Caste As Leader

SIGNIFICANT ground level changes are in the offing in the 75-year-old Dravidian movement. This has surfaced in the Dalits of Tamil Nadu organising themselves politically into a monolithic grouping. Together with the Muslims, they are now represented by the Pudiya Tamizhyagam (PT), a steadily rising political party floated by Dr Krishnaswamy. It’s a new political consciousness that’s deeply influenced by the caste riots in the southern districts and the Coimbatore serial blasts. "We are bringing ideology to politics once again. The number game and calculations can’t be fought by counter number games and calculations. But only by mass mobilisation," declares Krishnaswamy.

Ironically, it was the DMK which launched Krishnaswamy’s political career by offering him a ticket to contest the 1984 Lok Sabha polls. Prior to this, the doctor had been running a nursing home in Coimbatore. His political career didn’t begin well—the twin sympathy wave of Mrs Gandhi’s assassination and MGR’s illness ensured his defeat. In the early ’90s he quit the DMK to form the Devendra Kula Vellar Federation to fight for Dalit rights. Consistently widening his base, he won the assembly seat from Ottapidaram in Thirunelveli district in 1996. Just before the 1998 polls he floated the PT.

The new political polarisation instantly proved its potency. Krishnaswamy polled 1,23,592 votes at Thenkasi reserved constituency paving the way for the defeat of the then Union minister and TMC candidate M. Arunachalam. Moreover, he played a key role in defeating the DMK-TMC candidates in four southern constituencies: Thiruchendur, Thirunelveli, Sivakasi and Ramanathapuram. In Thirunelveli, the DMK candidate, filmstar Sharath Kumar, lost by 6,000 votes while the PT candidate secured 86,419 votes. The Dalits and Muslims who had voted for the DMK in ’96 had turned to the new front.

According to M.S.S. Pandian of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, the long stint in power has eroded the DMK’s ability to understand ground-level dynamics—it now has all the trappings of any elitist party. Says Pandian: "The present conflict between backward castes and Dalits is an unintended consequence of the Dravidian movement. The government does not have the political imagination to find a resolution to this complicated conflict."

Initially, the Dalits had felt secure with the Congress, as they perceived the DMK as representing the interest of non-Brahmin intermediate castes. With Kamaraj’s death and the AIADMK’s electoral debut in 1977, a major shift in voting patterns happened. The Dalits were loyal to the AIADMK till the 1991 general election when Dalit leaders felt that the DMK should be given a chance.

The bonhomie with Karunanidhi was short-lived. Tamil Nadu witnessed two bloody caste riots in 1997 and the response of the state government was bureaucratic. The government’s move to bring harmony only succeeded in driving a far greater wedge between the Mukulathors and the Dalits. The Mukulathors voted en masse for the AIADMK—Jayalalitha’s close aide Sasikala is a Mukulathor. And the Dalits transferred allegiance to the PT, which has shades of Mahar-ashtra’s RPI and UP’s BSP.

The divide between the two castes surfaced during 1991-96, when the AIADMK was in power. Violence in the southern districts was followed by the re-introduction of separate Dalit burial grounds; separate glasses for Dalits in tea stalls and caste-based differences in agricultural wages.

Tamil Nadu has three major Dalit groupings: the Paraiyars in the northern districts; the Pallars or Devendra Kulla Vellalars in the south and the cobbler’s community of Arunthiyars. The USP of the new political party is that it has brought all Dalits under one umbrella and also roped in the Muslim community. Over the last two years Dr Krishnaswamy has assumed the avatar of leader of the oppressed and the minorities.

Post-Coimbatore blasts, all the major political parties had developed a growing wariness towards the minorities—though, unlike the VHP and the RSS, no party in the state campaigned against the Muslims. The DMK government even adopted a stringent Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) on the lines of the much-dreaded TADA.

Says M.H. Jawarharllah, president of the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK): "We face three kinds of threats. First from the fundamentalists in our community. In 1994, when Koattai Ameer, a Janata Dal leader, voiced concern about the methods adopted by some Muslim groups, he was killed by our own brothers. Second: the backlash from Hindu fanatics. They distributed notices asking people not to patronise Muslim shops; not to rent houses or shops to Muslims and to be vigilant about Muslim youths. Third: a large section of the police is out-and-out communal. They arrest our boys without provocation and beat them up in custody. But for the communalism of the police,Islamic fundamentalism wouldn’t have gained acceptance with our youth".

Against this backdrop, the PT stepped into the political vacuum. It announced it would work with the TMMK to fight for the civil rights of the minorities. A statewide campaign against POTA followed.

With the traditional Muslim leadership losing its clout and fundamentalists behind bars, the TMMK has emerged as a major representative of the state’s Muslims. Their closeness to Dr Krishnaswamy has set alarm bells ringing in the AIADMK and DMK. For, the new polarisation, their leaders admit, will in all certainty, upset political calculations.