Mergers and manoeuvres

The two AIADMK factions have come together in Tamil Nadu. This unity is at best tentative and is predicted on an agreement to keep VK Sasikala out of any power-sharing arrangement. This is in itself a remarkable moment in the Indian party system: activists and leaders have discovered enough clarity and sufficient nerves to wrest back the party from someone who had usurped power in “Amma’s” name. Sasikala’s only claim to the AIADMK’s leadership and its cadres’ loyalty was that she was a domestic aide to their leader, Jayalalithaa. The claim was in conformity with the current political theology that holds that a party belongs to the leader and his/her family. The Gandhis, the Badals, the Karunanidhis, the Paswans, the Lalus, all rule in the name of the sanctity and indispensability of family lineage. Sasikala extended this principle to include the leader’s domestic help.

The two AIADMK factions, one led by the incumbent Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palaniswami, and the other by a former Chief Minister, O Panneerselvam, have also got down to the nitty-gritty of sharing spoils of office. Now they will need to attend to urgent task of purposeful governance. The Sasikala faction has yet not thrown in the towel, even as it continues to command the loyalty of about 20 MLAs; the majority the two factions have cobbled together may be precarious and the DMK has already demanded that the Governor should ask the Chief Minister to prove his numbers. Dust will take some time to settle down in Chennai.

Whether or not the united AIADMK decides to join the NDA camp will only be of transient importance; but what could be of a longer time significance is the implied defeat for the idea of a political dynasty. It was galling to modern India that a domestic aide, however useful and however loyal to a leader, should become not only the boss of a political party, but also aspire to occupy the chief ministerial chair. Family fundamentalism is violently at odds with the idea of modern democracy. This minor insurgency in Tamil Nadu has to be cheered.