Regional Politics | Why is the DMK going soft on the BJP?

Sumanth Raman

Politics in Tamil Nadu has not been short of twists and turns in the last few years. The last few days have been no different. This time the theme was Hindi and Sanskrit imposition with the Bhagavad Gita added for good measure. But even as the drama was unfolding, the script changed. The DMK, that had been leading the Anti Hindi imposition agitation in Tamil Nadu, suddenly started to go silent. Unusually, this happened after a meeting called by state governor Banwarilal Purohit with the DMK Party leader M.K.Stalin at Raj Bhavan. Coming out of the meeting Stalin announced that the DMK was suspending the agitation they had proposed to hold two days later in response to the governor assuring them (as the representative of the Central Govt.in the State) that there would be no imposition of Hindi in Tamil Nadu.

The decision of the DMK was strange in many ways. Firstly, there is still a strong sentiment in Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi though there is no opposition to the Hindi language itself. Lakhs of students in TN schools are learning Hindi each year, including in some schools owned by DMK leaders and family members and the Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha headquartered at Chennai trains and/or certifies thousands of students. Yet, as the imposition of Hindi is strongly resented, the DMK by going soft was letting a political opportunity pass. Even more strange was that the party was doing it on the assurance of a governor against whom they had raised charges of interfering in the administration and worse, whom they had black-flagged across several districts last year.

If the withdrawal of the agitation was strange, what followed was even more curious. On 1 October 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Chennai for the convocation at IIT-Madras. On several of his visits in the recent past, the DMK has attempted to float black balloons, show black flags, and openly trended the hashtag #gobackmodi . This time even as some netizens (and perhaps, the IT cell of some of the smaller parties) started the hashtag again, the DMK was conspicuously silent. None of its senior leaders spoke out about the PM's visit. Stalin even welcomed the Prime Minister's speech at IIT where he said Tamil was the oldest language in the world.

Rumour mills in Chennai have been speculating that the governor may have had a stronger message for the DMK and that the meeting with Stalin may have been about much more than just Hindi. Speculation has been rife as to what that message  may have been.

A few days later came the next controversy. The Anna University in its syllabus for 2019 is offering an optional course for which one of the reference books was the Bhagavad Gita. Another optional course dealt with Sanskrit as a technical language. In normal circumstances the DMK would have gone ballistic opposing this. This time, except for a student protest that the party organized, nothing significant was done. Even the tweet put out by Stalin spoke only against the imposition of Sanskrit and was conspicuously silent about the Bhagavad Gita.

The sudden change in the equation between the BJP and the DMK, coming as it does at a time when AIADMK Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisamy seems to have settled down and is starting to deliver has raised eyebrows among political analysts in the State. Tamil Nadu posted a growth rate of 8.7 percent last year, well above the nation’s GDP growth. The chief minister’s visit to the UK, US and UAE has been received reasonably well with many MOUs having been signed for investments. At home, the state government has managed the water crisis with a fair measure of confidence. Is the thinking in the BJP that the Chief Minister may start to assert himself at some stage?  Recently, AIADMK announced its candidates for the Nanguneri and Vikravandi Assembly bypolls without so much as a by-your-leave from the BJP causing some resentment in the latter’s state unit. So, does the BJP want to ensure that the CM does not step out of line and is therefore sending mixed signals with the DMK?

For the BJP the situation where the DMK appears to be going soft on it is a win-win. On the one hand, it helps send a signal to the ruling AIADMK and CM Edappadi Palanisamy not to take the BJP for granted. On the other hand it embarrasses the DMK given the strong language its leaders used against PM Modi until a few weeks ago.

So is it the carrot of a possible AIADMK-BJP alliance rupture or is it the stick of all the pending cases against DMK leaders that is doing the trick? Only time will tell.

Sumanth Raman is a Chennai-based television anchor and political analyst. Views are personal.