The Political Scenario for the BJP in the run up to May 2019 General Elections

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

This was written before the Pulwama Attack

The General Election that are due in 2019 are crucial for India. On the one hand we have the rumblings of discontent from sections of the rural population and on the other we have the gradual consolidation of fragmented political forces uniting under the banner of a "Great Coalition" or Maha Gattabandhan. What will be the BJP's strategy under these changed circumstances. We must also note that in the three major Assembly Elections held recently, the BJP lost all three without however, surrendering its vote share The BJP strategists have an unenviable task: they have to forge a winning strategy in a situation in which the NDA Government faces a double whammy: the consolidation of Opposition parties and the anti incumbency which is rising by the day. Since the BJP has a formidable election machinery it will be in a position to worst these challenges, but it needs thought.

The record of the BJP Government has not been bad, in spite of what the Indian Mainstream Media may say. The policies of the Central Government have had a direct bearing on the life and Livelihood of large sections of the Indian poor. The recently launched Health Insurance Scheme, in spite of its teething troubles, is a resounding success. The rural poor have benefited from this Scheme and like all other Schemes of the Government it is linked to ADHAR and is based on the direct transfer of funds from the Central Government to the Hospital in which the patient is treated. The financial inclusion project of the Government has enabled a large number of people to be drawn into the banking network and it is likely that, if the BJP returns to power, it will announce a universal household income to all eligible poor. This policy, may however, result in the gradual phasing out of subsidies. The Swachch Bharat Scheme is undoubtedly  a grand success. It may not have met all the parameters of cleanliness but India is certainly cleaner now than it was five years ago. The Infrastructure growth has been phenomenal and both road and air connectivity has improved. The UDAN scheme has resulted a a number of smaller towns including, Pondicherry, where this blogger resides, becoming linked. The fact that there has not been a single major instance of corruption itself is a testimony to Good Governance. However, in a country like India, Good Governance and Corruption free Administration are not guarantors of electoral victory. How else can we explain the defeat of the Atal Behari Government in 2004. the victory of Lalu Prasad Yadava in Bihar and the repeated successes of DMK and AIADMK in Tamil Nadu.

The Modi Government ignored some of the core issues of the constituents. The fact is that school text books still retain the same nonsense from the days of the UPA shows that the Central Government lacks the intellectual strength to take the task of rewriting the text books head on. Also the Government has prevaricated over the Ram Temple issue.  The issue has now boiled down to a title suit over the disputed site in Ayodhya and there are some like Dr Subramanian Swamy who have been calling for an Ordinance on the issue. Prime Minister Narendar Modi has ruled out an Ordinance on the issue. It is unlikely that the Ram Temple issue will have a decisive impact as people are aware of the fact that a premature declaration of intent will be challenged in the Courts and the matter will rest there for years to come. The recent Constitutional Amendment, the 124th Amendment, by which the institutionalized Identity Politics that prevailed for over 70 years has been given a death blow. The poor of the Upper Castes who were deprived of their share of jobs and educational opportunities will now drift toward the BJP and this segment will prove decisive in North India.

Does the Opposition unity augur ill for the BJP. In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP bagged 73 seats in 2014 and in May this number will come down by atleast 20 to 25. The electoral pact between the Samjwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of Mayawati is not going to be a great threat to the BJP as the SC votes promised by Mayawati will not trasfer to the SP. BJP will win around 50 seats here provided the Party is able to sell its not inconsiderable achievements to the people. In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh Rajastan, and smaller states like Uttarakhand and Chatisghar the BJP faces an uphill task.

All over I predict that the bJP will get around 230 to 240 seats. It will not be the single largest Party. In Maharashtra with 40 seats, the BJP will face a recalcitrant Siva Sena. In Tamil Nadu except the seat held by Pon Radha Krishnan I dont see any chance. 

The Autobiography of Sashi Deshpande: An Award Wapsi Looks Back

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Indians do not write autobiographies or for that matter good History. The ability to reflect on the fleeting moments of time which constitute our lives and seize that moment even as it dissolves, is the stuff of History and autobiographers choose to locate their puny little lives against the grand events that unfold before their eyes, trying to find meaning for their existence. The Indian tradition of both autobiography and History is the katha, the oral narrative, a story. Sashi Despande has caught this peculiarity of Indian psyche by calling her autobiography,  Listen to Me. 

