 यूर योझ्लिक और य्टियाज के पनने भे आभका एक बार फिर से सवआगत हैं आप ख़ी में घ्ररील्गारे श्तानिटो क्य oldu की इंड़ारे ओगाए मगास्क्यां स्थाज़्ान स्वा़ईखारी एक आपकोंटिड़ा है? इंकरुंणानिदी सगी। ता मिल बुटिक्स आस आज सकरीत। वयी यिल represents talked&Put forward। सब eles भी इंदियाय मथे की तमिल । की मिल फुर जिना। आपके वो तर कराश किय😂 लोगक्аже ब�ругाचनतीoux । करुंना ळुए तमिल ऻ fashtak- bushtak- णध और लहा आया Aaksita- जेल minster कीझी के अपये ऴुअकी और िूग मेठाक मेझाревाली ये कहटूतूझ बूरे र difficulties ? झाड़ दाड़ूशन मुमृम पिस्तियन का मीरे ळांच दाल Бог aqies Pirkar मआप जेल्ल ल्डा हसतर दमा अफिे बॉगि ॄभ घ none- tiring personality जेल at the time thanils ॐु। विए दिश़ना की । । । । । । । कुतळ्वार्जा लद्वीद्शाद कच्व्वार्वार्जा जे आत कों क्रिद्वार्जाः कोछ थाविद्शन त्दामिल पोलेटिक्स छतानई में जीवने कोड़गाम सी वल़्ाँ, देलिवन संदाजा. जोएँ आदी मेरे आदी अन वोगाम इस नहीं अगली गड़्ी कादविक and a former professor of the Jesus & Mary College of Delhi University Sudha Ja. सुदाज have first of all welcome to this program and I am extremely glad that you are here to talk about Tamil politics which is by and large not understood by people outside Tamil Nadu or may be at best the other southern states. Now to begin with we are talking about a split which took place 50 years ago, Karunanidhi and MG Ramachandran going in different directions. Let us try to get a sense of what happened in Tamil politics way back in 1972. We know that there was a background to it in the sense that a 67 SMD elections in 1967 when the Congress lost power for the first time. Thereafter we have never had a Congress chief minister in Tamil Nadu. So it really started a new political process and a new phase of Tamil politics. Suddenly in 1972, 5 years after the situation changing elections in 1967 that you have the split. What really went wrong? Many people say that Karunanidhi had already started promoting his son MK Muthu at that time who was just about stepping into cinema. Was it just purely personal space and the desire to promote somebody from the family and MG Ramachandran wanting greater political space or was there any ideological divergence also at that particular time? Or did these come about later on? I think it was actually a number of factors that constituted the background to this split. There was the fact that there was a widespread feeling amongst sections of the Tamil public that the DMK was no longer living up to the standards and the principles of its founding moment in 1949 and which had been set in a very forthright manner by the then leader C.N. Ananduri. Somehow Karunanidhi was falling below those standards. There was the question of corruption, there was the question of strengthening the family's role in politics. And I think there was some older members of the party. I wouldn't actually put MG Ramachandran as one of the older members at this point of time. But right from the early 1950s he had played an enormous role in propagating the principles and the ideology of the DMK. So I think he had some personal problems with Karunanidhi. He felt that he was not being given his due and I think all these factors led to the split. Which was a very traumatic development which had very traumatic consequences for the entire party organization because it was a vertical split. And within about 5-6 years not only did MGR form a party of his own as you mentioned the Anna DMK to start off with which later on became the All India Anna DMK. But it also won power in elections to form the government in 1976-70. Karunanidhi continued to be the chief minister till 1976. I think after that they might have been during the emergency. It is possible that they might have been a short period of central rule at that time. Because the Karunanidhi government was dismissed during the emergency. So there was a period when there was a precedence rule and then in the elections the AI DMK led by MG Ramachandran came to power. They got a fairly comfortable majority and they formed the government. They were electorally allied with the Congress and they came to power. Now you are talking about electorally allied with the Congress. We will come to this as to how it happened. We must first try to understand that the DMK actually emerged from a very strong anti-center, anti-Congress and most importantly anti-Hindi sentiments. Most of which developed through the 1950s. It really came out into the open in very violent ways during the 64-65 anti-Hindi struggle. And then thereafter the agitation continued for two more years. Eventually in 1967 when the assembly elections were held the Congress ended up virtually being reduced to just about 40 or 45 seats in the state assembly. And including its stalwarts like K. Kamaraj defeated in the polls by a student leader owing allegiance to the DMK. So that was possibly the first election that we saw in independent India where past reputations did not matter. Because of very severe ideological reasons, because of very strong rejection of very centrist policies. I would like to talk to you as to how did this anti-Hindi, anti-center, anti-Congress get mellowed down. How did MGR, while he and Karunanidhi went separate trajectories. But overall brought about a sense of moderation in the anti-sentiment, anti-Hindi sentiments in Tamil Nadu. How did it happen? I think it's quite a challenge to maintain a combative position for a state then ruled by a non-Congress party to maintain against the central government. The central government given the quasi-federal status of the Indian Union is very powerful at all times. Maintaining a combative position, challenging the center whether it was on language, on the imposition of Hindi, retaining English, giving importance to Tamil regarding plan outlays, saying that Tamil Nadu was discriminated against in plan allocations and so on and so forth. Maintaining it at this level of combativeness and challenge is very draining even for seasoned politicians like Karunanidhi and the members of the DMK. I think a time had come when somewhere this position needed to be diluted in the interest of the state, in