Alas, the stalwart is gone.
Karunanidhi, the master schemer and on-the-ground politician, is being missed when he is needed the most in 2025.
The master politician knew when to press forward and when to take a strategic pause in every front that he espoused, something the current DMK leadership clearly lacks. We see the current DMK leadership going off-tangent, discussing non-issues, turning hyper on nothing, resorting to hyperactivity on insignificant items and becoming an ignorable bunch of politicians at the end of all these.
Let me gravitate to Karunanidhi.
He faced such an existential crisis during MGR’s time that the very existence of his party was considered untenable. But, he kept his party as one stock and came back to power after MGR’s demise.
Even prior, Karunanidhi was prudent enough to understand the necessity of aligning with the center. Given his love-hate relationship with the Congress, and given his opposition to the emergency, he periodically aligned with the Congress and got what he wanted – power at the state level.
Just to ward off the Jayalalithaa juggernaut in TN, he joined with his supposedly ideological rival, the BJP, and that stood him in good stead especially during the infamous midnight arrest episode. In no time ‘beggars and loafers ( pandaara parathesikal)’ – he had called the RSS thus – became persons of integrity and great repute. That is Karunanidhi for you. A quintessential existentialist and survival tactician.
While being aligned with the BJP’s NDA govt, he had a behind-the-screens dialogue with the Congress for a possible coalition. He was with the BJP and ensured Murasoli Maran, his brother-in-law, got treated in the US at centre’s cost. As soon as Maran passed away, Karunanidhi forged an alliance with the Congress, thus remaining in power at the centre for 15 long years.
On Katchateevu, he towed the central govt’s line in private but opposed the central govt’s decision in public, says R.Kannan, in his book ‘The DMK years’.
On LTTE, though playing dual stand politics, he stood by the central govt in 2009 and ensured the terrorist group’s annihilation while at the same time bargaining with the Congress for seats in the then Lok Sabha elections. Whatever the current DMK dispensation might say to the contrary, despite all rhetoric on stopping the Sri Lankan war like conducting human chain comprised of school children and similar such not-so-useful gimmicks, Karunanidhi didn’t pull down the UPA-1 govt for LTTE. Pragmatic that he was, Karunanidhi bought his party a permanent place in the UPA-2 by not haggling for respite in Sri Lanka’s annihilation of the terrorist group – LTTE.
Lest people should jump on me, I point them to former Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon’s book ‘Choices’ where he dismembers Karunanidhi’s indefinite fast unto death that lasted 2 hours, ostensibly to ‘protect’ the civilians in Sri Lanka.
As an extremely intelligent person, Karunanidhi understood that standing for LTTE would not bring votes in Tamil Nadu and therefore resorted to his usual theatrics mixed politics and silent negotiations with the Congress party. Result : Even after the LTTE’s rout and decimation of at least 100,000 Tamils, the DMK won the elections in Tamil Nadu.
Language politics
Once he tasted power in 1969, Karunanidhi understood that linguistic politics should only be used for bargaining with the centre. He clearly understood that ‘language-war’, ‘state-autonomy’ et al should be uttered when the centre remained intransigent and didn’t yield to his needs. And he knew the length to which he should use these key words. Unlike Prabhakaran who stood on Eelam demand and ultimately ended up with nothing, Karunanidhi was clever in using the keywords to his advantage.
Had he been heading the party and govt today, Karunanidhi would not have allowed a bunch of officers and non-govt actors to take over government’s functions. From what is seen on the ground, the government appears to be led blind-folded in some direction by people who have a vested agenda against national sovereignity.
He would have used the keywords on three language, state funding etc but in a more subtle manner and negotiated for some advantage to his party & govt. His MPs would’ve conducted themselves in a lot more civil manner in Parliament and raised some issues that would be relevant economically and politically to his party and govt in Tamil Nadu. Now we have empty rhetoric and issues that don’t have any relevance to the common man, for even school children know the double speak of the DMK members on liquor, 3 language and NEET exam.
Consider the ‘secret’ of abolishing NEET that the scion of the first family mentioned during an election campaign. Karunanidhi would not have allowed such stupendous stupidities to be aired in public. If he didn’t know, Karunanidhi would’ve consulted with his legal eagles before uttering something on that.
How would Karunanidhi have handled the New Education Policy matter ?
Murasoli 12-02-2025 would have read : ‘While it is our state’s prerogative to either accept or decline the NEP, in the interests of the Dravidian brotherhood, I propose that Tamil Nadu would accept the three language policy that would be restricted to the four dravidian languages. We would always stand against Hindi imposition.. etc etc’
Matter done and dusted, Karunanidhi would have got the local movie industry organise a function to felicitate him on ‘safeguarding’ Tamil Nadu from Hindi, while striking a deal with the centre not to pursue either the 2G or the Senthil Balaji case. Had he been alive, Karunanidhi would’ve distanced himself from Senthil Balaji the moment Supreme Court had passed adverse comments on the latter in the money-for-jobs case.
For one, I long for a DMK govt run by Karunanidhi, for the current leadership is not even remotely connected to the politically astute veteran’s leadership. Not that I like the DMK, but given the reality that the DMK coalition is likely to be in power for the immediate future, I would’ve wanted an intelligent & practically hands-on leadership at the helm.
If only wishes were horses..
Of the 40 MPs from Tamil Nadu, one stands out – Karthi Chidambaram. He raised important issues in the house like Credit Scoring by CIBIL and the menace of stray dogs. And he doesn’t belong to the DMK.
Not one DMK MP has raised any issue of significance till date. And Karunanidhi wouldn’t have tolerated this vacuum either.
On the other hand, if this sudden rhetoric and one-liner induced daily chaos is to divert the attention of the national media and people from the monumental corruption, official malfeasance, dysfunctional governance and general decay of administration, then the DMK is certainly doing an excellent job. The TN media is anyway tied in the porch and is enjoying its slumber borne out of hearty meals consisting of breadcrumbs from sand and liquor proceeds.
And, Karunanidhi would’ve not meddled and enslaved the press like what we see today. Though he would’ve called out the ‘Mount Road Maha Vishnus’ and ‘thread-sporting press’ for their overreach, he would’ve done so after allowing them to say what they would’ve wanted to say. Now with the ‘Mount Road Maha Vishnu’ dutifully wagging its tail at the front porch, it doesn’t matter any way.
Sample of Tamil Nadu’s press status:
https://x.com/Shibin_twitz/status/1899736670179664101
If the daily dose of current rhetoric by the DMK is an act of keeping the allies with them, then this might not be fruitful as the allies would stick to the party only as long as the party is in power. Without power, the party is as good as yet another Sebastian Simon Party. With today’s announcement of changing the currency sign, the DMK government is paving way for an invitation for the repeat of Jan 30, 1991. With volumes of evidence on monumental corruption, the party should tone down rhetoric.
Karunanidhi would not have gone this far, for he was knowledgeable enough to differentiate between rhetoric and pragmatism.
Or may be, is this a game plan for an early election for the state with some more corruption scandals waiting to tumble out of the cupboards?
Amaruvi's Aphorisms 
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