By undermining Dravidian politics, can Tamil Nadu regain glory of Kamaraj governance?

By NS Venkataraman* 
For over fifty years now, Tamil Nadu has been ruled by two Dravidian parties namely DMK and AIADMK alternately. Before the Dravidian party came to power, Tamil Nadu was ruled by the congress party and had experienced the golden rule by K. Kamaraj who was succeeded by Bhaktavatsalam for a short period.
In spite of such quality governance by Kamaraj, DMK succeeded in defeating the congress party and winning the election by whipping up anti Hindi feelings and propagating the so called Dravidian identity. With powerful speakers on it’s side and very popular matinee idol M.G.Ramachandran being part of the DMK and Rajaji, much admired for his intelligence, supporting DMK and giving it a sort of political respectability, the congress was defeated and never to win the election later on. Perhaps, Rajaji supported DMK placing his faith on the DMK founder C.N. Annadurai about his larger vision. Unfortunately, Annadurai passed away after being the Chief Minister for a short period and then DMK came under the control of leaders who were much less in stature and value system than C.N. Annadurai.
For the last over 50 years when DMK and AIADMK have been alternately In power, there have been steady all round decline in public life in Tamil Nadu with corruption, fast spreading liquor habit and consequently disrupting the family life of poor people and causing enormous sufferings to women folk, hate feelings becoming the order of the day. Other political parties including communist party, which is supposed to have some glorious philosophy, played second fiddle to both the Dravidian parties and changed their alignment with one Dravidian party or the other with least regard for policies and values. The net result today is that the two Dravidian parties are the dominant parties in the state with other parties being caste oriented and national parties like communist party and congress effectively losing their base.
Today, Tamil Nadu has the dubious distinction of the state government earning around Rs. 50,000 crore every year by liquor sale and having the most number of liquor addicts amongst all states in the country. Tamil Nadu’s financial conditions are extremely bad with Tamil Nadu having the highest outstanding debt in the country amongst all states.
With political and administrative corruption increasing beyond tolerable level and people getting disgusted with both the Dravidian parties, both the Dravidian parties, to win elections, are banking on their tactics to provide freebies to voters before the elections and indulging in high level of corruption in the electoral process by bribing the innocent voters belonging to lower income group.
Now, there have been widespread feeling in the state that Tamil Nadu urgently need an alternative to the two Dravidian parties to get back it’s reputation as the most forward looking state in the country. Many discerning voters think that it is high time that a nationalist party get a firm foothold in Tamil Nadu.
In such circumstances, K. Annamalai, a young man with high academic records and excellent service record as police officer, has taken over the leadership of BJP in Tamil Nadu. Many people have started thinking that this is the change that Tamil Nadu needs today. Yet, people need to be convinced that Annamalai can rise up to the occasion and meet the people’s expectations of getting back quality governance in Tami Nadu, for which lofty standards were set up by Kamaraj, who is widely considered as a role model in the state today.
In this scenario, until a few days back, there have been speculation that BJP led by Annamalai would have an alliance with AIADMK in the forthcoming parliamentary election. Such news certainly caused disappointment to many people that Annamalai would also be moving on the beaten track of following the footsteps of other two nationalist parties namely congress and communists. Of course, Annamalai has been on and off talking about critically of both DMK and AIADMK for their several misdeeds and corrupt administration, creating an impression that he is uncomfortable about aligning with the AIADMK.
Now, there is a good news that AIADMK party is angry with Annamalai for his critical remarks against the party and have announced termination of the alliance proposal.
The ground reality based on the past performance records, is that there is really nothing to choose between DMK and AIADMK. Annamalai now gets an opportunity to dispel the impression that BJP could be opportunistic in aligning with AIADMK.
Annamalai’s ongoing padayatra has evoked enthusiastic support from the people and there is huge expectation that Annamalai would stand firm on his principles, reflecting the governance standards set up by Prime Minister Modi and earlier that of K. Kamaraj. People expect that Annamalai would carry on with vigorous campaign against both these Dravidian parties and give hope and opportunity to Tamil Nadu voters in the forthcoming parliamentary election that Tamil Nadu politics would get a nationalistic fervour and restart on a clean slate to regain the glory of Kamaraj governance.
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*Trustee, Nandini Voice For The Deprived, Chennai