Sashi Deshpandeis the daughter of the well known Kannada writer and playwright, Shriranga. and she carries the burden of her father's astounding literary legacy rather lightly. Belonging to an educated Deshasta family from Karnataka with her family on maternal side having ties with Pune.

Add Listen to Me

 Her father was a teacher of Sanskrit in a well known college in Dhrawad where she was born and educated. It appears that her father had some vague sympathy for the fashionable leftist causes and hence lost his job and family suffered considerable humiliation as a consequences. Living on the handouts of well off relatives is not a pleasant experience and Sashi's early childhood memories are marred with such slights. Her sister studied medicine and her brother went on to get a Ph D in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. However tragedy was snapping at the heels and her brother lost his mind and died in NIMHANS, Bangalore. She writes about the events in her life with a sense of detachment and even candour. However, her autobiography reads like an extended Curriculum Vitae dwelling  on her external life-- the books she has written, the awards she received, the famous people she encountered and the literary impact she made in the field of Indians Writing in English. There is little about her personal life and the only character whom she allows us to meet from her life is her father. She even mentions that in a letter discovered after his death, her father wanted his children to stand on their own legs, a statement she promptly dissects using the categories of gender so popular today.

Being the wife of a successful doctor meant travel and she did not have to earn her livelihood and after the birth of her two sons she decided to dedicate herself entirely to writing. She penned 11 novels and a large number of short stories and she won the Sahitya Academy Award for her book, the Dark Holds no Terror. And  this brings us to her latest incarnation as an Awars Wapsi.

Sashi Deshpande is quite forceful in her denunciation of the Emergency and she also states that Rajiv Gandhi was to be blamed for the Sikh Riots that killed 5000 Sikhs in the national capital  after his mother was shot dead. These confessions are welcome as it established a certain authenticity in her work. However, as in the case of other Award Wapsi heroes her decision to return the Sahitya Academy Award was motivated by personal ties with Professor M M Kalburgi who was killed by unknown assailants. A tendency to blame the Right Wing for  all unfortunate events has become the credo of the so called Indian Intellectual. She rushed to return her award and was, of course , hailed as a great conscience keeper of the Loony Left

In spite of such unthinking forays into the public realm, this book is an interesting read. At least it is readable and there are occasional flashes of insight. While she does reflect on the plight of brahmins in India she does not denounce the discrimination that shadows them.

What China and India Once were: The Pasts that May Shape the Global Future A Review

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

What China and India Once Were: The Pasts the May Shape the Global Future
Ed, Sheldon Pollock and Benjamin Elman
New York: Columbia University Press
2018.

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Sheldon Pollock has waded into far too many controversies in India, and I must say that his interventions have served no purpose whatsoever except to distract people from the seminal contribution he made to the study of Indian Literary Culture and History in his Language of the Gods in the World of Men. Unfortunately, Sheldon Pollock has become a highly divisive public figure and his broadsides against India and its politics are not his primary call for attention. He is a distinguished scholar and the book edited by him and Benjamin Elman are important interventions in the study of the histories and pasts of China and India.

China and India share a common historical trajectory. Both were highly sophisticated civilizations with a long tradition of scholarship: Mandarin in the case of China and Sanskrit in the case of India. Both were victims of foreign conquest and both civilizations had to deal with questions of political legitimacy, administrative control, protecting the frontiers. While China realized quite early that the Steppes of Central Asia posed a considerable challenge to the stability of the Middle Kingdom and constructed the Great Wall as a physical barrier against invasion, Indian rulers unfortunately had no such wisdom. India was easy to invade as the path to the Gangetic Plain was open to any invader who crossed the Hindu Kush Mountains. China dealt with its perennial problem of devastating floods by constructing the Grand Canal which connected the Yellow River with the Yangtze River, running across China for a length of more than 1800 kilometers. Remarkably this waterway was completed as early as the Tang Period , in the 9th century. Significantly, the new capital Beijing was now accessible to the grain growing areas of southern and central China. Indian dynasties hardly encouraged any construction of comparable social utility and value. The Mughals the contemporaries of the Ching and earlier the Ming were content building tombs and the Timurid rulers though blessed with both curiosity and insight did not attempt anything quite so spectacular. Obviously, there are historical reasons for the difference.

