PMK & Casteist Equations

Indian Voter is pleased to find a mention in the report by DNA India, which can be accessed here. Many thanks to the readers who have been encouraging me to write.

Until the late 1980s, in Tamil Nadu though politics was run based on caste affiliations, political parties refrained from being identified with any particular caste. At that time, political scenario in the state comprised of only three major players - Congress, Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (AIADMK). Sometime in July/August 1987, Vanniyar Sangam - a casteist organisation for Vanniyas, an OBC community who are dominant in northern districts of Tamil Nadu started demanding reservation for their community in jobs & education. Vanniyar Sangam was headed by one Dr. Ramadoss, a qualified medical practitioner based at Tindivanam. What started as a normal protest turned out to be a violent one and the protestors in a bid to make their voices heard, axed huge trees along the National Highways there by stopping all the traffic. More violent protests followed and police had to resort to firing in which more than a dozen protestors died. There was sizeable tension through out and public transport in the state had to be operated with police vehicles on tow. For a few weeks, M.G. Ramachandran led AIADMK government even banned all the public transport off the roads after 8 or 9 pm for security reasons. Vanniyar Sangam had ensured that their voice was heard loud & clear and the government succumbed to their demands.

Probably, this protest gave an idea of the underlying strength among his community that Dr. Ramadoss floated a political party. Thus was born the PMK - Paataali Makkal Katchi. PMK was/is very much a political arm of Vanniyar Sangam and nothing more. In the initial days of the party, Dr. Ramadoss stood tall among the community when he vowed that he or his family would never contest the elections or take any positions of power. That and the catchy slogans like 'வன்னியர் வோட்டு அந்நியர்க்கில்லை' (Vanniyar’s vote is not for any one else) made him the hero of Vanniya community. In 1996 elections to the State Assembly, PMK garnered a decent 4.5% of the votes and cut through the vote bank of the traditional parties. Usually PMK would press on their demands with their strong arm tactics and violent protests, but due to the vote bank politics, the rulers - be it DMK or AIADMK usually overlooked them. Dr. Ramadoss learnt his lessons in politics very quickly and made it a point to strike alliance with one of the major Dravidian parties. Though PMK is strong only in the Northern districts of Tamil Nadu, both Karunanidhi & Jayalalithaa entertained them for the fear of PMK crossing over to the opposite camp. Dr. Ramadoss made use of this factor and each time, he would bargain for more seats in the alliance than the previous time.

In 1998 elections to the Parliament, Dr. Ramadoss (in)famously announced that he would join whichever alliance that gives PMK more number of seats. In one another instance, he sunk to a new low by saying that if PMK struck an alliance with Jayalalithaa led AIADMK, it would be like calling his mom to bed. Within six months of that announcement, he did form an alliance with AIADMK. By switching camps at the right time, PMK might have gone down in the eyes of purists, but it did gain a lot in terms of MPs and MLAs. Some of its MPs eventually became Central Ministers as well, most notable among them is Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, who is the Union Minister for Health.

Floating a party and being successful at that is not a crime in itself. But what matters is the ugliness of their so-called ideals. For quite sometime now, Dr. Ramadoss has been demanding reservation for Vanniyas in the judiciary. Two or three years ago, he even advocated the bifurcation of Tamil Nadu, thus carving a separate state for Vanniya community.

What matters in PMK's growth is not the evolution of one violent, casteist party. It had other serious repercussions in the political scenario of the state. But it inspired the other power hungry caste leaders to float their own political party and demand representation and reservation. Now we have actor Karthik led Forward Bloc that claims to represent Thevars, Kannappan led Makkal Tamil Desam (recently this party merged with DMK) representing Yadavas, A.C.Shanmugam led The New Justice Party representing Mudaliars, Thirumavalavan led Dalit Panthers of India representing Dalits and a bunch of other smaller parties all claiming to be the "real" representatives of Vanniya community. Every community want to see their men/women in positions of power (& money), but the trouble is everyone wants it as a matter of right and not on the basis of merit. This writer would squarely place the blame on the major parties - all of them without exception, for embracing the little ones in the first place there by giving them their fifteen minutes of fame.

In 2001 general elections to TN Assembly, most of these casteist parties barring the big brother PMK struck alliance with Karunanidhi led DMK. One good outcome of that election is that most of these casteist parties were shown the door as they lost deposits. Unfortunately, those which barely scrapped through are still in the business this time.

There are umpteen castes in the state and so many of them are yet to test the waters in the electoral arena. They would also want to have reservation in jobs, education etc. In the forthcoming years, slowly but steadily rest of them would float their own parties and the bargaining would go on as before. Only the players would be different. How sweet! Long live, Democracy!!