These Three Rules Can Help Tamil Nadu BJP Forge Better Alliances

Anyone who follows the memescape of digital Tamil Nadu will know this – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state has become the target of quite a few meme makers. The party is projected as anti-Tamil and anti-Dalit. Many of the statements made by BJP leaders in Tamil Nadu are also taken out of context or deliberately twisted to incite the mercurial digital Tamil psyche. Big conspiracies are invented, sometimes hoaxes are used. And then the real damage comes when the party leaders themselves provide a handle by being extra good towards their opponents.

One such event happened recently when Tamil Nadu BJP head Tamilisai Soundararajan pointed out the inappropriate behaviour of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in not calling the BJP for the birthday party-family bash which the DMK is planning for their ailing supremo Karunanidhi. The statement attributed to Tamilisai comes from the general mindset of the BJP, which abhors political untouchability. However, M K Stalin, the acting supremo of the DMK and son of Karunanidhi, vehemently hit back saying he did not want the communal BJP to gain acceptance in the state because of an invitation. So the invitation was limited to the ‘secular’ parties.

Personally, I have seen many Hindutvaites in the state, disappointed by the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s arrest of Sri Jayendra, veer towards the DMK. They fantasised that with the coming to power of Stalin, the DMK might finally jettison the anti-Hindu attitude. During the assembly elections, at least in areas where the BJP has a stronghold, the DMK did soften their anti-Hindu stand. However, with the drubbing the BJP received during the recent state elections, the DMK seems to have reverted to its original stand with a vengeance. They want to simply add the minority vote banks to their cadre vote bank, which they believe would help them sail through comfortably, and perhaps with a brutal majority given the current demoralised and discredited state of the ruling AIADMK.

Even with a strong AIADMK in the state as a ruling party, during 2004 parliamentary elections the DMK coalition made a complete sweep of all parliamentary constituencies when it took a strident anti-Hindu, anti-BJP stand. At the time, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) also joined the DMK coalition. Perhaps today, with a weakened AIADMK, the DMK under Stalin may be planning a similar grand alliance. Towards this end, they are hell-bent on creating a consistent fear psychosis among Tamils through such non-issues and fabricated ones like the fear of imposition of Hindi, alleged disadvantage to Tamil students in NEET exams, the hoax of the BJP’s stand against reservation, and so on.

So when Tamilisai questioned the political untouchability, she actually tried to elevate the stature of the ailing supremo as a kind of non-partisan statesman. By hitting back at her, the DMK has shown that its patriarch is nothing but a sectarian politician with no statesman-like qualities. One should say the DMK is closer to the truth in this one.

If we look at the growth dynamics of the BJP in Tamil Nadu and also the Hindu organisations in the state, one can see a pattern emerge. Till 1998, Tamil Nadu BJP and Hindu organisations were growing at a strong rate. Then, after the AIADMK pulled out of the BJP coalition, the latter made a partnership with the DMK. For Tamil Nadu BJP, that turned out to be the commencement of a long period of stagnation and perhaps even decay. At the same time, the DMK never received any setback. In 2004 parliamentary elections and subsequently the state election, the DMK made great electoral leaps. In the period between 2003 and 2011, the statements of DMK ministers and leaders carried venomous anti-Hindu bigotry. For example, T R Balu said he was ashamed of the Hindu religion; Karunanidhi notoriously called Hindus ‘thieves’; Stalin too made snide remarks against Hindus; when for Ganesh Chaturti a greeting was issued from his handle, it was removed that very evening, and Stalin expressed regrets. A video of him removing the vermillion applied on his forehead, by his sympathisers went viral on social media.

After the 2014 election victory of Narendra Modi, Stalin seemed to mellow down a little. He even cited his wife’s visit to various temples and said the DMK is not an anti-Hindu party. However, the new situation, sensed by Stalin as favourable to the DMK, arising in the state after the demise of Jayalalithaa, has made the DMK Vetaal climb the proverbial anti-Hindu Moringa tree.

Recently, a prominent anti-Hindu, anti-BJP media house in Tamil Nadu published a photoshopped hoax picture of O Panneerselvam, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, bent before Modi. If the BJP protested over this violation of the ethics of journalism, then the protest was made at such low decibel levels that it could not be heard. No one knows if any legal action has been initiated by Tamil Nadu BJP against the media house for the damage it has caused to the image of the Prime Minister of India.

Ultimately, the question that needs to be asked is this: Since 1999, when the DMK entered into an electoral alliance with the BJP, the alliance has demoralised the state unit of BJP from which it has not yet recovered. On the other hand, the DMK has become stronger since then and is in a position to attack the BJP in any way it chooses. So what is the reason?

Ayn Rand is not my most favourite thinker. I do think she has a lot of shortcomings. However, there is one insight of hers which applies wonderfully to the calculus of the BJP-DMK relation which was forged in 1999. In her article ‘The anatomy of compromise’ (Capitalism, the unknown ideal), she offers three rules for understanding the phenomenon of compromise:

In any conflict between two men (or two groups) who hold the same basic principles, it is the more consistent one who wins.

In any collaboration between two men (or two groups) who hold different basic principles, it is the more evil or irrational one who wins.

When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side.

In the case of the DMK-BJP coalition of 1999, the second rule applies perfectly. The DMK bases its politics on the axiom of pseudo-scientific Dravidian racism. The BJP bases its politics on the universal spirit of Hindutva, which is integral to humanism. The former is evil and irrational while the latter is rational, scientific and humanistic. Politics of the DMK is patriarchal, fascist and family-based. Politics of the BJP is democratic and inclusive. The aim of the practical politics of the DMK has been, as Sarkaria Commission rightly pointed out, making a science out of doing corruption. For the BJP, not only its politics but the party itself is an instrument in the process of making India reach its rightful place in the comity of nations, whatever its slips of omissions and commissions. Naturally, when these two parties reached for a compromise, the DMK had everything to gain.

The very fact that in every electoral alliance the BJP makes – not only with DMK but with every other ‘secular’ party, it is the BJP that falls at a disadvantage. This itself is an indicator that the BJP’s ideology represents the rational, positive, humanistic, democratic one. The problem is that the BJP leadership in Tamil Nadu needs to realise it.

The BJP unit in Tamil Nadu should come out openly and apologise for having made an alliance with the DMK. Such an apology would not merely be a sorry but an ideological move. It should make it mandatory that if any party is to align with BJP, then the aligning party should renounce its faith in using communities as vote banks and should declare at least that Hindutva is not a communal ideology, even as this writer along with the BJP believes the philosophy to be the very essence of this nation. It is time for the BJP in Tamil Nadu to read and internalise the three rules of Ayn Rand on compromise, and put into action the defining part of the third rule. Otherwise they will forever be demoralised and will be a group that reacts in a disorganised way to the attacks of the hyenas of Dravidian polity.