Batting his last innings

Quite unexpectedly on a weekend, Tamil Nadu patriarch M Karunanidhi did something that is pretty unusual. He declared his intention to step aside. The timeline he has in mind would suggest the middle of next year if he is really allowed to move off the political stage for good. Not that that is going to be easy. He will undoubtedly come under intense pressure from his colleagues and the DMK cadre to carry on regardless of his own age and age-related disabilities.

If he does, however, go into retirement from active power politics, even if it means becoming a mentor of sorts — like a non-executive chairman in the corporate world — it would be a rare political gesture; calling it a day having done what you could. A rare political action indeed, given the fact that no politician ever retires. They are either sidelined or fade out because they are too old, ill and a piece of history at best.

Not so Karunanidhi. The extent of his physical limits and illnesses, if any, may be a secret known only to those in the inner circle. His inability to move around — he needs support to even walk around, or uses a wheel chair — is there for all to see. His mental agility however, is something even his worst critic would admire, though one may argue that his responses now are far more measured and mellowed.

Certainly what is most admirable is the calculated succession process that he has put in place. It is a plan that has run its course fairly smoothly until now even though there is no guarantee that it would be so once he brings his innings to a close.

One may criticise him for making his family the only relevant power centre in the DMK. His son, MK Stalin, was gradually moved from the periphery to become deputy chief minister and manage all key portfolios his father held.

His other son, MK Azagiri, represents the party’s interests at the Centre along with his grand nephew, Dayanidhi Maran and daughter Kanimozhi. A complete family portrait of a powerful dynasty, one may say cynically. That is undoubtedly true. But, given the fact that politics as a family business or, if you want to make a subtle distinction, practice (as in practice of law or medicine) has become a fact of life in all parties and across all regions, Karunanidhi alone cannot be faulted on this score.

The two principal political parties in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the AIADMK, are undoubtedly cadre-based but are, at the same time, highly personality oriented. If it was Annadurai and Karunanidhi thereafter so far as the DMK is concerned, it was MGR followed by Jayalalithaa in the case of the AIADMK. Other minor parties such as the PMK, MDMK and so on are much more personality-driven than the two main Dravidian parties. For over 60 years, politics in Tamil Nadu has shaped on this basis. So, the succession process in the DMK is quite understandable.

Karunanidhi also deserves credit for striking a fine balance between regional aspirations and national interests unlike some regional parties, notably in Maharashtra, who are unable to make a fine blend of the two. That again is a process that saw subtle but significant changes over time.

If, for instance, the strident language the DMK used in the late sixties bordered on secessionist tendencies and if its anti-Hindi agitation was more violent than what you saw in Mumbai in the recent past, it dropped these tendencies over time and became a principal regional player in the national context to an extent all formulations, the Congress, the BJP and the United Democratic Front, had to do deal with parties in Tamil Nadu much more than as minor partners. As a result, national political parties have been compelled to play second fiddle in Tamil Nadu and that for close to fifty years.

That political balance is so intrinsic to Tamil Nadu politics that the difference between one political outfit and another in that state is largely on account of personality play and not because of serious ideological differences.

Now that the DMK patriarch has set a timeline to be in office, other political parties will surely be salivating at the prospect of improving their fortunes after he withdraws into the side wings. The Congress, in particular, will be hoping to regain the ground it lost a long time ago. Among the purely regional players there are many who would like to become another Karunanidhi. Even if they may have the fervour to do that, crafting a political script the way he did and for so long takes a lot more.