Karunanidhi still the biggest draw for DMK
Muthuvel Karunanidhi, the patriarch of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu turned 95 on Sunday, and at least some analysts believe he remains the key to Tamil Nadu politics.
Karunanidhi, who has been a partner of both the BJP and the Congress, will be the person who chooses sides in the 2019 elections, and early indications, based on the public utterances of his son and political heir (in waiting) MK Stalin, are that he is leaning towards the Congress and the federal-front-in-the-making. Tamil Nadu sends 39 members to the Lok Sabha. Analysts say that he also remains relevant in Tamil Nadu, although elections are not due in the state till 2021.
Actors Rajnikant and Kamal Haasan have recently jumped into the political arena, but many believe that the two most important people in Tamil Nadu right now, from the political perspective, are TTV Dhinakaran of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam, and Karunanidhi.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal chief minister Mamta Bannerjee were among those who greeted the Dravidian leader. Last year, Prime Minister Modi paid Karunanidhi a surprise visit to enquire after his health.
DMK, the principal opposition party in Tamil Nadu, geared up for the gala event by holding a three-day celebration, which started on Friday at Thiruvarur, the birth place of Karunanidhi and concluded in Chennai on Sunday. However, for Karunanidhi himself it was just a day with family members and a few select party loyalists. Cadres thronged the street outside his house in Chennai’s central Gopalapuram area to catch a glimpse of their ailing leader.
The DMK, which is out of power both in the Centre and the state still needs the charisma of its ageing leader to rally the masses, exposing the dearth of leadership depth in the party, say analysts. Murasoli, the party’s newspaper, dedicated its Sunday edition to the leader.
“The sentence en uyirinum melana udanpirrappe” (my siblings, who are dearer to me than my life), one of Karunanidhi’s preferred ways of opening speeches, is famous among partymen and the kind of response it generates during public meeting is electric,” says Saidapet DMK MLA M Subramanian.
“He is an institution and there is no match for his administrative skills. He has the habit of reading all English dailies. The state ministers and city mayors would get calls by 6 am in the morning if there was any negative news related to their portfolio,” recalls Subramanian who served Chennai as it mayor.
Its been almost two years though, since Karunanidhi spoke last in public and the party cadres are still awaiting to hear him, he adds. He claims that if Karunidhi, once a popular scriptwriter for Tamil movies, starts addressing the public again, actors-turnedpoliticians Rajnikanth and Kamal Haasan will become irrelevant in the state.
“Though our leader is not in any shape to speak, the Tamil people still speak about him. His political innings dates back to the colonial era and he is the reason for the growth and the continuity of this party”, says another DMK MLA Thayagam Kavi.
Expectedly, opponents seem Karunanidhi as a relic of the past.
Former MLA Ku Seenivasan of the AIADMK says Karunanidhi is not relevant to the current political scenario. “He is the root cause for all problems in Tamil Nadu. The DMK gave expansion permissions to Sterlite and it was during his chief ministership that the fishing rights of Tamil Nadu on Katchatheevu island was ceded to Sri Lanka”.
“Today, there is no AIADMK founder MGR or Amma (Jayalalithaa) and without the hero there is no role for a villain,” he adds.
Meme creators had a field day Sunday, poking fun at Karunanidhi’s designated heir M K Stalin on his endless wait to ascend the DMK throne. Thousands also took to social media to greet the TN leader. Birthday tweets for Karunanidhi trended for few hours.
Karunanidhi has contested in 12 assembly polls and personally never lost an election. At the age of 33 he entered the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly representing Kulithalai constituency. He was elected five times as the CM of Tamil Nadu. When Rao first conceived the idea of India engaging more closely with the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, he was most interested in attracting investment to finance his new economic reforms. His September 1992 speech n Singapore spoke about old cultural ties and new economic opportunities. Countering Chinese influence was a distant second on the list of motives.
Rao criss-crossed Southeast Asia building personal ties with the region’s leaders and hard-selling the new Indian economy. A Thai journalist dubbed him the “Ninja Turtle”. A much younger Mahathir Mohamad ruled Malaysia at the time while Singapore was still under the legendary Lee Kuan Yew. South-east Asian leaders were shocked when Rao was defeated in the elections. But Look East, a phrase coined by former foreign secretary Salman Haidar a year after the original 1992 speech, remained embedded in India’s foreign policy.
WHAT HAPPENED
India slowly saw its political ties with ASEAN grow. By 2001 it became an.East Asia summit partner. It negotiated free trade agreements and was invited to defence groupings such as the Asian Regional Forum. Not all South-east Asian countries were initially enthusiastic about embracing India.The second ASEAN trade agreement was delayed for years because of foot-dragging
CHENNAI:
by Manila.
But from 2003, Look East took on a new shape. One, its geographical footprint spread to encompass Australia and Japan. Two, it began developing a military and strategic colour as China began enforcing a territorial claim on the South China Sea. It made sense when External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj rebranded it “Act East” in 2014.
SIGNIFICANCE
Asia is today a key geopolitical player compared to what it was in 1994. The US and Japan are now among the largest investors in India, partly for strategic reasons. China now seeks to bring ASEAN to its side, project its power into the Indian Ocean and beyond.
Local governments are reacting differently to this flux. Cambodia has chosen to align with China. Every few months, a new strategic geometry is announced. Now there are quads, security diamonds, maritime fulcrums and countless trilaterals. One term finding traction, and the topic of an entire Modi speech last week, is “Indo-Pacific”. Translation: the Indian and Pacific Oceans are one strategic space. Look East is today part of something much larger.