The book reviewed herein looks at a variety of cultural practices from a comparative perspective. Flora and Fauna and its social value in China and India form an interesting part of the first chapter. The elephant became extinct in China fairly early in its history. whereas in India it flourishes until this day. Though none of the rulers seem to have had a conscious conservation policy, India attitudes towards nature was far more reverential than in China. Long distance trade was encouraged at least till the end of the Ming Era. In India, the long coast line spawned a range of communities which specialized in long distance trade: the Kutchi merchants and the Chettiyars come to ones mind immediately.

The advent of modernity both in India and China are beset with both conceptual and historiographical issues. The periodization derived from western perceptions defy smooth transition both in the case of India and China. It is now recognized that both these Asian giants are now re-entering the Global Economy and if Sheldon Pollock is to be believed on their own terms. China has completely transformed its economy while India still struggles with the age old issues of caste hierarchies social problems and of course poverty. China has succeeded in areas in which India has failed miserably. The One Party system seems to have helped China and India's raucous rowdy democracy has been a drag on the energies of the nation. Perhaps the time has come to rethink the developmental paradifms embraced by these two Nations.

One point on which the book is extremely insightful is the History and its uses in both these countries. China developed a strong tradition of writing Local and Dynastic History from the early Han Dynasty. In India, Historiography did not make much headway until the arrival of the Turks who brought with them their own models of Historical texts. Perhaps the lack of critical thought except in the speculative areas of Linguistics and Philosophy may have inhibited the development of Historical ideas in India.

This is a good book and policy makers interested in India and China must read it.

Politics over Sardar Patel's Legacy

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Patel Statue

There is no gainsaying the fact that History is being re visited today in India. Since Independence the State has propagated a version of history which, while serving the needs of the politically dominant party, the Indian National Congress and its central dynasty.has left a large number of gaping holes in the Narrative. Foremost is the question whether the Indian National Congress did enough to prevent Partition and its huge cost in terms of human life and suffering. Second, if Partition was inevitable as the "historians" of Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Leftist acolytes argue, can they tar all those who opposed Partition as "communal" elements "reactionaries" "obscurantists" and the list is endless. One reason for the lack of diversity in contemporary Historiography of India is the fact that the historical profession has been prevented from reassessing the role of the Indian National Congress in the Struggle for Indian Independence. The recent attempts on the part of the Modi Government to draw attention to the contribution of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose and Sardar Vallabha Bhai Patel are step in the right direction.

First the Statue. One of the many canards that are being spread by the mainstream media is that Modi seeks to "appropriate" the legacy of Sardar Patel. It is unclear hos the mere dedication of a National Monument is appropriation of a legacy. Also there are those in the Congress party who say that since the Patels are restive and are no longer the backbone of the BJP in Gujarat, Modi is seeking to assuage Patel Asmita or Pride. Reducing Patel to a mere icon of caste identity is to distort and undermine the stature of Patel. But then who has ever accused the Indian National Congress and the Dynastic Fascists of caring for people's sentiments or historical accuracy.  The fact is the Nrendra Modi proposed the Memorial to Sardar Patel in 2010 long before he became Prime Minister and in 2010 there was no sign of Modi emerging as the Prime Minister of India. By distorting the very chronology there is attempt to politicize the Monument. Construction began in 2013 and this was also before Modi became the Prime Minister. Projecting History backwards in a teleological arrangement is the favorite tactic of the JNU bran of Historiography and of course, give it a political spin to make that distortion resonate with "progressive" opinion.