the interest of politicians all around. I think side by side something else was also happening and that was throughout the 60s and particularly it probably speedened up in the 70s. The Tamil Nadu economy was getting more and more integrated with the Indian economy. I think that was also, I mean it would apply to every part of India but I think this was something real that was happening in Tamil Nadu. The economy was becoming more and more dependent, mutual dependence and the sort of integration was taking place. I would also think that the years of representation and the years of reservation, affirmative action for the backward cars, something like 69% which is the highest in the country. In fact they had to secure a constitutional amendment because the Supreme Court had said not more than 50% reservation for backward cars. For that they required the support of some party at the centre. I think they not only required the support, the constant support of the centre to maintain this level of representation but I think within the backward classes amongst the backward classes as a broad category certain social changes were also occurring. Changes that brought them closer to the pan-Indian form of Hinduism and Hindu beliefs. This is my understanding where backward cars they were no longer sticking only to Tamil culture. So which means that the old tenets which evolved in Tamil politics right from the early decades of the 20th century, some of it was being left behind. We know that there was a very strong movement within Tamil politics and Tamil society through the 20th century how it developed. So was there any change taking place? In Tamil society, I think the backward classes were acquiring confidence and a sense of strength. A position from which they not only emulated some Brahminical rituals which they felt bolstered their social status and prestige but they were feeling more confident. We saw the Brahmin in Tamil Nadu who had had a strangle hold till 1947 over politics, over the economy and in terms of social status. They had been reduced to a great extent but they started some kind of a revival, began along with this adjustment which took place in a better strategic alliance or an understanding of that you required somebody from the centre, either the government or the ruling party or at least one of the major national parties not see constantly as adversaries. That is what was happening. Now if we can actually look back, you were talking about backward caste, when you look at Karnanidhi, I remember that when Karnanidhi died several articles were written up at that time, there is one particular sentence which stayed on with me was that he by the end of his life that was in 2018 was more a Hindu than what he was when he first became chief minister in 1969 after the death of Annadurai. Would you actually say that there was some partial truth in what this obituary had argued. How much of a Hindu he was would be very difficult to defend. In terms of basically acceptance of rituals that is what was the yardstick. I remember being pointed out that he is the one who started self respect marriages where you really did not go to any religious ceremony to undergo to marry. But then it has become rituals have become much more integral to Tamil society now than what it used to be earlier self respect marriages one hears much less of it now than what one did in the 1970s. Publicly he continued to reject Hindu rituals till the very end. But on end of you these stories leaked out in the tabloid press in Tamil Nadu that he visited the temple in his native village in Tiruvaru district. Most of the temples are dedicated to Kali as the mother goddess that's the most popular form of worship in Tamil Nadu. Not so much to Shiva in the rural areas it's to the mother goddess Kali. So this sort of news constantly leaked into the public sphere. This must have been leaking into the public sphere not because of any greater or increased personal religiosity but basically because it got some kind of a social traction. That would be the reason. You are right. I think backward caste themselves were becoming more ritualistically oriented and ritualistically oriented in the orthodox Hindu fashion. And I think this is the sort of change that I am mentioning that I am talking about. I think which required a somewhat moderate a much more moderate stance as you implied towards the center. Not to look at the center as an adversary constantly but to try and hone a policy where you would be where you could get benefits for Tamil Nadu and at the same time be on the right side of the center. I think it was politically challenging but it was the years before had been so full of as I constantly say combativeness that had to be toned down at some point or the other. Now what we are talking about now here I come to a paradox. We are talking about 1967 is the first election where a Dravidian party came to power and thereafter the Congress or any national party never came to power on its own in the state. So what we are talking about five and a half decades of the marginalization of central political forces in Tamil Nadu. But we are also seeing you know greater amount of acceptance in a realization amongst the Tamil parties that there is need to have the center as a partner in some way or the other. The two parties you know DMK and AI DMK as it was later on formed went separate directions and not exactly an alternating position but they had long periods when one party was in government then it would set out in opposition. While the other party was in government you had of course a very charismatic presence of MG Ramachandran and even after that a bit of turbulence within AI and DMK. Then Jay Jay Lalitha she became you know very powerful and then became chief minister and became a very towering personality on her own right. Now despite this changed attitude towards the center there is still a great feeling of rejection that is what one sees as a journalist in Tamil Nadu of central political parties during elections. Unless aligned with