Observers attribute his sense of timing to his unique habit of listening to the views of his party cadre, whether positive or negative, whether in power or not.
Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who passed away at the age of 94 in Chennai Tuesday, was a connoisseur of politics.
He remained a towering regional player in Tamil Nadu even as he played the levers of power at the national level with ease. Possibly no other regional leader has ensured as much representation for his party at the Centre — for 15 years, DMK leaders were ministers under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then Manmohan Singh.
It was a unique distinction for another reason — the DMK is a party that wants autonomy from the Centre. In effect, it got into the Centre to distribute more power among the states.
None of this would have been possible without the political acumen of Karunanidhi, who knew exactly when to shift allegiance from one alliance to the other.
Also read: DMK chief and five-time Tamil Nadu chief minister M. Karunanidhi passes away in Chennai
Senior political observers in Chennai attribute his sense of timing largely to his unique habit of listening to the views, including criticism, from his own party cadre, whom he met regardless of his tight schedule. It was a routine he followed whether in power or out of it.
Political understanding
The first sign of Karunanidhi’s deep understanding of politics came when he went to Delhi as chief minister for the first time in 1969, to make the customary call on the Prime Minister. He met Indira Gandhi as well as other ministers like Y.B. Chavan, Dinesh Singh and Babu Jagjivan Ram. But, it was in his meeting with the finance minister Morarji Desai that he sensed the seriousness of the problems within the Congress party. Better still was his sense of backing Indira Gandhi and the man she had backed as President of India, V.V. Giri.
This understanding of politics was not something Karunanidhi acquired overnight. He had been in politics since the age of 14. He was greatly influenced by E.V. Ramaswamy ‘Periyar’, the rationalist thinker and founder of the Self-Respect Movement and Dravida Kazhagam (DK). But he was also influenced by the arguments of C.N. Annadurai, that without a political party, the people could never get their rights.
Annadurai and Karunanidhi, among others, broke away from Periyar to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.
When Anna passed away, Karunanidhi was nowhere in the reckoning to succeed him. But he knew what would appeal to the cadre. The film writer simply lifted the body of Annadurai when it lay in state with lakhs and lakhs of people milling about (A photograph of this was published in a popular English magazine many years later). That was enough for the cadre to put pressure on the party leadership and the legislators to elect him as the successor to Annadurai.
Rivalry with MGR and Jayalalithaa
Despite being such a brilliant political strategist, power did not always remain in Karunanidhi’s hands. And a key reason for that was the man who mouthed the dialogues and lyrics Karunanidhi wrote — mega star M.G. Ramachandran.
Political differences between the two led to MGR breaking away to form the Anna DMK (now AIADMK). Karunanidhi’s open criticism of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi only helped three charismatic figures joining hands against him — Indira, MGR and his then-propaganda secretary, J. Jayalalithaa.
Karunanidhi remained out of power for a decade. Not until MGR passed away was he able to return to power in 1987.
His battle for supremacy in Tamil Nadu, however, was not easy after MGR’s death. He had to contend with the challenge from Jayalalitha in state politics. The two took turns every five years, with the sole exception of 2016, when Jayalalithaa was elected for a second consecutive term. Their rivalry remained so unique until the end that Karunanidhi fell very ill for the first time only when Jayalalithaa had passed away.
Since then, Karunanidhi has not been able to speak in public, a sore point for admirers of his oratory even among his rivals.
Also read: M. Karunanidhi had declined to be prime minister saying, ‘I know my height’
Impeccable timing, on the winning side in Delhi for fifteen years. Raja went berserk, else the DMK was a seasoned practitioner of realpolitik. A strong presence of regional parties in the central government is good for India’s federalism.