Tamil Nadu’s Assembly has recently offered something more revealing than a television shouting match. It has shown us what happens when allegations, evidence, history and political memory all enter the same room and nobody quite agrees on who should speak first. The latest TVK-DMK confrontation over corruption allegations is therefore about much more than corruption. Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay used the Assembly to accuse the previous DMK regime of corruption, referring to

Democracy does not merely test a politician’s ability to win elections. It tests character when applause is easiest to earn through the cheapest of means. Udhayanidhi Stalin, son of former Chief Minister DMK chief M.K. Stalin, has repeatedly failed that test. His arrest over an allegedly vulgar, sexually suggestive remark aimed at Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay and actor Trisha Krishnan is, in one sense, a legal matter that must be adjudicated by the courts. Whether his words