Southern style

Exactly ten years to the day, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader, M Karunanidhi, took over as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister from J Jayalalithaa.

Exactly ten years to the day, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader, M Karunanidhi, took over as Tamil Nadu Chief Minister from J Jayalalithaa. Five years before that day, it was the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader, Ms Jayalalithaa, who had taken over the reins from Mr Karunanidhi. With the DMK unseating the AIADMK government in Chennai yet again, clearly there’s something more than just a similarity in the names of the two opposing parties perceived by Tamil Nadu’s voters. While Tamil Nadu can be considered as one of the members of the successful ‘Southern States’ — especially when compared to their Bimaru counterparts — it’s evident that the state has been caught in a loop.

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Being ruled by the AIADMK and the DMK over the years has left the electorate with almost no choice but to pass Ms Jayalalithaa and Mr Karunanidhi through the revolving door every election year. The result this cyclical exercise has on the state and its people is obvious: no ruling party thinks beyond a five-year boundary. Also, Tamil Nadu’s bipolar set-up of DMK-AIADMK-DMK-AIADMK throws up a mirror image rather than an alternative each time the state goes to the polls. No wonder this year’s election campaign boiled down to the promise of freebies thrown to voters from the backs of trucks rather than any real (however abstract) manifesto. To make matters worse, Tamil Nadu is the hotbed of a politics of vengeance that makes even North Indian politics seem ethical. Unfortunately, what all this amounts to is a state that lurches from one ‘non-government’ to another. With Mr Karunanidhi — along with his son M.K. Stalin and grand-nephew Dayanidhi Maran — hoping to make more of the DMK’s electoral victory than a five-year stint, it is the right time for the incoming government to think of setting up a set of policies and avoid the tit-for-tat and we’re-here-till-Jayalalithaa’s-back mentality.