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Journalism of Courage
Screenwriter-politician M. Karunanidhi knows a thing or two about timing and some more about turning politics into an unseemly family enterprise. The two instincts came together when the DMK chief scotched all rumours of succession and confirmed that his son Stalin is indeed his political heir,just a fortnight ahead of assembly elections in Tamil Nadu. And he did so not in one of those grandiloquent party affairs that the state is known for,but in a media interview,sending the signal that the patriarch is in control,that the power share at home,and by extension in the party,has been suitably carved out. If younger son Stalin is the Kalaignars heir apparent in the state,then elder son Alagiri could be,along with daughter Kanimozhi,the partys mascots at the Centre. The dynasty,the contours of which have been emerging over the past few years,has been quietly and,for now,unequivocally formalised.
While Karunanidhi incongruously paralleled his own rise under C.N. Annadurai to Stalins,he conveniently forgot the partys backstory,how a fiery political organisation that was the standard-bearer of radical socio-political ideas,and traces its roots to the grand ideals of social justice and equality of Periyars Justice Party,got deplorably reduced to this family arrangement,with little fiefdoms labelled for the members of his large and unwieldy household. And that could be the greatest disservice the 86-year-old has done to his party and its cadre.
