Chennai: M. Karunanidhi was different things to different people. For many, he was the doyen of Dravidian politics that stands for social justice, state autonomy and social welfare economics. Some, however, felt that this master of expediency was a smart and sly politician, epitomizing dynastic politics and corruption. His legacy, clearly, is dyed with a whitish gray. The last years have obscured some of the great contributions he made.
The ingredients of the secret sauce of the economic and social success of Tamil Nadu all boiled down to just one substance: the politics of self-respect. This idea, whose time came to the erstwhile Madras Province hundred years ago, was fashioned into political policies and social praxis by the top trio of the Dravidian politics: Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, C.N. Annadurai and M.Karunanidhi. M.G. Ramachandran and J. Jayalalithaa also came next.
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With Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi’s passing away, the state lost its knight in shining armour. Actually, it has lost two big guardians in less than two years (Jayalalithaa died in 2016). For an ordinary Tamil citizen, the indirect and de facto rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a party that vouched for a particular version of an idea of India that Tamil Nadu could never share, is nothing but a betrayal and shock.
The era of social justice and self-respect, Karunanidhi and his fellow travellers of the Dravidian rule—Anna, MGR and Jayalalithaa, who now share the same space in the hall of memories at the Anna Square on the Marina beach— shaped and set, now seems over. The dreams unmet are in a grave danger. Every other week, Tamil Nadu witnesses a new popular protest and the New Delhi is always on the receiving end. Night normally begins once the sun sets.
Aazhi Senthilnathan is a writer, entrepreneur and political activist.