Tamil nationalism is no longer useful

By Suresh Nambath

CHENNAI, MAY 6. Although fringe groups in Tamil Nadu took advantage of Tamil chauvinist demands of forest brigand, Veerappan, during the Rajkumar kidnap episode, mainstream political parties have found no use for Tamil nationalism in the Assembly election campaign.

Far from reviving Tamil nationalist sentiments, Veerappan and his extremist friends only made political parties wary of any talk of Tamil nationalism or the issue at its core now: the question of supporting Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.

Not surprisingly, the biggest voice against Tamil nationalism, the AIADMK general secretary, Ms. Jayalalitha, is not making noise on the subject now. Apart from attacking ``extremism and secessionism'', she is doing very little to link the DMK with Veerappan and Tamil nationalist secessionism. With the DMK itself not enthusiastic about Tamil nationalism, Opposition parties can hope to derive only minimal political mileage.

As might be expected, the fringe outfits led by the Tamil Nationalist Movement leader, Mr. P. Nedumaran, have attempted to use the election as an opportunity to make themselves heard. But, not even the smaller mainstream political parties sympathetic to the Tamil nationalist cause, MDMK and PMK, are ready to reorient their campaign.

Besides the lack of public support, alliance politics appears to have tempered Tamil nationalist sentiments. The MDMK, as an ally of the BJP at the Centre, cannot afford to push the issue beyond a point. And the PMK, as an ally of the AIADMK, does not want to embarrass Ms. Jayalalitha. In any case, Tamil nationalism is now LTTE-centric in Tamil Nadu. Fringe groups and the MDMK and the PMK are supportive of the LTTE. Tamil nationalism independent of the LTTE and the Eelam struggles does not seem to have any space in the State. Veerappan did nothing to add to the already strong links of Tamil nationalist groups with the LTTE. Actually, he gave a `local flavour' to the Tamil nationalist cause raising issues such as the Cauvery dispute during the kidnap drama. With support from the fringe groups, he tried to make Tamil nationalism, which was in danger of being subsumed by the Sri Lankan issue, more `Tamil Naduish'.

Indeed, nothing explains the isolation of the Tamil nationalist groups more than their making use of Veerappan to gain space in the public sphere.

However, it is not as if Tamil nationalism was always a dirty word that raised visions of only the LTTE and Veerappan. Not very long ago, during the time of the emergence of the DMK as a major party in the 1950s and 1960s, Tamil nationalism was a rallying point for large sections of Tamil Nadu trying to mobilise themselves against a minority elite.

In the period immediately after its inception, the DMK began talking of Tamil nationalism and separatism as part of an identity politics against the elite. The anti-north Indian, anti- Brahmin and anti-Hindi rhetoric was intended to unite 95 per cent of the people, `the Tamils', against an identifiable elite.

All the three different strands of the Dravidian movement (anti- north Indian, anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindi) then represented real interests of a vast majority.

But the very success of the movement, the assertion of the intermediate castes and the middle class, meant its losing steam. And now, from a clarion call, Tamil nationalism is reduced to a dirty word.

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