Tamil Nadu sports minister and DMK chief MK Stalin’s son Udhayanidhi has recently stirred the hornet’s nest. A tactical, calculated speech about the need to abolish Sanatan Dharma doctrines has predictably angered the right-wing fraternity.
What may have exceeded expectations is the reach and depth of impact.
A Sadhu from the Hindi heartland has put a Rs 10 crore reward to kill Udhayanidhi Stalin. In a typically witty remark reminiscent of his grandfather M Karunanidhi, Stalin said Rs 10 crore was too much a price to chop off his head and that he’d rather be done running a Rs 10 comb through his hair (In Tamil, the same words are sometimes used to describe beheading and combing one’s hair).
Repartees aside, something nuanced is afoot politically. Going after Sanatan Dharma dogmas and practices is from the oldest Dravidian playbook. Bringing Vedic postulations and worshipping rituals and traditions under attack has happened periodically in Tamil Nadu.
Periyarist reform movements have called out regressive traditions in the most strident and hostile demonstrations possible. So, Stalin’s speech, though well-argued but superficial, did not raise the concerns of Tamil Nadu’s OBC or Dalit electorate. In fact, the strong reactions emerged from expected quarters: BJP leaders such as H Raja.
What is new this time is a politically attuned BJP picking this up to whip passions up North India, where these reformist movements haven’t had a strong impact, and in regions where an attack on Sanatan can be equated to an attack on Hindus.
This is a strangely peculiar scenario where two political combatants battle it out to each other’s benefit. The BJP gets to induce a strong you-are-under-attack sentiment in its pockets while the DMK charts a classic return to its fundamentals, deriding Brahminical principles and practices. No one loses and both get something out of it.
Clearly understandable is how allies on both sides are reacting. Both the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu and partners of DMK like the Congress or even Mamata Banerjee find themselves buffeted by the force of arguments from the BJP and DMK because this is a debate only the two parties can own.
The AIADMK, formed after legendary leader MG Ramachandran, decided to exit the DMK, may find itself wanting in moral authority to speak about Santan Dharma – only the DMK, born and raised in anti-Brahminical sentiment – could do it. Similar is the case about ‘Hindu sentiments’, a political construct that the BJP has carefully crafted over decades.
For the DMK, this marks the true arrival of Udhayanidhi Stalin as a leader who can trigger a national debate. Not many can manage to capture public imagination like that. Incidentally, his grandfather Karunanidhi had it – his announcements on free colour TV sets (2006) and total prohibition (2015-16) changed the face of elections.
As we head into the election season, the DMK would love to execute more of Sanatan Dharma politics and take the fight to the BJP, as opposed to wrestling with local arch-rival AIADMK. The interesting question is whether the Congress would like the narrative conducive for its pitch for a plural, diverse and harmonious India (or Bharat).
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