News

Commentary

Capital Buzz

The Rediff Interview

Insight

The Rediff Poll

Miscellanea

Crystal Ball

Click Here

The Rediff Special

Meanwhile...

Arena

Commentary/Mani Shankar Aiyar

Subjected to TMC bullying, the shell-shocked Congress worker knows he must bestir himself or perish

Karunanidhi Yet another colleague thinks the people are so tired of politicians promises of settling the 22-year-old Cauvery dispute that they are resigned to the point of indifference. Perhaps too they wonder -- albeit with neither hope nor expectation -- whether Karunanidhi and Patel can pull off a miracle and are resigned to wait for that unbelieved-in dawn to break.

Having, however, been so recently a victim myself of my constituents's ability to keep their counsel to themselves, I am not sure that the apparent resignation of the voter shows him to be as sanguine as he seems. If the miracle comes off, the miracle-maker will be rewarded. But if it does not -- and miracles are, after all, a myth -- those who stoked false optimism will be punished.

Moopanar The fact is that for all the sugarcane grown, much more of the land is under water-starved paddy than cane, and for every farm labourer who finds work in a Quilon cashewnut factory, there are at least a hundred others begging for work on the withering farmlands of the Cauvery delta. The people, I think, are ready to give Karunanidhi-Moopanar a chance, but if instead of getting water in the Cauvery, Karunanidhi contents himself with bissibelihulla in Bangalore, he and his desk-thumping friends in the TMC will be in for a stern reckoning.

There is also the resentment of the Congress cadres to reckon with at the intimidation, browbeating and physical manhandling they have been subjected to by the TMC with the DMK's active collaboration. Not only are they in wholly illegal occupation of Satyamurthy Bhavan, the headquarters in Chennai of the Congress party, they have invaded several other such offices, with violence and arson reaching a pitch in Cuddalore and Thanjavur.

Ironically, the very Krishaswamy Vandayar who was responsible for inducting the Moopanars into the Congress from their natural perch in the anti-Independence, anti-brahmin Justice Party has had to suffer the posthumous ignominy of Moopanar's supporters throwing his framed memorial picture out of the Thanjavur office and stamped upon as the goons of the TMC stomp around in a victory dance.

Since I have but recently been subjected to the non-Gandhian attentions of Moopanar's men during Salman Khurshid's visit to my constituency last February, I am not startled at this vandalism. But I begin to understand what Moopanar means by his strange remark that even the Dravidian parties can usher in 'Kamaraj Rule'. The ingredient lacking apparently was an insufficient reliance on violence by the old Congress.

Now that the DMK can teach the TMC the trick it learned from the LTTE, the last remaining restraints on rowdythanam as it is known in Tamil stand removed. We are going to court. I trust judicial activism will be in evidence when we are the victim. The political point is that subjected to TMC bullying, the otherwise shell-shocked Congress worker knows he must bestir himself or perish.

For such small mercies we should be grateful to Moopanar's men. They might yet help to revive the Indian National Congress in Tamil Nadu!

Mani S Aiyar


Home | News | Business | Sport | Movies | Chat
Travel | Planet X | Freedom | Computers
Feedback

Copyright 1996 Rediff On The Net
All rights reserved