Dateline Chennai by Kumar Chellappan

Sri Lanka may have to beef up its internal and external security and intelligence gathering if the developments in Tamil Nadu are any indication.

The opposition Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK) is getting ready to stoke up Tamil nationalist passions. Frustrated over its failure in successive elections since May 2011 (the 2011 assembly election, the 2014 Parliament election and the 2016 assembly election), the party is licking the wounds inflicted by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (AIADMK), its arch rival.

M.K. Stalin, the de facto head of the DMK, may resort to call for secession from the Indian union and revive the old demand for Dravida Nadu, a separate country for Tamils incorporating Tamil Nadu, parts of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and, of course, the Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka.

The inference is based on the Tamil nationalistic stance taken by Stalin, son of DMK’s 95-year-old aili ng President, Muthuve l Karunanidhi, on key issues. Tamil Nadu is the only State in the country to oppose the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the all India competitive examination held by the government of India to select students to the undergraduate and post graduate courses in medicine and dental sciences. While all the States in the union welcomed the NEET, Tamil Nadu remained defiant towards this examination which was introduced by the Congress- led United Progressive Alliance government (2004-2014), in which the DMK was a crucial partner. Though the decision to introduce NEET was taken with the concurrence of the DMK in 2011, the repeated rejection of the DMK by the electorate in Tamil Nadu made Stalin to opt for a confrontationist stance against the ruling dispensation at the Centre.

The DMK opened another battlefront in Tamil Nadu by declaring its opposition to the recent directive by the Madras High Court, urging the Tamil Nadu government to allow the central government to run public schools in all districts to make quality education available to rural masses. In Tamil Nadu, both the DMK and the AIADMK have opposed the setting up of central government schools, known as Navodaya Vidyalayas. The two par-