Chennai: ‘Cosmic grace’ is how Ms Nirmala Sitharaman had termed her stunning elevation to being India’s only second woman Defence Minister in the latest Cabinet reshuffle at the Centre. While on the face of it, the reaction is so finely modest and self-effacing, yet it came as a symbolic power statement from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).
Conjoin it with the Cape Comorin point of view. While Nirmala Sitharaman, with family roots in southern Tamil Nadu, has the added advantage of having been elected to the Rajya Sabha first from Andhra Pradesh and then from Karnataka, which makes her a larger Southern representative in Parliament. Mr. Pon Radhakrishnan, BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from the deep South being made the Minister of State for Finance, comes as a clear affirmation that Tamil Nadu is not off Delhi’s radar.
Yet this ‘cosmic grace’ appears to have eluded the ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu, which was this time widely expected to formally join the BJP-led NDA at the Centre. And if that subtle, unseen quality called ‘Adrishta’ that makes for any graceful moment failed to embrace the AIADMK, the party is to blame only its infighting.
A compromise was reached between the two AIADMK factions, led by the present Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and the former Chief Minister, O. Pannerselvam that reworked the earlier strained equations to bring back OPS as the Deputy Chief Minister in August third week. But the patch-up was not sufficiently binding and cohesive to give AIADMK the push to join the Union Cabinet, as the third faction in the beleaguered party led by former MP, T.V. Dhinakaran had raised the banner of revolt.
At least one political commentator from the North writing in a leading national daily was stingingly candid, describing the post-Jayalalithaa rudderless AIADMK as “a low hanging fruit” that needs the benevolence of the BJP at the Centre, indicating it could be picked up anytime that New Delhi wanted. Yet this scenario is still far from reality.
However, more than possibly missing the Union Cabinet berth – even on Friday a State minister Rajenthra Bhalaji flagged the issue of “nothing wrong” in AIADMK re-aligning with the BJP as it had been in alliance twice in the past - the politically challenging fallout of the continuing unease is the deeper persisting malaise in the Tamil Nadu polity.
More specifically, in the post-Jayalalithaa phase, it stems from assiduous efforts by sections of the vocal and influential political class, who can quickly make that leap from ‘Tamil pride’ to ‘Hindu nationalism’ as they mull national alternatives to the Congress, to rid the AIADMK of all influences of ‘Amma’s former confidante VK Sasikala’s family.
That strategy could well boomerang as evidenced by the continuing open struggle for power among the dominant AIADMK factions, the most sagacious being the group led by Mr. Edappadi K Palaniswami. The party is still rediscovering who its next “political” leader can be. But it also shows that any disconnect between the party leadership and the government undermines any effective functioning of any party in power.
A bonus though for the AIADMK is its fluctuating, yet better numbers in the Tamil Nadu Assembly. Even rebel leader Mr. Dhinakaran asserts that they do not want to topple the present government, though not in sync with its present leadership. And significantly, all three factional leaders are not against BJP per se. Yet, the saffron party has been unable to do a bigger political co-option in Tamil Nadu as it did with Mr. Nitish Kumar in Bihar.
The AIADMK has been wishy-washy on the Neet exam issue. The DMK and its allies - Congress, Left parties and Dalit leader Thol. Thirumavalavan - however, have been effectively articulating the pitfalls of attempted “homogenization” of the professional courses entrance exams at the All India level. They draw from broader social justice concerns that “justice is prior to efficiency”, particularly for rural parents who do not have the money to send their wards to coaching classes, even as the Edappadi government has set up a panel under eminent educationist Dr M. Anandakrishnan to convert the ‘Neet crisis’ into an opportunity for upgrading the school syllabi.
If from the days of Kamaraj, CN Annadurai, to M. Karunanidhi, the legendary MGR to Jayalalithaa, people have been attuned to what Thomas Carlyle would term entwining political leadership with ‘hero-worship’, one important reason for it has been that the progressive shift towards a market-oriented economy was underpinned with wider concerns of equity, secularism and social justice.
As MGR sings in one of his Thevar films-produced box-office hits, “Naanga paadura paatum, aadura koothum, naatukku padipinai thanthaganoom (even our song and dance makes people wiser”). It is that composite framework that is now being sought to be radically critiqued.
Whichever way the political pendulum could swing in coming days, the top priority for the government should be to ameliorate the State’s agrarian distress. Leave alone Cauvery delta once having been a rice bowl of the south, even in cash crops like sugarcane, as an Industry captain pointed out, Tamil Nadu has suffered a 20 per cent slump in production last year, the worst drought year in 140-odd years.
In fact, the recent second part report of the Economic Survey of India has succinctly painted the scenario for all States, some key aspects of which the ruling elite of Tamil Nadu should really worry about, as it is no longer among the high production irrigation -intensive states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and more recently also Madhya Pradesh, which “have contributed to the stability in cereal production”.
The overall fiscal scenario from this year (2017-18) would also be markedly different for Tamil Nadu, like for other States, which have opted for the Centre’s ‘UDAY’ package scheme for the financial turnaround of the electricity boards. Further, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) switches over to a system of ‘pooled sovereignty’ with the Central government in sharing indirect taxes revenues. Thirdly, the Centre has made clear that any loan waiver scheme will have to be fully borne by the respective State governments.
Managing all these macro-economic issues within the ‘little fiscal space (0.20 per cent as the Survey says)’ that Tamil Nadu has as a percentage of its Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), should hopefully be Fort St. George’s objective in the coming days.