Then the cost. The cost of the memorial works out to be 2854 crores. A huge sum of money. The justification for this spectacular Monument lies in the manner in which Patel was treated. A fact that is little recognized in modern Historiography of India is that Patel was chosen by 12 out of 15 Provincial Congress Committees to head the Congress in 1946 and would have become Prime Minister in the Interim Government. Nehru forced Gandhi to seek the resignation of Patel. A repeat of the Bose fiasco all over and given the enormous respect Patel had for Gandhi he stepped aside and let Nehru become the Prime Minister. This singular fact is hidden from History. Further, as the first Home Minister of Independent India, Patel welded the fractious assemblage of princely states into a united country using a subtle blend of tact and force. Junagadh and Hyderabad are good examples of Patel's strategic thinking. The only state/riyasat that was out of Patel's purview was Kashmir which was handled by Nehru directly and it continues to fester till this day. Patle wrote a letter to Nehru about the designs of China and this too Nehru ignored. Further, Nehru the patrician educated in the White Man's land treated Patel with open hostility and took delight in publically humiliating the great statesman. This factor contributed to the early death of Patel in 1950 and Nehru went on to live for 14 long years after the exit of India's saviour. Given this History, there is need to rehabilitate the Memory of this great Statesman. Nehru awraded himself the highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna and many in India seek to have that honour revoked. Sardar was honoured on in 1991 during a brief respite from the pestilence called dynastic rule.

Netaji Subash Chandra Bose remains an enigmatic personality in Indian History. He created the Indian National Army out of the prisoners of war captured by the Japanese in Singapore and turned them into a major force to liberate India. There is no doubt, as Clement Atlee said that it was the Indian National Army that finally convinced the British to leave India after the War. And again Netaji was forgotten. In fact Nehru even conspired with the Soviets to have Netaji declared a "war criminal". The alacrity with which Nehru declared that Netaji had died in the plane crash in August 1945 shows that Nehru was not interested in Netaji returning back to India. The return of Netaji would have meant the end of Nehru's dream of founding a Dynasty and keeping the Office of Prime Minister within his family. Modi rightly acknowledged Netaji's contribution by raising the National Flag on the ramparts of the Red Fort. Finally the fact that Netaji established the First Government of a  Free Independent and United India has been recognized.

Thus there is a great deal of scope for a revision of the dominant hegemonic discourse on modern Indian History. The congress centric narrative rests on distortions evasions and hagiography. It is time to change that and Narendar Modi has begun the task.

THE BJP'S ELECTION MACHINE: IS IT REALLY FORMIDABLE

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

How the BJP Wins: Inside India's Greatest Election Machine
Prashant Jha
New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2018

How the BJP Wins

The BJP sweep in the 2014 General Elections was not the outcome of a Modi Wave propelled by the unraveling of the Congress due to its involvement in monumental corruption. The BJP had three factors going for it: First, an Electoral and Political machine which is unparalleled in Indian Electoral politics due to its depth and range. Second, the Party used all the tools of modern technology to reach out to its support base and deliver the message right down to the level of individual household. Last but not least the image of Narendar Modi as a proven and able administrator. Indian journalists are prone to attribute success or failure to individuals and thereby evade more substantial question. As the run up to the 2019 Election start, the question on everyone's mind is: Will the BJP repeat the performance of 2014 or will there be a change in Government. I hazard to predict that the BJP and the NDA will emerge victorious as the Indian electorate is now quite mature and is not easily swayed by identity considerations based on Religion, Caste and Language. These do play a role but performance is also taken into consideration.

The book under review is an anecdotal account of the 2014 General Elections and the 2017 Mid Term polls in certain North Indian States, particularly Uttar Pradesh. The author, Prashant Jha has traveled extensively and has interacted with a large number of Karyakartas and he has written this book using a racy style eschewing political jargon and useless controversies. One issue needs to be cleared straightaway. The BJP is a broad based political party which has a long and honorable tradition of holding elections for its leadership. It is certainly not a fascist dictatorship that its opponents portray it to be. There is an institutionalized process of consultation within the Party and decisions are not taken in secretive conclaves or factional meeting as in the Congress party. The key to the political success of the BJP lies in this singular fact. The BJP is fundamentally democratic and while factions and caste alignments are ever present, the political line taken by the Party is predicated on a wide range of consultation within the Party fora. The author has pointed out that the karyakartas of the Party enjoy the advantage of easy access to the top leadership and also help in crafting a durable social base for the political success of the Party.

The main strategy deployed by the BJP is the sanghatan, the organizational link between the Rashtriya Swayam Sewak Sangh and the BJP.  The RSS provides the backbone for the electoral success of the party because of its deep and enduring relationship with the people at large by running schools and other welfare activities/ The involvement of the RSS in the work of the BJP at the basic constituency level ensures that the Election Campaign is monitored at all times and it also heps to translate support into votes. It would be accurate to say that no other political party has the advantage of having a large number of volunteers who work selflessly for a cause. One of the main reason for the constant drum beat of propaganda against the RSS is the real fear among the mainstream political parties that they lack "boots on the ground" who can undertake the onerous task of doing the hard work of getting the message across and getting out the vote on the day of the election.

