confined to, an MDMK functionary forwarded a text message (with a request to “forward it to everyone… since u r going to SAVE A LIFE thru sms). The message that made the rounds late on Sunday (April 26) said that the Sri Lankan president has ordered the army to use chemical weapons to destroy LTTE and it would cost some 15,000 Tamilians' lives. At 6 o’clock the next morning, Karunanidhi was wheeled to the Anna Samadhi by the Marina beach for the fast.

“Let me be yet another victim of Sri Lankan President Rajapakse. This is my sacrifice for the Tamil cause,” Karunanidhi said. Powerful words, indeed, that had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calling him up immediately.

The three-decade old ethnic strife and war in the island nation had cost thousands of lives – that of Tamils and Sinhalese. There have been credible reports that the India government has been aiding Sri Lanka in surveillance during the war. Both Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa have been aware of this, but it took an election for them to fast and be furious. If consistency is anything to thrust legitimacy over the Eelam issue upon someone, Vaiko should get that, but not these two leaders. It is another matter that Vaiko has considered Eelam his political oxygen in Tamil Nadu.

Coming back to where we started, Tamil Eelam is now an election issue, an election campaign issue. But then, will it be an electoral issue? This election issue is cobbled up by politicians, but for that to become an electoral issue, it needs the participation of the electorate. A Tamilian – or any other Indian – has the right to sympathise with his brethren facing genocide in the neighbouring country. But it becomes an electoral issue only when the voters – you and me – decide that it weighs on our decision to vote for the formation of a government in India.

Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa are trying.

Of brinjals, mangoes and politics

PMK continues to do what it does best-- vacillate

Five summers ago, I got myself invited to spend a day with Pattali Makkal Katchi founder S Ramadoss at his famous ‘Thailapuram thottam’ near Tindivanam for a profile I was to write. He was the perfect host, welcoming me with a ‘sombu’ of butter milk with herbs and later laying a table with all the non-vegetarian dishes I love. He stuck to a modest vegetarian diet. Between morsels of rice and vegetables grown in his pretty big backyard, Ramadoss spoke about his extended trysts with M Karunanidhi and J Jayalalithaa, his early days as a doctor, and the “necessity” that pushed him to launch the PMK. He took me on a conducted tour of the political training institute run by the PMK to give classroom lessons to aspiring politicians, and later to the farm which has more than a hundred species of herbs, shrubs and trees. I was fascinated by a very ripe brinjal, hanging pendulum-like from a thin stalk, right over a low barb that separated the vegetable garden from the rest of the farm. Its fall looked imminent, but it was very difficult to say which side of the fence the vegetable would land. My photographer colleague and I took a bet.We requested Ramadoss for an early morning photo shoot, when he goes for his walk in the farm. The leader was a sport, literally. At sunrise, there he was, in a yellow T-shirt, trousers and sneakers, aspring in his step. The photographer followed him, shooting well till the sun was up and beating down. Before we packed up, we went to see where the brinjal had landed. There it was, still hanging from the wrinkled stalk, above the fence. A mango, the PMK’s election symbol would have been a more ideal picture to symbolise the party, but the very position of the brinjal oscillating between the two sides of the fence couldn’t have been a truer symbolism of the PMK’s political stand, election after election. The party that Ramadoss founded in 1989 as a political progression of the Vanniyar Sangham he launched nine years ago has been historically been a fence-sitter. As the 15th Lok Sabha elections near, PMK is nothing more, nothing less. PMK leaders proudly say that no alliance in Tamil Nadu has won a majority of the 40 Lok Sabha seats (Tamil Nadu-39, Puducherry- 1) without its participation. But it could also be argued that PMK has been clever enough to be always with the winning combine. It drew a blank in the first two Lok Sabha polls its formation (1991and 1996), when it did not align with either of the big Dravidian parties. PMK’s date with power started in 1998, when it joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance along with the AIADMK to bag four seats in the Lok Sabha. The next year, when Jayalalithaa pulled the rug from under the NDA’s feet and DMK rushed to roll the red carpet for BJP, PMK stayed put in the new NDA and got five MPs. The 14th Lok Sabha polls saw the PMK joining the DMK-led Democratic Progressive Alliance which in turn became a constituent of the United Progressive Alliance at the Centre. The PMK’s score in Tamil Nadu went up to six and also got the lone Pondicherry seat. As parties fuel their poll wagons for the 15th Lok Sabha elections, PMK continues to keep everyone guessing. After its “constructive rebellion” as a DPA constituent and the eventual exit from the alliance, PMK has been playing the cat-on-the-wall role perfectly. Despite the barbs he exchanged with Karunanidhi occasionally, there was this general feeling that Ramadoss may finally sail with the DMK combine. It was only yesterday that Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad who visited Chennai said PMK is very much part of the UPA. And then, two things happened today (March 06, 2009, Friday). PMK’s mouthpiece ‘Tamil Osai’ carried an editorial blasting both the Congress and the DMKfor trying to use alliances for selfish needs. The crux of the editorial: The Congress has forgotten the fact that it cannot come to power on its own. Regional parties joined the alliance not to strengthen the Congress, but to expand its own horizons. The DMK too has forgotten alliance dharma. Hours after the party newspaper hit the stands, Anbumani Ramadoss told a press conference that the UPA would come retain power. Confused? Well, that’s what Ramadoss wants everyone, including his prospective allies and rivals to be. I don’t know which side of the fence the ripe brinjal finally fell. But I know summer is the season of mangoes.