Democracy, Dravidian-Style

M.K. Stalin’s cynical campaign against the Election Commission reeks of political theatre, not principle.

Tamil Nadu

In Chennai’s political theatre, few performers relish the spotlight as much as M.K. Stalin. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, scion of the Dravidian dynasty that has ruled the state for much of the past half-century, now casts himself as democracy’s last defender. His latest move was to summon a grand all-party meeting railing against the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. This act has been billed as a crusade to protect the voting rights of Tamil Nadu’s people.

The resolution that emerged from this conclave of the like-minded thundered against the SIR as “anti-democratic” and a “direct attack” on Tamil Nadu’s electorate. Stalin and his chorus have warned that should the EC fail to halt the process, they would march to the Supreme Court to rescue democracy from Delhi’s grasp.

The irony is almost theatrical. The SIR, a bureaucratic revision of electoral rolls underway across a dozen states and union territories, is an attempt to ensure accuracy. Yet in Tamil Nadu, Stalin would have people believe that it is the reincarnation of the Emergency. His allies denounce it as a stealthy National Register of Citizens.

If Stalin were truly concerned about constitutional propriety, he might have begun by inviting all major parties to his so-called ‘all-party’ meeting. Instead, both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the AIADMK - his chief rivals - were conspicuously excluded. A leader who sermonises about inclusivity cannot bear dissent at the conference table, it seems.

For a man whose government faces an ever-thickening fog of corruption allegations, the timing of this manufactured moral outrage is convenient. The SIR provides Stalin with a distraction, a fresh villain in Delhi against whom he can rally the faithful. Actor-turned-politician Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam dubbed the meeting a “political stunt” while pointedly noting that while Kerala’s government had passed a formal Assembly resolution against the SIR, Stalin’s DMK has done nothing of the sort.

The DMK’s language betrays its motives. In public, it warns that the SIR will allegedly snatch away voting rights. In private, it fears that an updated voter roll may loosen its grip on certain constituencies by pruning inflated or duplicated entries that quietly serve the ruling machine. Stalin’s feigned indignation is, in essence, an admission of political insecurity. A party confident of its public support would welcome a clean electoral roll.

Tamil Nadu’s long Dravidian tradition of populism has thrived on paranoia of Delhi, of Hindi imposition, and of northern interference in general. Against this backdrop, Stalin’s inflation of grievance frames any administrative action from Delhi as an attack on Tamil pride.

What makes this pantomime particularly galling is the DMK’s own record. This is a party that has never hesitated to manipulate institutions when in power, whether by bending local bodies to partisan ends or using state media to amplify its mythology. Its outrage over electoral rolls rings hollow from a party that has spent decades perfecting the art of patronage politics and bureaucratic capture. In Tamil Nadu, the ruling party’s idea of democracy has always meant democracy on its own terms.

Stalin’s resolution will, of course, find no shortage of allies. Every small outfit that thrives under the DMK’s shadow will join the chorus. They will all speak of defending democracy while ensuring that the only democracy that survives is their own.

The episode exposes the hollow heart of Dravidian politics which is a perpetual victimhood narrative that turns every administrative process into a battlefield for political theatre. Stalin is less the guardian of democracy than its most flamboyant performer. His outrage over the SIR is not a stand for liberty but a smokescreen for fear.

If there is indeed a ‘murder of democracy’ in Tamil Nadu, it lies not in the Election Commission’s paperwork but in the cynical manipulation of democratic language by those who have long mistaken power for principle.