Children, childrenff

The death and mayhem in Madurai on Wednesday underlines an ungainly irony. Even as India8217;s democracy is feted the world over for its growing sure-footedness, India8217;s political parties 8212; the crucial mediators between government and the people 8212; remain internally undemocratic. They are mostly family enterprises, ruled by the Leader8217;s diktat, periodically held hostage by succession battles in the Family. When war broke out between the two sons of aging DMK chief and Tamil Nadu CM M. Karunanidhi, there were no impersonal norms, no institutional restraints to blunt the hostilities. The strife between the heir apparent and heir not-so-apparent could play itself out and take its toll, unchecked and unhindered by settled procedure or convention. The ugly tussle over political leadership treated as a family hand-me-down, in a party which otherwise swears by a progressive ideology, must be a sobering moment for India.

But there is a way in which the fracas in Madurai was peculiar to the DMK. Power play can be especially naked in a party in which the stakes have been pitched so high. After all, since the mid-90s, the DMK has been part of governing coalitions at the Centre 8212; regardless of the ideology of its partners. It was a member of the UF government, supported by the Congress, later brought down by the Congress on account of the DMK. That did not stop it from joining the Congress-led UPA government sworn in after the BJP8217;s defeat in 2004. In between, and despite its professed attachment to secularism, it clambered aboard the BJP-led NDA government. Through it all, it has perfected a politics of brinkmanship. Despite having ministers in the Vajpayee cabinet, it agitated against Pota and the 8220;anti-people policies of the Centre8230;8221; in general. While in the UPA, it protested against rising petro-product prices and most recently tried to force the Centre8217;s hand on the quota issue. Throughout, the DMK demonstrated a fierce attachment to power matched only by its willingness to jettison the constraints on its exercise. Even in this freewheeling coalition age, the DMK8217;s lack of consistency on any principle apart from power, is striking.

The Madurai drama is also an alarming portent of another kind. The growing power of informal censorship must be thwarted and opposed by all those who have stakes in strengthening a liberal democratic culture. The DMK cadres who felt free to attack media offices must be immediately brought to book for the sake of all our freedoms.