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It is in the above context that
Tamil Nadu receives our attention, as despite advocating
"the politics of blood" all these years, the Dravidian
party politics in the state has never led to "rivers of
blood, contrary to the predominant trend. The book under review
comes around as the most comprehensive, theoretically coherent
and systemic study of the Dravidian movement in South India in
recent decades. While analysing what is among Asia’s oldest
and most durable ethno-national movement, the author presents
significant arguments about the mass politics of mobilisation
practised by the Dravidian parties since their inception,
tracing the major shifts in all their complexities in a
comparative manner. This theory-driven doctoral research draws
empirically from the varied sources such as the electoral
statistics, media reports, interviews with some of the principal
actors and the people, reviews of films, theatre, fiction and
short stories.
The Dravidian
movement, the author argues, with its emphasis on the
"distinctive language, caste structure and religious
practices of Tamil Nadu" not only "best exemplifies
the distinctive features of south Indian society" but is
also "notable in the Indian context". Many of its
features that found expression early in the movement later
appeared in other parts of India. First, the demands for
secession in states like Nagaland and Kashmir found its earliest
expression (though without much mass support) in 1938 with the
demand for independence by the Justice Party, a proponent of
Dravidian politics. Even now "a sense of cultural
distinctness remains politically relevant".
Second, the
regionalisation federalisation of party politics evident in
post-Congress India today can be traced to Tamil Nadu as the
Dravidian "ethnic" parties became the first to
marginalise Congress as the natural party of governance in the
60s itself, when the DMK, an offshoot of DK, won power in 1967
and was succeeded by its offshoot AIADMK thus setting an
uninterrupted trend.
Third, the
upsurge of the backward castes and Dalit-based parties on the
common plank of social justice in post-Mandal India can be
traced to the usage of "non-Brahminism" as an ideology
by the Dravidian parties.
Fourth, the
recent attempt to effect a social coalition of the intermediate
peasant castes and the Dalits in the Hindi heartland was evident
as early as in the Dravidian politics in the 1880s.
Fifth, while
caste-based preferential policies, especially for the OBCs came
into prominence only after the reservations announced by Prime
Minister V.P. Singh, such policies were advocated by the
Dravidian parties, first by pressurising the post-independence
Congress regime to introduce intermediate caste quotas and then
by increasing them after assuming power (69 per cent since
1980s).
Sixth, the
features of "third electoral system" like emergence of
two-party, two-front dominant party coalition, widened the level
of electoral politics, a durable voter alignment evident in most
of the states since the early 1990s has been an intrinsic part
of the electoral politics of Tamil Nadu since 1960s itself.
Dravidian
parties with their success seem to have shaped the ongoing trend
in Indian politics, especially in north India in a significant
manner. This is interesting because the language and caste
structure of Tamil Nadu has been very different from that of the
Hindi heartland. Of course, there has been a major difference in
the context of the politics of Hindutva. "Not only did
Dravidianism develop in a direction contrary to that of Hindu
revivalism; it also inhibited Hindu revivalist growth in Tamil
Nadu, for which there was considerable potential as the vast
majorities of the state’s inhabitants are Hindu".
The above
brings us to the central questions taken up in the study, which
seem to be most pertinent for an India reeling under an upsurge
of politics based on divisive obscurantist populism in the past
decade. There are: "How can pluralist democracy be
preserved under conditions of high ethnic mobilisation when
accommodative compacts between states and ethnic elites prove
inadequate to the task? Under what conditions does populism
temper the potential of ethnicity to provoke disintegrative
social conflict, and instead promote pluralist democracy? When
is populism likely to attain sustained success in semi-industrialised
societies and aid the representation of emergent social
groups?"
While trying to
answer these questions Subramanian having the privilege of being
linked to society studied, his parents’ caste origins, defied
the implacable antagonism underlining the Dravidian politics
with father being a Brahmin and mother a descendent of two
intermediate mercantile-artisan castes, sets out to articulate
theoretical formulations of peoples politics by placing the
detailed analysis in a comparative perspective.