any regional party either the DMK or the AI DMK neither the Congress nor any of the other national parties and most importantly the BJP in the last decade and half that it has actually staged you know come on to the center stage at the center. It has really never been able to find it feats on its own why is this the case. Yeah but they have to play national political parties have to play a secondary role in Tamil politics. I think national political parties they become legitimate in the eyes of the Tamil voting public only if they are allied to a Tamil party. It could be the DMK it could be the AI ADMK. Without that Tamils it appears didn't trust the national parties whether it was the Congress or now whether it's the BJP. All of them in some way or the other were believed to be fostering policies that gave importance to Hindi to purely North Indian forms of how politics was to be done. I think that was also that was also there in the minds of the Tamil public that if you wanted things done the Tamil way a national party could be allowed a presence only when it was aligned to one of the two DMK factions. So that way it kind of moderates its position. Now you know we see that the BJP has been at this national level right from the mid 1990s onwards more than 25 years that it has been as a party but not as domineering as it is since 2014. What we are now seeing is that basically over articulation of the Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan construct of the BJP that gets identified with. That the BJP means a Hindu oriented party a Hindi oriented party which gets possibly reinforced by the latest report of the official languages committee which was submitted by the union home minister to the president just a few days before we are having this discussion. We are talking about using Hindi in all central educational institutions right from schools to technical institutions like IITs, IIMs in regional languages being taught there. Also in every high court use of local languages and Hindi as the main link language if one can actually use that. So that does raise a lot of fear about imposition of Hindi in some way or the other from the BJP side. You see this moderation that you are talking about I think MGR was in favour of a policy of moderation for various reasons. In Tamil Nadu itself the DMK both the parent, if I can call it that the parent faction of the DMK led by Karunanidhi and the breakaway faction led by MGR which became a full political party, a full fledged political party. They were also negotiating their relationship with religion especially Hinduism. Tamil Nadu is a state where almost 98% of the population is Hindu. They were also negotiating some sort of a relationship with Hinduism. Gone were the days of atheism and complete debunking of God as had been the ideology in the time of Periyar. Even Anadurai subscribed to it to a certain extent and Karunanidhi also during his days of power in the earlier stages. In public he always subscribed to the official policy of the Dravidian movement which was one of atheism and rationalism. But the public, if you look at the Tamil public they are amongst the most religious at least at the superficial level amongst the most religious in India. Tamil people even normally have the vibhuti and the kumkum. Would you say that it was this display of personal religiosity or part of the Tamil people that possibly led to DMK changing its position somewhat what was indicated by the obituary that I was referring to earlier that Karunanidhi became more aware, became a more public Hindu than what he was earlier. He realized that I cannot keep on beating the drum of atheism and rationality. There has to be a certain amount of acceptance of religiosity and the desire of the Tamil people to be part of Hindu society. Now here comes a paradox that there is this desire of being part of the greater Hindu society. Yet there is still no acceptance for the BJP despite one and a half decades at least of very concerted efforts. I have seen of course you know right from the Hindumunnani days in Tamil Nadu initially the BJP worked through Hindumunnani, the RSS also did it. But at least for the last 15 years the BJP has been trying to leverage politics on its own strength. Why has it failed? BJP politicians in Tamil Nadu including the present carder, I suspect, have not been quite able to convey to the central leadership of the BJP the nuances of Tamil Hinduism if I can use a term like that. Superficially is the most Hindu among all parts of India. The temples alone you know are a proof of that sort of deep roots that Hinduism has in Tamil Nadu. And these are all living temples, living temples in the sense that every day there is some temple festival, some special form of worship to which thousands of people flock. Whether it is the morning Abhishekam or the evening Aarti, they flock in droves to the temple. So there had to be some sort of a dilution of the Atheist principle. There has to be. So would you say that where possibly the BJP has not been able to understand and one of the reasons why it has not succeeded is personal religiosity does not ensure it being brought into politics. BJP's Hinduism is very much part of its politics. This is not something that is going to work in Tamil Nadu. I think the nuances of the Tamil religious feelings have not been understood by the central leadership, the BJP. They have looked at it in my opinion from a very superficial point of view. They have seen the temples, they have seen the religiosity of the vibhuti and the kumkum on the foreheads of men and women alike and concluded that these are the most Hindu of all people. And thereby Tamil Nadu is a very fertile ground for our kind of politics. That is not possibly the case. Well, thank you very much Sudha Jaa for coming and talking about Tamil politics and really being able to peel off the various layers of it for our audience. I hope that you would be able to understand Tamil politics better than when you started listening to this conversation. Thank you very much.