Not again, Amma

Besides, she should understand that the Constitution permits the imposition of Article 356 only in a situation where a law and problem assumes endemic proportions, or where the government becomes unfit to govern. The former criterioncertainly does not prevail in Tamil Nadu, and the latter can be used only when prevailing levels of violence make it patently impossible for the government to carry on. That calls for a fairly obvious breakdown of the machinery of state say, the inability to hold elections. Significantly, nowhere does the Constitution hold that a government can be dismissed on the basis of its failure to control terrorism. Had that been a valid criterion, several states would have been under President8217;s rule long before Tamil Nadu8217;s case was even considered. Terrorism calls for assistance from the Centre in terms of men, materiel and logistical and intelligence support.

If the ISI has indeed managed to set up base in Tamil Nadu, Karunanidhi8217;s government, which enjoys the confidence of the people and has shown its commitment by unearthing explosives caches, deserves all help from the Union Home Ministry. The last thing it deserves, in fact, is a dismissal. Besides, it might be recalled that Karunanidhi8217;s probity first cameinto question after the interim report of the Jain Commission accused his government of complicity with the LTTE. The issue of the Pakistani hand came up only after the Coimbatore blasts. And Karunanidhi8217;s government has never faced the accusation of collusion with the ISI.

At the same time, there is little doubt that the Union Home Ministry could have handled the situation better. The government had to send its investigators down to Chennai, of course, to keep its partner in power happy. But it should have at least gone through the motions of a proper investigation. As it was, the perfunctoriness of Ashok Kumar8217;s visit made it clear that he had not expected to find anything amiss in Chennai in the first place. His casual observation that while strolling down Marina Beach he had noticed that nothing was amiss does not exactly build public confidence that the man had indeed done the job he had ostensibly set out to do. Further, the fact that the team chose to reveal its findings to the media even before theywere formally submitted to Union Minister for Home L.K. Advani signalled an almost studied casualness about the investigation.

The end result was that instead of defusing the tension that was building up between the AIADMK and the Union government, Ashok Kumar8217;s investigations only served to provoke the lady further.