It's time the BJP asked Vaiko to leave the NDA

Back then: Vaiko (centre) with Pottu Amman and Prabhakaran

The timing could not have been more off the mark. When the nation was observing the sixth anniversary of the Mumbai terror attacks, some political leaders in Tamil Nadu were celebrating the 60th birth anniversary of Velupillai Prabhakaran.
For those who cannot recall the name, Prabhakaran was the chief of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was responsible for the assassinations of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993. It was also behind the deaths of many more government officials and ordinary people caught in the crossfire of its war with the Sri Lankan government. Since 1992, the LTTE has been designated a terror organisation by India and this makes MDMK leader Vaiko’s support to the group and its leader almost treasonous.
Vaiko has often boasted about the rapport he shared with a terrorist like Prabhakaran. It is also not the first time he has openly expressed support to the LTTE and a separate Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. This chest-thumping, by the likes of Vaiko and other fringe leaders, can be dismissed as nothing else but an attempt to remain relevant in Tamil Nadu politics.
But his party is an ally of the ruling coalition at the Centre. To celebrate the birthday of a terrorist who assassinated a former prime minister is beyond the pale and should be condemned by all political parties. In fact, the BJP should review its ties with the MDMK. It may be in Vaiko’s interest to keep the Tamil Eelam issue on the boil, but the major political parties in the state have, by their silence, shown themselves to be somewhat spineless and prisoners of votebank politics.
Vaiko’s antics are anti-national and political parties should have called a spade a spade. Vaiko has every right to celebrate whatever he wants in his private space. But to make common cause with a terror organisation is unacceptable and the sooner he is told that the better. And in fact, the government of the day should act against this anti-national activity on his part.

Hindi is not India's national language. Mind it!

Did the Union home ministry pass an advisory asking all government departments to use Hindi as the medium of communication while using social media platforms? Is the government, after objections were raised from the South, backtracking on its order? Is the Centre now trying to ease the tension by saying that both English and Hindi will be used on official social media platforms?
At the moment these questions seem irrelevant because even if such an order has not been given, the damage is done and linguistic and regional passions have been fanned in different parts of the country, especially in the South.
If such an order has been given, all that the NDA government has managed to do is flog a dead horse back to life. To quote BJP-ally MDMK’s leader Vaiko: “The government should not indulge in activities that will provoke a sleeping tiger”.
If the order was given keeping in mind the sentiments of the Hindi-speaking population, it is bad politics on the side of a party that has shown great political acumen in the general elections and that has been voted into government on the promise of ‘development for all’. It’ll suffice to say that this needless controversy has managed to open an old wound.
India’s recent history has seen several instances of anti-Hindi protests. From the late 1930s till the 1980s there have been at least three major anti-Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu, when at different times the Centre tried to make the learning and use of Hindi mandatory. The protests in 1965 are by far the most violent, which lasted for more than two months and saw more than 70 people killed. The agitation stopped only after then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri assured the continuance of English as the medium of Centre-state communication.

M Karunanidhi (File photo)

During the 1986 language riots, many DMK leaders, including M Karunanidhi, were arrested. So charged was the atmosphere, more than 20 people committed suicide by self-immolation.
Events are unlikely to take such a drastic turn today, but nevertheless, such an advisory thickens the air with a discomforting tension.
The fallacy of such a move is clear in the answer to this question: Which was the language used in the Union home ministry advisory sent to a government office in Salem in Tamil Nadu or Guntur in Andhra Pradesh or Thrissur in Kerala?
On Friday evening the government clarified that the advisory was only meant for Hindi-speaking states. The question that then should be asked is: Why only this focus on Hindi? What about the other recognised languages in India?
India has got a rich culture and heritage and even if some see the British rule as an aberration in an otherwise ‘glorious’ past, the fact remains that English — the language used by the British — serves as one of the important medium of communication between different states.
The government could have done without this controversy, especially when there are many other pressing issues at hand.
(This article appeared in Hindustan Times on June 20)

NDA in TN: Captain to give Modi the Dravidian push

L to R: Vaiko, Vijayakanth, Rajnath Singh, Anbumani Ramadoss

Creating a “new political history” in Tamil Nadu as BJP president Rajnath Singh put it last Thursday while unveiling a new NDA coalition might be to overstate the case. But nevertheless, it is a significant achievement for the saffron party. Unable to reach a pre-poll alliance with its erstwhile ally, the AIADMK — notwithstanding the bonhomie between chief minister J Jayalalithaa and the BJP’s PM candidate, Narendra Modi — the BJP has brought together five regional parties on the same platform. What the BJP has achieved through this coalition is unique and commendable. It is unique because for more than four decades Tamil Nadu has seen bipolar politics between the main two Dravidian parties — the DMK and the AIADMK. Other parties, including the Congress, have been relegated to the margins. The NDA alliance in Tamil Nadu — including Vijayakanth’s DMDK, Vaiko’s MDMK and Ramadoss’ PMK — has the potential to challenge this two-party dominance. This is commendable because the BJP has virtually no presence in the state. In 2009, the BJP did not get a single one of the 39 seats and today it is spearheading the third political option in the state. Compare this to the Congress, which in 2009 won eight seats while in an alliance with the DMK, but today finds itself alone with no alliance partner.
That said, the BJP’s alliance comes with many built-in limitations. In the event of the BJP requiring the support of either the AIADMK or the DMK to form a government at the Centre and given the bitter differences among  the regional parties, it is to be seen how a Vijayakanth-led DMDK and a Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK can be accommodated on the same side. A contradiction in this coalition is the coming together of the DMDK and the PMK as both parties have been at loggerheads. The absence of PMK founder S Ramadoss from Thursday’s function has also created a lot of speculation. But, to quote Otto von Bismarck, “Politics is the art of the possible…” and in the past we have seen unexpected twists and turns during government formations.
A lot can happen between now and April 24 when the state goes to polls and even after the results are announced on May 16.  Nevertheless, it would be safe to say that the BJP has made the right moves by extending its alliance in the South and thereby getting closer to its target ‘Mission 272+’. These developments, if nothing else, will impart the colour and dynamism that will make elections in the state all the more interesting.