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<h1>Will a political vacuum fuel growing anger in Tamil Nadu?</h1><h2>The
era of social justice and self-respect, Karunanidhi and his fellow
travellers of the Dravidian rule—Anna, MGR and Jayalalithaa, who now
share the same space in the hall of memories at the Anna Square on the
Marina beach— shaped and set, now seems over</h2><div class="gmail-story-meta" style="margin-top:10px;float:none"><span>Last Published: </span>Fri, Aug 10 2018. 02 35 PM IST</div><div class="gmail-clearfix gmail-border-box"><div class="gmail-author-box"><span><a href="mailto:feedback@livemint.com?subject=Will a political vacuum fuel growing anger in Tamil Nadu?" class="gmail-mail-icon gmail-impressionSent"></a><a href="https://www.livemint.com/Search/Link/Author/Aazhi Senthilnathan" class="gmail-impressionSent">Aazhi Senthilnathan</a></span></div><div class="gmail-subscribe-box"><form><input id="emailAddressStory" type="text"></form></div></div><div class="gmail-clearfix"><div class="gmail-sticky-social-icons-lg"><a title="Facebook Share" class="gmail-facebook gmail-impressionSent"></a><a title="Tweet" class="gmail-twitter gmail-impressionSent"></a><a title="Linkedin Share" class="gmail-linkedin gmail-impressionSent"></a><a title="Google Plus Share" class="gmail-gplus gmail-impressionSent"></a><a class="gmail-mail-icon gmail-impressionSent"></a><a title="Reddit Share" class="gmail-reddit gmail-impressionSent"></a></div><div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-lead-image"><img src="https://www.livemint.com/rf/Image-621x414/LiveMint/Period2/2018/08/11/Photos/Processed/tamil-kUOI--621x414@LiveMint.jpg" alt="People throng the streets near the Marina beach on the Bay of Bengal coast during the funeral procession of former Tamil Nadu state chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam political party chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Chennai on Wednesday. Photo: AP" title="People throng the streets near the Marina beach on the Bay of Bengal coast during the funeral procession of former Tamil Nadu state chief minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam political party chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi in Chennai on Wednesday. Photo: AP" class="gmail-img-responsive"><div class="gmail-img-caption">People
throng the streets near the Marina beach on the Bay of Bengal coast
during the funeral procession of former Tamil Nadu state chief minister
and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam political party chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi
in Chennai on Wednesday. Photo: AP</div></div><p>Muthuvel Karunanidhi
was many things to many people. For some, he was a doyen of Dravidian
politics that stood for social justice, state autonomy and social
welfare economics. Others, however, viewed him as a smart and sly
politician who epitomized dynastic politics and corruption. His legacy
is dyed in whitish grey. The final few years have obscured some of the
great contributions he has made in his long and checkered political
life.</p><p>Tamil Nadu’s economic and social success boils down to the
politics of self-respect. This idea was fashioned into political
programs and social praxis by the leading triumvirate of Dravidian
politics: Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, C.N. Annadurai and M.Karunanidhi.</p><p>The
ideas which emerged from the pen of these writers and thinkers created
many of Tamil Nadu’s policies and programs which have emerged as a model
for the Indian Union: a multi-tiered reservation policy, emphasis on
state’s autonomy, language policies that empowered local tongues, a
welfare state that was financially sustainable, and more. <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Politics/JK7OHLkMJJM0JfKDzmMr6J/Karunanidhi-The-portrait-of-an-artiste.html" class="gmail-impressionSent">Karunanidhi </a>famously
likened himself to a catamaran that holds people who chose to board it.
Indeed, he was a rising tide that endeavoured to lift all catamarans.</p><p></p><p><b>Also read | <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Politics/1S82VFwFTcBI0MhxE9awjN/Post-Amma-and-Ayya-The-new-Tamil-potboiler.html" class="gmail-impressionSent">Post Amma and Ayya: The new Tamil Nadu potboiler</a></b></p><p>Karunanidhi
was a master administrator. On a typical day, he would clear a proposal
to set up a land bank for a greenfield tech park, launch a sky-kissing
Thiruvalluvar statue in Kanyakumari, okay a government order for the
upliftment of weavers, and sign an agreement for enrolling Tamil Nadu as
a member of the Unicode Consortium (a global tech body which normally
admits only countries).</p><p>Karunanidhi took his political ideas to
the federal level in due course. Karunanidhi’s proposal of amending the
Constitution of India to make it truly federal, based on the
recommendations of the Rajamannar Committee, is a well-known
masterstroke in the seventies. When Karunanidhi and his mentor Anna
expressed their federalist demands, they became the self-appointed
representatives of other states too, especially the ‘non-Hindi’ states.
For example, DMK’s manifesto usually demands that all languages listed
in schedule 8 of the Constitution should be accorded official language
status, and not just Tamil.</p><p></p><p>Karunanidhi’s defiance of
Indira Gandhi during the emergency period is a part of political
folklore. His relationship with the Centre wasn’t always smooth, with
his sometimes getting dismissed on flimsy grounds, but he bounced back
every time.</p><p>It was during the coalition era, after he had become
the grand-head of a big family, that Karunanidhi started to make
compromises. In the aftermath of the Eelam war in Sri Lanka and when he
earned the wrath of the people for his acts of commission or omission in
scams (though the bigger accusations fell flat in the courts), his
glory days had come to a climax.</p><p>However, with Karunanidhi’s
passing, the state lost its knight in shining armor. It has lost two big
guardians in less than two years (Jayalalithaa died in 2016). For an
ordinary Tamil citizen, the indirect and de facto rule of BJP, a party
that has an idea of India that Tamil Nadu could never share, is a
shocking betrayal.</p><p></p><p>The era of social justice and
self-respect that Karunanidhi and his fellow travelers of the Dravidian
movement - Anna, MGR and Jayalalithaa, who now share the same space in
the hall of memories at the Anna Square on the Marina beach – shaped and
set, now seems over. The dreams that remain unmet are in grave danger.
Every other week, Tamil Nadu witnesses a new popular protest and New
Delhi is always at the receiving end. Night normally begins once the sun
has set.</p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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