Dravidian principles

Sir, - In your otherwise strictly factual and forthright editorial ``Beyond the coviction'' (TheHindu,Oct. 11), you have once again bemoaned that the DMK has allied itself with the BJP, and in doing so, you have expressed yourself about ``a DMK which has sold its Dravidian principles to cosy up to the BJP.'' I, for one, hold no brief for the BJP, but pray, tell us what are those ``Dravidian'' principles which you seem to hold so sacrosanct that they have been defiled by their ``cosy''ing up to this `untouchable' BJP?

Like every other movement or party in this country or in other countries, the DMK also was started (ostensibly) to oppose the then Nehruvian Congress in independent India and its supposed domination by the north Indians and especially the cursed Brahmins in this part of the country by demanding a separate Dravidanadu comprising not only the Tamil speaking parts of the then composite Madras State but also Andhra, Kerala and Karnataka which speak `Dravidian' languages - as distinct from Sanskritic languages including Marathi.

But as everyone knows, the DMK made little impact on the rest of the South India except Tamil Nadu and when it saw that Telugus, Kannadigas and Malayalees were hostile to the very idea of separating from the Indian Union, it was getting ready to give up its separatist demand; when Lal Bahadur Shastri brought in an Act in Parliament in 1963 to severely punish the secessionists, the DMK took immediate advantage of it to give up its overt separatist ideology as far as Indian nation state is concerned.

Soon after the sad demise of its founder-leader and Chief Minister, C. N. Annadurai, Mr. M. Karunanidhi stepped into his shoes as the second DMK Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and he had no qualms whatever then to strike a deal with the Central leadership of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to keep his chief political opponent in Tamil Nadu Pachai TamilanKamaraj at bay. This wholly opportunistic alliance of Indira Gandhi's henchmen in Tamil Nadu (including the present TMC leader, Mr. G. K. Moopanar) and the DMK partymen caricatured the late Kamaraj as a stooge of the ex-princes (Rajavin Koojain Tamil) in their 1971 general election posters! Though his Ministry was dismissed by Indira Gandhi in January 1976, Mr. Karunanidhi and his party were eager to join hands with her in the 1980 general elections to oppose MGR in Tamil Nadu and the then Janata combine in Delhi! What then are the so-called ``Dravidian priniciples'' of the DMK which you bemoan as having been sold in order to `cosy up' to the BJP?

In your Editorial of the very next day, ``Nedumaran as negotiator'' (October 12), you have raised some fundamental and very valid questions on the wisdom of the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka Governments' choice of Mr. Nedumaran as their `negotiator' with that notorious forest brigand - you are cent per cent right in calling it ``inexcusable''. May I in this context point out that if you and your readers happen to go through the published ``principles'' of the TNLA and the TNRT political outfits of Tamil Nadu, there won't be much of a difference between them and the so-called ``Dravidian'' principles of the DMK - except that the DMK has dropped its separatist demand once for all and that it pledges itself to achieve its `objectives' through constitutional means! Again why should you be so upset about this DMK-BJP tieup when even that diehard anti-Hindu (and anti-everything Vedic) columnist of yours, Ms. Gail Omvedt, has found some thing to cheer up in the election of Mr. Bangaru Laxman as BJP's president? (The first part of her `open letter' published in TheHinduof October 10.)

K. Vedamurthy,

Chennai

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