COMMENTARY

An Analysis of the Poll Scene

in Tamil Nadu
V Krishna Ananth

The 2014 elections in Tamil

Nadu are a point of no return
for the Congress much like
the 1967 general elections.
But the consolidation of the
Other Backward Classes that
led to the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagams emergence is now
over and fragmentation in the
sociopolitical sense has thrown
the field wide open to a radical
realignment of forces.

This article was published earlier in the

Web Exclusives section of the EPW website.
V Krishna Ananth (krishnananth@gmail.com)
teaches at the Department of History,
Sikkim University.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

APRIL 26, 2014

mong the 10 states1 where the

Congress lost power in 1967, the
party could never regain it, even
once, after that in Tamil Nadu. One may
see this as due to the caste-wise make-up
of the population in Tamil Nadu as well
as the long-term dynamics of this in the
making of the political history of the state.
Unlike in those parts of the country with
a fairly large percentage of the upper
castes in the population, their proportion
to the population is low in Tamil Nadu. It
may be noted that unlike in the Gangetic
valley, the category of non-brahmin upper
castes (such as the Bhumihars and the
Rajputs), constituting the landed aristocracy, is almost absent in Tamil Nadu. This
distinct feature lent a certain dynamic to
the sociopolitical discourse in the state.
Seen against this basic feature, the consolidation of pro-British forces in the early
decades of the 20th century (in the context
of the Minto-Morley Reforms of 1909 and
the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of
1919), as opposed to the Indian National
Congress (INC) and the idea of freedom,
then served as a nucleus for the making
of the anti-Congress platform historically.
This was not the case with most other parts
of the country where the feudatories, after
flirting with the colonial rulers in the context of the constitutional reforms, hastened
to join the INC and even managed to capture its organisation in many levels before
1947. The launch of the self-respect movement by Periyar E V Ramasamy Naicker,
after he raised the issue of untouchability
being practised in the Congress-run schools
and walked out of the INC (in 1924), also
gathered the feudatories around the platform as early as at the time of the elections to the Madras Provincial Assembly
under the Government of India Act, 1935.
The Non-Congress Foundation
This consolidation received an impetus
when the Rajaji-led provincial government
(1937-39) moved to make the learning of
vol xlIX no 17

Hindi compulsory in schools. The antiHindi agitation and the self-respect movement laid the foundation for the nonCongress political formation in the state.
The formation of the Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949, even if it was
possible only after C N Annadurai walked
out of Periyars embrace, meant the emergence of an anti-Congress force. It may
be true that a similar pattern may be
seen in the Socialist Partys formation, in
1948, from out of the Congress and its
emergence as a challenger to the Congress
in the first general elections. But then
those who founded the Socialist Party,
from out of the Congress Socialist Party
(the members of the Nashik group who
acted from within the INC) since the
early 1930s, did not enlist the feudatories as did the DMK in its early stages.
The way the Congress, under Rajaji,
cobbled up a majority after the first
general elections to form its own government in Madras lent to the opposition a
certain force to emerge into the antiCongress platform as early as after the
first general elections.2 The impressive
performance by the Common Wheel Party
(CWP) in that election, specifically in
what is now the northern Tamil Nadu,
laid the basis for the DMK emerging as a
force in that region; in social terms, this
manifested in the consolidation of the
Vanniyar community, who had rallied
behind the CWP in the 1951-52 elections,
to make the muscle for the DMK by 1957
(by which time the CWP had dissolved).
In the decade from then, the DMK grew
into the force that wrested power from the
Congress in the state (rechristened Tamil
Nadu after C N Annadurai raised the demand after his entry into the Rajya Sabha
in 1962), and consolidated itself into the
sole representative of the intermediary
social classes across Tamil Nadu.
The consolidation was further made
possible when the state government initiated reservation in state government jobs
for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in
pursuance of the recommendations of the
Sattanathan Commission in the 1960s; and
what began in the northern Tamil Nadu
now spread across the state and thus the
DMK ensured the Congress Party remained
out of power. This would happen in Uttar
Pradesh or Bihar only after 1990 and after
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COMMENTARY

the Mandal Commission recommendations

(reservation for OBCs in central government jobs) were implemented.3 The DMK,
however, underwent a split soon; if not as
soon as did the other non-Congress formations that wrested power in Uttar Pradesh
and elsewhere in 1967. The birth of the AllIndia Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam
(AIADMK) in 1972, under M G Ramachandran, matinee idol and treasurer of
the DMK until he was expelled, marked the
beginning of the fragmentation that now
characterises the political discourse in
Tamil Nadu and also revived the Congress
into a relevant force. The Congress in
Tamil Nadu could reinvent itself as determining the outcome of elections and the
DMK and the AIADMK would ally with the
national party to win elections. Meanwhile, the OBC consolidation remained a
feature of the states discourse even under
the AIADMKs rule. The Ambasankar Committee of 1985 took the percentage of
reservation to OBCs to 69% of the state
government jobs even while the Congress
government in Delhi allowed the Mandal
Commission report to gather dust.
A Three-Cornered Field
All these are now things of the past.
Neither the AIADMK nor the DMK want to
touch the Congress this time. This is just
the opposite of what it was in the 1980s
when both the Kazhagams were desperate
to have the Congress on its side and it is
a fact that for a couple of decades since
then, the one that had the Congress as
an ally won elections in Tamil Nadu; it
was the AIADMK in 1984, 1989 and 1991;
and the DMK in 2004 and 2009. The story
was a little different in 1996 when the
DMK had the Tamil Maanila Congress
with it (leaving the rump of the Congress
with the AIADMK) or the AIADMK-BJP alliance making it big in 1998 and the DMKBJP alliance in 1999. A feature in all these
years since the 1980s was that the political
discourse in Tamil Nadu revolved around
two formations the DMK or the AIADMK.
This, too is a thing of the past insofar as
April 2014 is concerned. The extent of
fragmentation is such that each of the 39
Lok Sabha constituencies in Tamil Nadu
will witness a three-cornered contest this
time. Apart from the DMK (or its allies)
and the AIADMK (just by itself), there is
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the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)