The author also demolished the myth that the BJP is only an urban upper caste party. Ever since Rajni Kothari came out with his book Caste in Indian Politics more than half a century ago, journalists and Political Scientists have not gone beyond caste to understand the dynamics of Indian Elections. The recent publication Election Atlas of India gives us a wealth of GIS sensitive data which enables us to go well beyond the primitive caste paradigm put forth by Rajni Kothari.  The Booth Level Committees ensure the participation of all castes in the politics of the BJP and the fact that more than 45% of the dalit votes and OBC votes fell to the BJP in the last General Election is proof of its success in crafting a durable electoral base.

The book under review is an interesting read.

The Idol Thief The True Story of the Looting of India's Temples

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Idol Thief: The True Story of the Looting of India's Temples
S Vijay Kumar
New Delhi: Juggernaut, 2018.

The Idol Thief

The book The Idol Thief is an account of the nefarious, though highly successful crime spree of Subash Kapoor, a New York based art dealer who was responsible for looting and smuggling out of India more than 200 metal and stone sculptures to USA, France UK and other countries. There was a time when the offices of the white world was not complete without a Chola Nataraja standing incongruously in the meeting rooms and board rooms. Display of looted art from the non white world was seen as a mark of Education and refined taste and American multi millionaires like Rockefeller and others paid huge sums of money for the acquisition of plundered Indian art. And in India, there was hardly any awareness or even recognition that large scale smuggling of Indian antiquities was the only growth industry that the country could boast of. The Archaeological Survey of India which is the Government agency mandated to protect, preserve and conserve the cultural heritage of India was often complicit is proving the documents that facilitated such illegal transfer of cultural property. As the legal custodian of Indian antiquities, ASI often certified genuine Chola bronzes as modern imitations and after the antiquities reached the destination, usually a rich white nation, there were experts who re validated the art genuine and Auction Houses like Southey's were in the game of selling such stolen antiques by providing documents of provenance and ownership by which the law could be subverted. This game has been going on for a long time and only after the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the Government of India tightened its mechanism and has succeeded in repatriating no less than 30 pieces of stolen art.

Vijay Kumar is an executive in a shipping company based in Singapore and has written a well researched book on the art smuggling network of Kapoor who is now in jail in India.  The modus operandi of this art smuggler was very simple. He identified ruined Chola temples using S R Balasubramanium's excellent catalogue of Chola temples published in 3 volumes--Early, Middle and Late Chola Temples. Once identified, a set of men were deployed to break into the temple steal the metal utsava murthis stored in the store room and they were sent in containers to Hong Kong or Singapore for onward transport to USA. It is extremely fortunate that an immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official who is called Indy to safeguard his identity came on to the seen and he meticulously followed up every clue. It must be said that USA is extremely diligent in tracking down stolen art and if the case of Roxanne Brown is anything to go by, pursues its quarry even to the point of death.

Subash Kapoor lived well and accumulated a large army of angry women who were waiting for an opportunity to turn him in. And when the suspicion that he was involved in the robbery and illegal export of the Nataraja idols from Vriddhachalam hit the headlines one of his jilted lovers alerted the Indian Government and an Iterpol red corner alert was issued and Kapoor was apprehended.

This is a well written and interesting book.

