The DMK's victory in this year’s Tamil Nadu Assembly elections has blurred its political reality to a large extent

After coming to power in Tamil Nadu this May, the ruling DMK and its supporters have been rattling incessantly, directly or obliquely, about the sovereignty and integrity of India.

Anna Durai abandoned the demand for a separate Dravida Nadu in 1963 but still, the late M. Karunanidhi, when he was the Chief Minister, acted against sovereignty and integrity of the nation on one pretext or another. When some battalions of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) returned to Chennai after finishing the task assigned to them by Indian Government, Karunanidhi, then in office, refused to welcome them.

When LTTE cadres killed EPRLF Padmanabha and 12 others in the busy locality in June1990, Karunanidhi, who was both CM and home minister, ensured that the murderers escaped to Sri Lanka via Rameswaram. This serious act of cross-border terrorism emboldened the LTTE to even carry out the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Karunanidhi is alleged to have shared crucial information about LTTE’s illegal activities he received from Indian intelligence agencies with the Lankan group. This was precisely the reason why the DMK Government was dismissed by the then Chandrasekhar Government.

Whenever Karunanidhi wanted representation in the Union cabinet for his family members, he described the Government and the ruling party with terms of endearment. However, when no such opportunity existed, he lambasted the Centre and proposed the concept of India as a federation of states.

Since DMK came to power in TN in May 2021, it has resorted to indirect means to challenge the Centre. Earlier, it used to describe the Centre as ‘Maththiya Arasu, meaning Central Government but now they call it ‘Ondriya Arasu’, meaning Union Government. It is to send a subtle message that the Centre is no longer the powerful “Central” Government but only a “Union” Government.

There was a controversy over a KMDK chief ER Easwaran dragging the State Governor into a controversy over the issue of ending his assembly address with a salutation to the nation. The DMK website still retains the reasons for the objective of forming a separate Dravida Nadu. All these indicate that DMK is more interested in highlighting its fissiparous tendencies.

There are many regional parties in the states which face the national parties as their political opponents. Shiv Sena, Telugu Desam, Nationalist Congress Party, Biju Janata Dal, Samajwadi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular), TMC, TRS and YSR Congress, have all been playing their politics but irrespective of whether they are part of the Government in Delhi or not, they donot speak or act in a way that challenges the integrity of India.

No other party in India has cast aspersions against the BJP, the Central Government, or Prime Minister Narendra Modi as much as Shiv Sena in the last seven years. But their anger and frustration has been only against BJP and Modi and not directed against India. In Odisha, BJP is the main opponent for BJD and is waiting to replace BJD at the next state assembly elections. It also is a case of a regional party versus a national party but BJD never resorted to politics of balkanisation of India. Even Mamata Banerjee, who fought ferociously against BJP in the recent West Bengal assembly elections, never raised the idea of a separate State. These regional parties were part and parcel of the Central Government on one or more occasions and now they are not but they never question their allegiance to India.

Political parties and its members can register with the Election Commission and contest elections only after they openly subscribe to Indian sovereignty and integrity and that is the precise reason why armed groups with fissiparous tendencies never participate in the democratic process of elections. When elected representatives take oath as members of a legislative forum, they are bound by the sovereignty and integrity of India. The allegiance to Indian sovereignty and integrity becomes complete when the elected representatives become part of the ruling establishment, taking charge of the administration of the State as Chief Ministers and Ministers. Any violation in this regard would make them constitutionally untenable to remain as elected representatives or continue to hold office.

In February 2014, when the bill for bifurcating Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and residual AP was introduced, the MPs of coastal Andhra used all disruptive tactics to stop the bill including using pepper spray against members in the House. Once the bill was passed, however, the political lives of many politicians in coastal Andhra crashed completely and many left politics to defend their businesses and wealth in Hyderabad.

In Kashmir, both the Abdullah and Mufti families enjoyed the powers of ruling Jammu and Kashmir for many decades, leaving hardly any space for other political outfits to grow and challenge them. When the Central Government removed Article 370 and converted the state into two Union Territories, the two families were depoliticized with immediate effect. The action came at a time when J&K politicians and nearly all thinktanks, liberals and journalists in India strongly believed that Article 370 will stay for ever and no Government would dare to remove it.

The victory of DMK in 2021 also gave rise to the false hope that encouraging speeches and actions against Indian sovereignty and integrity in Tamil Nadu can go on relentlessly and no one will stop it.  Kashmir politicians never used the term “Union” Government to represent the Central Government, but now they live in the “Union” Territory of J&K. DMK politicians day inand day out have been using the term “Union” to indicate that the Central Government is after all the conglomeration of states and nothing beyond that since May 2021.

If the Central Government can muster a majority in Parliament, it may go ahead with the decision to carve a new State or States or union territories in any part of the country. Although the opinion of the state legislatures is to be sought, the President is not bound by it. Even the resolution passed by the State Assemblies for okaying or rejecting a proposal for a new state has no bearing on the President once Parliament approves it.

The DMK’s victory in the assembly elections has blurredits political reality to a large extent. Every pillar of the Indian administration has defined responsibilities as per the Constitution and they should try to act well within the authority and power they have been vested with. If DMK continues its speeches and activities that question the sovereignty and integrity of India, the rising sun may become a setting sun in future. The DMK leaders who stated that the bifurcation or trifurcation of Tamil Nadu can never happen may have to witness the same. As it is, recent rumours of the demand for carving a separate state of Kongu Nadu from Tamil Nadu shocked the DMK.

(The writer is a public policy analyst. The views expressed are personal.)