A quick word on
the methodology adopted by the author — presented as "a
diasporic Indian (but culturally rooted Tamil) and declassed
intellectual of colour" — before we go on to the
formulations. Based on archival and original ethnographic
material, the study in the form of a narrative considers
"individuals embedded in particular social contexts"
as units of analysis. Drawing from different theoretical
traditions and disciplines the author prefers to "march
without a flag" and firmly believes that his type of
"close studies of particular contexts" has for long
"helped generate theories when their findings were placed
in a comparative context".
Based on his
study of the Dravidian movement, the author formulates that
"organisational pluralism can channel ethnic and populist
forces towards promoting stability, social pluralism and the
increased representation of emergent groups within a democratic
system". Significantly the early mass Dravidian
organisations like self respect association and the DK did
follow the politics of hearsay by undertaking the demonstrative
acts of idol breaking and burning copies of the Part III of the
Indian Constitution concerning religious freedoms besides
privileging only the intermediate Tamil castes — all having
the possibility of threatening social stability and harmony.
However, the DK’s
attempt to make ethnic appeals reduced it to "a vehicle of
protest, rather than change". It was the DMK, an offshoot
of the DK that incorporated the "early Dravidianism’s
essentialised ethnic categories within a populist discourse,
which inspired the mobilisation of a broad coalition spanning
the intermediate and lower strata". The author explains the
shift from "a politics of hearsay to a politics of
community" to the emergence of "a paternalist strand
to Dravidian populism". Annadurai was the first DMK leader
to evoke paternalist appeals. However, it was MGR who was
primarily associated with the paternalist facet of the Dravidian
politics. As the "political sentiments of MGR’s fans were
shaped by MGR’s films, in which ethnic appeals played a
limited role" most of these fans (and also the cadres drawn
by paternalist populism of the DMK) were reluctant to support
the continuation of violence or agitation-based politics veering
around ethnic demands bordering on secessionism and autonomy.
The fan club loyalties were primarily to MGR and only by
association to the party. This formation and growth of the
autonomy of the paternalist populist subculture forced the DMK
leadership to respond to the feelings of the paternalist
clientele. That explains the restraint shown by the party
leadership in the language agitation in the 1960s.
Subsequently,
the formation of the AIADMK in 1973 further "diminished
ethnic stridency" as the new party was "shaped in a
paternalist mould, and used ethnic appeals to augment its
prestige and that of its leader rather than to mobilise
protest".
The
"strident autonomist postures" of the DMK over the
years got further diluted with the AIADMK electoral successes
over the next decades even in the face of the secessionist
movement in Sri Lanka. The assertive and paternalist strands of
Dravidian populism in these decades represented by the DMK and
AIADMK respectively mobilised somewhat distinct social
coalitions. "As neither coalition was sufficiently large to
ensure the party a electoral victory, the regimes had to address
some of the demands of both to retain power". In the
process, social policies were set for the betterment of a whole
range of the intermediate and lower strata.
The above
explains as to why the forces of Hindutva which swept the Hindi
heartland in the 1990s failed to grow in Tamil Nadu,
particularly in areas where the Dravidian parties dominated,
more so the DMK, as "due to their organisational pluralism,
the Dravidian parties embraced populism in ways that not only
contained the intolerant potential of ethnicity, but also
promoted social pluralism, the increased representation of
emergent groups and the stabilisation of democracy amidst
growing mass mobilisation".
There is a
lesson from the Dravidian "politics of community" for
the pluralist Indian democracy reeling under a communal
onslaught. As the organisations perpetrating it "are
hierarchical in structure, with leaders nominating lower level
office holders and complete activists loyalty", the way to
curb the strident religious revivalism lies in the mobilisation
of informed citizens committed to pluralism and tolerance and
autonomy of states and ethnic parties and their engagement with
both the state and ethnic forces which can be directed towards
pluralism. It would effectively ensure that "states and
other forces are constrained from repressing initiatives to
reinforce pluralist democracy, and the emergence of states and
more parties inclined to foster such initiatives is
facilitated".
The book comes across as a
remarkable study of the politics and society of Tamil Nadu from
the vantage point of the Dravidian politics that can be used as
a standard reference work. A must for those interested in the
politics of South India.
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