(consisting of small parties that command
support in areas that are exclusive to each
other). The Congress may have fielded
candidates everywhere but is indeed an
insignificant player all over; notwithstanding the bravado displayed by a
Karthi Chidambaram or a Mani Shankar
Aiyar! And in a few constituencies where
the left has been forced to contest (after
being shown the door by Jayalalithaa)
its candidates may just be counted as
adding a fourth corner to the contest;
but may end up forfeiting their deposits.
The fact is that the contest in Tamil Nadu
remains between the AiaDMK and the DMK;
it may also be added that April 2014 is indeed an opportunity, in the true sense of
the term, for M K Stalin to establish his
own hold over the party organisation. The
party may end up losing seats and if trends
in the past couple of elections were to continue, he may end up in a situation where
he will stand alone as the DMKs leader;
such others as Dayanidhi Maran and A Raja
as well as his stepsister M Kanimozhi, who
had emerged as power centres within the
party, may go into oblivion after 16 May
2014 while M K Alagiri may soon end up
facing criminal charges that Jayalalithaa
is certain to slap against him once he
damages the little prospect that the DMK
has in this election. The AIADMK chief
will like to have him around and speak
against his father and his brother until
24 April 2014 and she may not even wait
until 16 May 2014 to put him in place.
And this leaves us with the front consisting of the Desiya Murpokku Dravida
Kazhagam (DMDK), Marumalarchi Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Pattali
Makkal Katchi (PMK), Indiya Jananayaka
Katchi (IJK) and the BJP to be talked
about. None of them, indeed, are even as
significant as, for comparison, the Apna
Dal in Uttar Pradesh with whom the BJP
has tied up. Sone Lal Patels party in UP
can help Narendra Modi rest assured of a
chunk of votes in Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. But the parties that now constitute the NDA in Tamil Nadu are either at
mutual war with one another or exist in
mutually-exclusive zones. Vaikos MDMK,
for instance, exists in only his hometown
and is not strong enough even there to win
an assembly segment on its own. The IJK,
APRIL 26, 2014

meanwhile, has not even shown its clout

in panchayats where it has put up candidates, notwithstanding the money that its
patron has with him, thanks to his enterprise in higher education! The PMK, which
emerged in the 1980s (representing the
beginnings of the process of fragmentation of the states political discourse) had
begun to weaken almost a decade ago
and is now a spent force. And as for the
DMDK, Vijayakanth had shown potential to
emerge as a pan-Tamil Nadu party since
he entered the political arena in May 2006.
His party, fighting alone, polled close to
10% in the first elections. He had imagined
himself as a kingmaker to Jayalalithaa
(with whom he entered into an alliance
for the May 2011 assembly elections) only
to end up as leader of the opposition and
subsequently saw a section of his partys
legislators trooping out to support Jayalalithaa. The DMDK could reinvent itself
now only by riding piggyback on Narendra Modi; well, the BJP too found itself
forced into a situation to ride piggyback
on Vijayakanth! In any case, this could
only have relevance as a long-term strategy and certainly longer than May 2014.
A New Fragmentation
Tamil Nadu, in April-May 2014, may
witness a multi-cornered contest and this
is certainly a departure from the decisive
break in the political discourse as witnessed in 1967. The element that was most
pronounced in that year the Congress
Partys defeat remains an integral part
now too. It is a point of no return. But the
other aspect of the 1967 elections consolidation of the OBCs as a decisive factor
behind the DMKs emergence is now over
and the fragmentation in the sociopolitical
sense has thrown the field wide open to a
radical realignment of forces. The DMK,
in this context, has the potential to reinvent itself, ahead of the assembly elections scheduled for May 2016, if the party,
under M K Stalins leadership, consolidates the alliance it has now forged with
the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)
and the Puthiya Tamilagam (PT). These
two mutually antagonistic dalit platforms
have a base in the northern and southern
parts of Tamil Nadu, respectively. The DMK
also needs to keep its relationship with
the small outfits that have arrived as
vol xlIX no 17

EPW

Economic & Political Weekly

COMMENTARY

representatives of the Muslim community

in the state and regain its support base that
it lost to the PMK in the last few decades.
As for now, it is the AIADMK all the way.

Notes
1

The Congress Party lost a majority in the elections to the state assemblies of Tamil Nadu,
Kerala, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha,
Punjab, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

APRIL 26, 2014

The Congress did not win a majority in the

Madras Legislative Assembly in the 1951-52
general elections; and an attempt to forge a nonCongress government including forces across
the left and the right and around the Common
Wheel Party was scuttled when Rajaji enlisted
support of a section of the independents to
form the Congress government in the state. The
CWP, in fact, was an expression of the early consolidation of the intermediate castes against
the Indian National Congress then.
It may be stressed here that the SVD and the BKD
governments that came in Bihar and Uttar

vol xlIX no 17

Pradesh in 1967 initiated reservation for OBCs

in these two states but the consolidation in the
political sense was not as strong as in Tamil
Nadu for two specific reasons; one that the
clout of the brahmins along with the other
upper castes was numerically and economically
huge in comparison with that in Tamil Nadu and
two that the SVD and the BKD did not constitute
a coherent platform as did the DMK and the nonCongress governments in Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh epitomised instability and the combines splintered within months due to internecine conflicts among its leaders.

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