Muthuvel Karunanidhi and his Politics of Hate Identity and Corruption

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Muthuvel Karunanidhi (1924-2018) was a politician par excellence. A gifted orator in what is called medai Tamil (Platform Tamil) he was elected to the State Assembly 13 times and has the record of not being defeated in a single election. He became the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after the death of C N Annadurai who led the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam to a resounding victory in 1967 after defeating the Congress. In fact even the stalwart Kamaraj faced the humiliation of defeat and Tamil Nadu has remained thankfully Congress Mukth since.  Karunanidhi out maneuvered the chosen successor of Annadurai, Nedunzhelian who was the Finance Minister and the de facto Number 2 in the Cabinet. Karunanidhi was the Public Works Department Minister and was in the fourth position. Deft political moves, timely alliances and a relentless drive for power made Karunanidhi successful in the race. Having acquired the post, Karunanidhi went on to be the Chief Minister for 3 full terms. He was also dismissed, once by Indira Gandhi and again once by the interim Prime Minister, Chandrasekar. Karunanidhi had two very important qualities which saw him through. First, he was not encumbered with moral scruples of any sort. Second, he was an indefatigable worker capable of long hours of arduous work and had a fantastic memory for texts, faces and names. It is said that he remembered the names of all the prominent leaders of the party from across the state.

Karunanidhi was the product of the Non Brahmin Movement which saw the coalition of all intermediate landed castes and kin groups and communities uniting against a minuscule minority, the brahmins. Accusing the brahmins of being Aryan, an absurd and  an absolutely disingenuous assertion, the Justice Party and later the Dravida Kagzhagam launched a vicious campaign of terror against the Brahmins. This was also the time when Fascism was ruling Europe and many of the techniques used by the anti brahmmin Movement were directly copied from the play book of the Nazis. Brahmin women were harassed on the roads when they went around their daily work. Brahmin priests who wore the tuft were forcibly deprived of their tufts and men who were suspected of wearing the janevu (sacred thread) were forcibly made to remove it. Such atrocities had a permanent impact on the brahmin psyche and I dare say it has not healed until this day. Upon, the death of Karunanidhi some commentators asked why there is no visible sense of loss felt among the brhmains. A simple answer to that question is that Israel will not mourn for Hitler. A racist attack against a small insignificant minority in the name of a glorious imagine civilization of the dravidian people was the hallmark of Karunanidhi and his mentor. After the DMK came to power discrimination against Brahmins became institutionalized and public employment became impossible and many families, including mine, just left Tamil Nadu. The Indian liberal who is quick to point out instances of discrimination, is silent when it comes to the systematic exclusion of brahmins from the public sphere in Tamil Nadu. It will be accurate to say that there has been no brahmin MP from Tamil Nadu for the past 50 years except Venkataraman. No brahmin Minister of Vice Chancellor for the past 60 years. Such systematic persecution is a crime against humanity.

Caste politics was buttressed by the meanest kind of rent seeking. Government contracts were given only to persons who would plough back the proceeds to the Party and the first family. Right from the start, the DMK has practiced corruption as an attribute of statecraft. The TNPSC became for all intents and purposes a collection house for the DMK. A fixed sum of money was collected from the aspirants for government posts. A Class I Officers post carried a premium of around 50 lakhs and a constable carried a price tag of around 3 to 5 lakhs. Medical Education and Technological became increasingly privatized. The anti NEET agitation is only a reflection of the staranglehold acquired by politicians on professional education.

Karunanidhi led a very colourful personal life and that does not concern me. As our Lord and Saviour has said: Judge Not, Lest ye be judged. However, the fact that his two sons are openly contesting each other for both the Party and the Moohla that goes with it shows that private decisions can have public consequences. The manner in which his third son, M K Stalin alias Ayyadurai choreographed the public spectacle of Karunanidhi's funeral by completely air brushing his elder brother Alagirio from all public appearances shows that funerals in Dravidianist Tamil Nadu are a political theatre. Stalin received the Prime Minister and was shown in public as the Chief Mourner, accompanying his fathers body to the burial site and this has consolidated the public sympathy in favour of Stalin. I do not know if Alagiri will be able to recover.

Corruption Crime and Communal incitement were not the only arrows in the quiver of Karunanidhi. He flirted with the LTTE and when he was in power in the early 1990s the LTTE had acquired a free run over Tamil Nadu. The Kodambakkam Massacre in Zakharia Garden is proof of the absolute breakdown of law and order in the tenure of Karunanidhi. The assasins were allowed free passage to Vedaranyam from where a waiting dingy took them to Sri Lanka. And to prevent him from talking, the DGP, Durai was silenced.

The end of Karunanidhi brings to a close a dangerous and socially repugnant chapter in the history of India. Identity politics in the name of Race, Language, Caste, Creed were all weapons used for political patronage and power. I do not think Alagiri or Stalin possess the same level of chutzpah.