A DIFFERENT WAY OF LIFE
SNarayan is the archetypal ‘Tambrahm’, a brilliant IAS officer of the 1965 Tamil Nadu cadre who, following a series of key postings in the rural development and human resource development departments of the TN government, rose to be economic advisor to prime minister A.B. Vajpayee after serving as secretary to the government of India in several crucial ministries, ranging from petroleum to finance.
This book, however, is confined to his contribution, and those of a myriad other upper-class/ upper-caste TN officers, to the dismantling of the overwhelming social and economic domination of their class and caste to realise the objectives of the revolutionary social reform movement initiated by the Dravidian government of C.N. Annadurai, on the basis of ‘Periyar’ E.V. Ramasamy Naicker’s teachings, when the DMK won power in the 1967 elections. The Dravidian Years covers the gamut of the full half-century that the Dravidian movement has without interruption remained in office—albeit in different party political guises but all proudly brandishing their Dravidian credentials.
Narayan attributes this bloodless revolution, which brought the ‘backward’ classes to the fore, to the Dravidian leaders of whatever hue being crystal clear about their ideological and political objectives but recognising that success lay in co-opting, not excluding, administrative officials of the very class/ caste they were engaged in evicting from their traditional positions of power. He commends to other states this very effective model of promoting widespread social change through the democratic political process by recognising that the proclamation of revolution is not enough; to implement revolutionary ideological goals, the political authority has to carry the administration with it, engaging the administrators without ‘politicising’ their individual loyalties.
Narayan is uniquely placed to provide this long perspective because, after schooling in Calcutta, he arrived in Madras University on the very eve of the political upheaval that lay in store for the ruling Congress. He was frowned upon by fellow students for his familiarity with Hindi, notwithstanding which he rose to high office in student politics while several of his classmates positioned themselves to seek their personal destiny in Dravidian politics. The spark that lit the tinderbox was the language agitation of 1965 that presaged the Dravidian revolution. Narayan ended his probation just as the old order was yielding place to the new, involving him deeply in giving administrative teeth to the Dravidian wish list.
That wish list was special in that it did not prioritise economic development, but stressed welfare politics through the social upliftment of the backward and downtrodden classes, with a strong emphasis on liberating women, and fork-lifted by policies aimed at alleviating poverty at the grassroots.
Development was measured not so much in terms of GDP and infrastructure/ industrial growth as in terms of social freedoms, social justice, social welfare, social ownership and fostering a socially inclusive Tamil identity. This socially oriented agenda was backed by access to government employment for backward classes, and a range of poverty alleviation schemes for subsidised rice, pensions for the poor, a revamped and efficient public distribution system, mid-day meals in schools, the TN Integrated Nutrition Programme—all aimed specifically at ‘socially and economically weaker non-Brahmin communities’. Moreover, the promotion through Thani Tamil Iyakkam or the Tamil Purist Movement of the nonSanskritic Tamil language and cultural traditions set up Tamils as ‘apart from the races and peoples of India, especially the Brahmin community’, endowing Tamils of all sections of society, particularly the lower rungs, with a ‘Dravidian identity’. Moreover, the SelfRespect Movement ended the stranglehold of the priesthood, undermined ritual and superstition, encouraged widow remarriage, and made atheism so politically correct that it included ‘breaking Hindu idols and the denigration of Hindu rituals and culture’. The corollary was that all religious communities were embraced within the Tamil fold. Thus, social development preceded and set the stage for the erosion of poverty in all its dimensions, including