Political India: Engaging America

The DMK made a song and dance about the freebies it was dishing out in its election manifesto (especially the unprecedented promise of a colour TV) in its competition with the paternal-populist AIADMK. As a previous blog post here suggested, it may only be partly true that despite it's past inclination towards intermediate Dravidian castes, the party has actually metamorphosed into a similar animal to the AIADMK- a pro-poor, mass-based party. Now it looks like one must be even more cautious in granting the DMK this.

It would appear that "Kalaignar" is finding it difficult to jettison the deep anti-Brahmin undercurrents that have always characterized his party even if muted at times- check out this article about temple priests in the state. This undercurrent has been associated, even since the days of Periyar, not with the lowest classes and castes in the state, but the intermediate castes of small properties- the ones responsible for bringing the DMK to power in dramatic fashion almost 40 years ago. Clearly their influence on the overall direction of the party's policies has not been eliminated, even if it has waned significantly.

While any move- such as this reform regarding temple priests- towards equality between castes is to be welcomed, a more general cause for concern is that the DMK still seems inclined to promote the welfare of intermediate groups whom it clearly sees as a major support base. Whether or not this commitment will lead to the re-emergence of fiscal imbalances (due to the already large-scale promises of subsidised rice, free TV made in its manifesto) in public accounts remains to be seen. At stake is the prosperity of about 65 million Tamil people.

Lots of luck to the octogenarian.