There are many contenders for chief minister’s post after Jayalalithaa’s death and DMK chief M Karunanidhi became politically inactive, but not  one in the list are women. 

Within the ruling party, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam are controlling the organisation, along with senior ministers, P Thangamani, SP Velumani and D Jayakumar. 

RK Nagar legislator TTV Dinakaran is challenging the AIADMK leadership from outside.  The only woman leader who had a chance to take over the party was Jayalalitha’s aide VK Sasikala, who lost the reins of party after being jailed. 

In the rival DMK, MK Stalin is the unquestionable leader, and seniors like K Duraimurugan, AV Velu, I Periyasamy and K Ponmudi are among the ones with influence. The one woman who still gets some space is party president M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi, who is in charge of the women’s wing – which can be led only by a woman. 

None of the other parties including the Left have women at the helm, and the emergence of actors Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan, too, do not provide space for women leadership. Even when she was around, Jayalalithaa was the only woman leader in the arena. 

After her death, the space has shrunk further for  women at all levels. Of the 39 Lok Sabha members from the state, only three – K Maragatham (Kancheepuram), Sathyabama (Tiruppur) and M Vasanthi (Tenkasi) – are women. It should be noted that these are AIADMK strongholds that come with the least risk. 

The others were elected to the Rajya Sabha – Sasikala Pushpa and Vijila Sathyanand from AIADMK, and Kanimozhi. The scenario in the state Assembly is marginally better with 20 women including 15 from the ruling AIADMK. But in the House of 234, this does not add up to even 10 per cent. In the 2016 Assembly polls, the AIADMK fielded 31 women candidates, while DMK allotted 19 seats to women in the 174 constituencies the party contested. 

Out of a total of 3,787 candidates fielded by top political parties, including the AIADMK, DMK, PMK, MDMK, VCK, Congress, CPI, CPI(M), Naam Tamizhar Katchi, BJP and TMC, there were only 323 female candidates, less than 10 per cent. An overall analysis of Assembly election statistics since 1991, when Jayalalithaa captured power in the state, shows interesting figures. 

Between 1991 and 2011, the AIADMK fielded 830 candidates, including 93 women, while it was 797 candidates and 51 women for the DMK. The AIADMK had fielded 16 per cent women candidates in 1991, 6 per cent in 1996, 15 per cent in 2001, 12 per cent in 2006 and 7 per cent in 2011. The DMK had put up only 3.4 per cent women nominees in 1991 and 4 per cent in 1996, and has maintained nearly 9 per cent in 2001, 2006 and 2011. 

The maximum number of women candidates the AIADMK fielded in an Assembly election was 27 in 1991, when all of them won. 

The DMK fielded a maximum of 16 in 2001, with none of them winning. The state has raised women’s quota in local bodies to 50 per cent, but the parties are hesitant to field more women in the Assembly and Parliament polls as the bill on 33 per cent women’s reservation in the Assembly and Parliament is yet to see the daylight.

Ever since March 6, 1967, when DMK founder CN Annadurai captured power in Tamil Nadu and dedicated his government to the movement’s founder EVR Periyar, its leaders have been trying to walk a middle path in most of its founder’s radical views on women’s liberation.

The long political journey of women’s liberty movement in the state predates even Periyar. Dravidian movement’s predecessor Justice Party passed a law in 1921 giving voting rights for women in the Madras Presidency, which came just three years after the British government enacted the People’s Representation Act to provide voting rights for English women. Periyar began his journey on this path in the 1929 Chengalpattu conference of his Self-Respect Movement. 

The conference adopted a number of resolutions that were radical for those times: women should have equal rights for family property; there should be no objection to employing women to any job for which they are qualified; and schools should employ only women teachers. These were reiterated at the movement’s next conference in Erode in 1930. At the Virudhunagar conference, women members held a separate conference and adopted resolutions demanding right to select their life partners without any consideration of religion or community. 

When he formed the party and captured power, Annadurai, Periyar’s disciple, focused on economic empowerment on women. Anna’s successor M Karunanidhi ensured the implementation of the most of Periyar’s economic ideas on women’s liberation, but took forward the watered down version of Periyar’s policies for women. The few ideas that Periyar’s followers have taken forward include property rights for women, birth control measures, widow remarriage, and education and employment for women.

Besides, successive Dravidian party governments have brought in 50 per cent reservation for women in the local bodies, and have also backed the women’s quota bill in the Parliament. Among the topics considered controversial and remain untouched even among his followers are his views on chastity and marriage. His Pen Yaen Adimai Aanal? (why women become slaves) lists chastity, marriage and child birth as the root cause of the slavery. 

While the Central government promoted birth control after Independence as a measure to eradicate poverty, Periyar had advocated the same as a means of women’s liberation way back in the 1930s and 1940s. Writing in DK’s party organ ‘Kudiyarasu’ in 1946, Periyar sought women in police and army, decades before these steps were even contemplated.

The state has seen two women rule it, VN Janaki by chance and J Jayalalithaa by plan, and a host of others who made inroads in politics in the 50 years of Dravidian rule. But hardly a few of them had any influence, mainly in the state cabinet.  

Even in the rule of Jayalalithaa, who is considered a symbol of women empowerment in politics by many, very few women have held plum portfolios.  The Dravidian hinterland guaranteed suffrage to women nearly a century ago and legalised property rights of women even before the Government of India. But, somehow, occupancy rate of women in the treasury bench has been surprisingly and abysmally low. 

The women were largely pushed to the backseat and asked to be content with being MLAs. Even for a few ‘fortunate’ women, who managed to rise to the rank of ministers, there were a set of low-key portfolios, that includes social or Adi Dravidar or minorities or backward classes welfare or handloom. The composition of the present state cabinet is a case in point. Of the 33 ministers in Edappadi K Palaniswami’s regime, only four are women and they are holding social, backward and minorities welfare.  

One reasonable exception would be Nilofer Kafeel, who is the minister of labour. Allotting portfolios for women was no better in the previous DMK regime, which had carved out information technology for Poongothai Aladi Aruna in the 2006-11 tenure.

Like the Valarmathi and Rajalakshmi of EPS regime, DMK also had Tamilarasi and Geetha Jeevan who also held the Adi Dravidar and Animal Husbandry portfolios, while lucrative PWD, health, transport, revenue, housing and municipal administration portfolios continued to be the handled by their male counterparts as usual.