Doctor's journey in TN Assembly brings out nuances of coalition politics

Chennai: Both 1996 and a decade later, 2006, have been watershed years in Tamil Nadu politics. The first for the excitement and tumult with which a regional variant of the Indian National Congress (INC), the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC) under the leadership of the late G.K. Moopanar had emerged as a stunning catalyst in changing a government in the state and the second how a reunited Congress supporting the DMK from the outside, nudged its alliance leader as a coalition player.

Both those five-year terms (1996-2001 and 2006-2011), in the alternating scenario of AIADMK/ DMK regimes in Tamil Nadu, were unique insofar as they showed in various degrees that a national party like Congress could be more than a placid and contextually a ‘lead low’ player in the state’s political stage since it lost power to the DMK in 1967.

The 2006 halfway coalition experiment in Tamil Nadu so to say– as the PMK also supported the M. Karunanidhi-led DMK rule from the outside-, had a stronger glue to hold them, perched midway between the first and second terms of the Congress-led UPA coalition at the Centre. It was even more distinct since Dr Manmohan Singh came back to power in a high-stakes battle after signing the Indo-US Civil Nuclear deal and the civil war in Sri Lanka climaxing in 2009, a critical issue for both Congress and the DMK here.

It is in this backdrop that a recent book in Tamil by the former Congress MLA, Dr E.S.S Raman, who twice represented Pallipattu, a backward constituency at the northernmost fringe of Tamil Nadu bordering Andhra Pradesh, ‘Sattaperavaiyil Enadhu Panigal (My Work in the Legislative Assembly)’, a compilation of his interventions, call attention notices and speeches in the State Assembly, comes also as a true mirror of its times.

The larger political significance that flows across is that not only during those two five-year terms when Dr Raman, a medical doctor by profession, was a member of the august House (during 1996-2001 and 2006-11) the DMK was in power here, but also the fact those were momentous years of how the main regional parties, DMK and AIADMK, had changed political allies in New Delhi in the new era of multi-party coalitions.

Thus, apart from raising issues that were close to Dr Raman’s heart, as a sober professional medical man sporting a gentle smile and his ambling walk a picture of classical Tamil modesty, a quality that he imbibed from his late father E.S. Subramaniya Mudaliyar, his Assembly chronicles also brings to the fore nuances of coalition politics.

To get to see democracy at work through the eyes of a medical doctor, say when likes of Dr Muthulakshmi Reddy and Dr HV Hande were members, by itself commends the work of Dr Raman, mentored into politics by the veteran Congress leader G.K. Moopanar.

For the legislator, the book is a factual compilation of how he worked through in the Tamil Nadu Assembly during those ten years. Yet, implied in this narration, is a sub-text of the fluctuating fortunes of political alliances. This is something that can only be shown and felt, as one reads his speeches, and that is what makes it more informative and interesting than just a legislative or parliamentary record.

In the first two years of the 12th Assembly constituted in 1996, when the political honeymoon between the then TMC and DMK was at its peak – they were also partners in the UF coalition at the Centre-, in the push for issues like getting the Government of India declare Tamil as a ‘classical language’ or declaring ‘Tirukkural’ as ‘National Literature’, Dr Raman could take pride that the ‘Cauvery delta heroes’ (allusion to the two dhoti-clad Tamils M Karunanidhi and G.K. Moopanar) were in a position to influence policies at the Centre also. In his first speech in that Assembly, speaking in the debate on the Governor’s address, Dr Raman, representing a constituency which has a large number of handlooms and power-loom societies, presses for the DMK regime extending the free supply of electricity for farmers to weavers too.

At the same time, Dr Raman was forthright in saying, considering the mandate of the people for the DMK-TMC combine that year was for good governance, the ‘Ombudsman Committee’ to look into charges of corruption of people in high offices should be broad and representative enough to evoke the trust of the people. But soon the climate changes.

Shift to post-March 1999, after the DMK dramatically backed the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA regime at the Centre in the confidence vote, the angst of a rudely jolted TMC is also reflected in some of the sharp, yet objective, observations made by Dr Raman in the Assembly. For instance, participating in the State budget debate that year, he makes no bones of the fact how, as grounded in the Congress’ cosmopolitan and secular outlook, the TMC members were “pained” by the rationalist-minded DMK members maintaining a studious silence when the then lone BJP MLA, Velayudham, had packed his speech in the House with “paeans for the Sangh” all through.

Come 2006, after DMK had returned to the Congress-led fold to be part of the UPA coalition at the Centre, the overhaul in political equations reverberates in the Assembly also. As a member of the 14th Assembly (2006-11), Dr Raman in one of his speeches refers to how Karunanidhi, coming back as Chief Minister for the fifth time, is with his sage-like, mellowed and matured political approach, was in the unenviable position of a “physician” to “heal” the ruptures of all sections of the people, particularly the State government staff shaken by ‘mass dismissals’ under the earlier AIADMK regime.

These changing political dynamics apart, Dr Raman’s committed and most valuable interventions come out in a range of people’s issues- from bettering services in government hospitals, supporting the bill to regulate private medical clinics and hospitals, standardising research protocol for application of ‘Siddha’ medicine to treatment of HIV-AIDS, installing lithotripters (a non-invasive procedure for removing bladder stones) in all major government hospitals, making quality healthcare affordable to the majority of the people, to mitigating ‘dyslexia’ – Dr Raman on that occasion even cited Ameer Khan-starring Hindi movie ‘Tare Zameen Per’-. They speak volumes for how committed medical professionals can make a big difference in the business of legislation.