Tamil Nadu is the graveyard of national political parties. It buried the Congress at its peak then in 1967. The BJP, also at its peak now, has been pregnant with possibilities but has failed to deliver. Never a serious player in the state before the dawn of the Modi-era, the BJP has been humbled in every election since his arrival in 2014 (2019, 2021 and 2024).
Pundits and laypersons, Tamil Nadu confounds everybody alike. What makes it the strongest citadel of regionalism in contemporary politics that is now soaked in nationalism? Why is it a unique entity even among its culturally similar southern states? All these states are also fiercely proud of their cultural moorings, but none practices antagonism to national parties as a principle of state policy, so to say. What makes it stand out and stand apart? Is it true that a monolithic national narrative suppresses or seeks to suppress the state’s distinct Tamilakam (Tamil Nadu of yore) identity and ancient glory? Or, do the state’s Dravidian parties deliberately stoke the sense of cultivated alienation and grievance to perpetuate their careers? What has Dravidian politics delivered that the state does not want a taste of any other model? What is the collective angst of the Tamils? Is it justified? Why can’t the rest of India fathom it? As another grand electoral spectacle looms in 2026, these are some of the myriad questions that need to be addressed. Not to predict winners and losers, but just to understand why Tamil Nadu is the way it is.
In this new series, that is what Chennai-based senior journalist, TR Jawahar, will attempt to do. He will dig deep into history and heritage, arts and archaeology, language and literature, cinema and culture, kingdoms and conquests, castes and communities, religion and race and, of course, politics and pelf, to paint a picture of the state that might help you understand whatever happens when it happens.
Read More
We will now take a U-Turn in time before doubling back to the Dravidian highway.
To
understand the Rising Sun of the DMK, one must first conduct a postmortem of
the long, lingering afternoon and eventual sunset of the Congress in Tamil
Nadu. This isn’t just a tale of an electoral defeat; it is the story of a
political titan—the party of the Mahatma and the mandate—that managed to lose
its footing in Southern soil so completely that it effectively signed its own
eviction notice.
From
the high noon of Rajaji to the humble heights of Kamaraj, and finally to the
humiliating abdication of 1971, the Congress story in Tamil Nadu is one of
unmatched capability marred by unimaginable complacency.
Early Echoes: Gandhi, Madurai, and the Loincloth
Mahatma Gandhi gave up his traditional Gujarati attire and adopted a simple loincloth in September 1921 after witnessing the stark poverty of Tamil peasants.
The
Congress connection with the Tamil heartland was forged not in the boardrooms
of Madras, but in the dusty streets of Madurai. It was here, in September 1921,
that Mahatma Gandhi made a decision that would redefine his life and the
national struggle. Struck by the poverty of the Tamil peasants, he shed his
exuberant Gujarati attire and adopted the simple loincloth—the half-naked fakir,
mocked by Winston Churchill, the costume that however became his global
trademark. His visits to Madras Presidency were celebrated as thiruvizha
(festivals), with lakhs of people thronging the Marina or the Tamukkam grounds
just to catch a glimpse.
Satyamurti believed that while Mahatma Gandhi was the movement’s spirit, the Congress needed strong governance to succeed.
The
1928 elections to the Madras Legislative Council saw the Congress in a curious
dance of boycott and participation. While the main party, under Gandhi’s
directive, often stayed away to focus on the Non-Cooperation movement,
individual stalwarts like S. Satyamurti were already building the foundations.
Satyamurti, the silver-tongued orator and the man who would later become the
Mayor of Madras, was the son of the soil and the soul of the party. (With
admirable foresight, he drafted the Poondi Reservoir Scheme, which is now
‘Satyamurthi Sagar’)
Satyamurti
was the one who realized that while Gandhi was the spirit, the Congress needed
a solid grounding in governance. He mentored a young, silent worker named K.
Kamaraj, teaching him that the corridors of power were just as important as the
streets of protest. Satyamurti’s ability to use the floor of the Madras
Legislative Council as a theatre of resistance proved that the Congress could
be a powerful force here.
Brahminical Brilliance & Hindi Hurdle
The
story truly begins in 1937. The Congress, led by the razor-sharp C.
Rajagopalachari (Rajaji), swept the Madras Presidency. Rajaji was the Chanakya
of the South, a man whose intellect could intimidate a viceroy and impress a
Mahatma. He was the first to show that the Congress could really govern, but he
was also the first to show that the Congress could be its own worst enemy.
His
first act of suicidal genius was making Hindi compulsory in schools. In a land
where language is not just a tool but a temple, Rajaji tried to install a
Northern deity. It was a tactical blunder of Himalayan proportions. It gave a
fledgling Periyar and a young Anna the perfect foil to hammer out their
Dravidian identity.
While
Rajaji was busy with his prohibition and temple entry reforms—both noble and
necessary—he inadvertently birthed the anti-Hindi firestorm that would
eventually consume his party three decades later. He famously remarked that
Hindi was necessary for national integration, but the Tamil psyche heard it as
a bell tolling for their mother tongue. The Congress was the brain of the
Presidency, but it was already losing the pulse of the streets.
Independence Flux
Omandur Ramaswamy Reddy, known for his uncompromising integrity, led Madras in 1946–47, enacted the Temple Entry Authorization Act.
After
the hiatus of the war and the Quit India years, the Congress returned to power
in 1946. This was the era of the Ethical CMs—men like Omandur Ramaswamy Reddy.
Omandurar was a man of such unimpeachable integrity that he even refused to use
a government car for personal work, yet he was often at odds with the party’s
own powerbrokers. Most notably he enacted the Temple Entry Authorization Act in
1947, breaking centuries of social shackles. However, his rigid ethics made him
a difficult fit for the era’s emerging patronage politics, and he was
eventually eased out.
An illustration of P. S. Kumaraswamy Raja who steered the state through the difficult transition from colonial rule to democracy amid severe food shortages.
Then
came PS Kumaraswamy Raja (1949–1952), a leader who found himself caught in the
crossfire of the brewing Rajaji-Kamaraj rivalry. Raja was a gentleman
politician, but his tenure was marked by the daunting task of transitioning
from a colonial administration to a democratic one amidst severe food
shortages. He struggled to balance the demands of the Andhra and Tamil regions
within the composite Madras state, a linguistic friction that was already
fraying the Congress’s umbrella.
The
party was drifting, losing its ideological anchor to the internal groupism that
pitted the Brahmin-led elite against the emerging non-Brahmin backward class
leadership. Kumaraswamy Raja’s exit after the 1952 electoral setback marked the
end of the Composite Presidency era and the beginning of a more fractious,
identity-driven politics.
Return of Rajaji: Kulakalvi Crisis
By
the first general election in 1952, the Congress was a house divided. The party
failed to get a majority, and the Communists were at the door. Enter Rajaji
again, the Rescue Act. Nehru was hesitant, but the party was desperate. Rajaji
managed to stitch together a minority government through sheer parliamentary
wizardry, outmanoeuvring the United Democratic Front and convincing opposition
members to defect.
But
his second stint (1952–54) is remembered for one fatal phrase: Kulakalvi
Thittam (the Hereditary Education Scheme). Rajaji argued it was practical; the
streets saw it as a Casteist Conspiracy. He wanted children to learn their
father’s trade, half a day at the least daily; the people wanted their children
to lead the state. It was the final straw.
Periyar
and Anna didn’t just critique it; they crucified the Congress with it. Rajaji,
the man who could see through any political fog, failed to discern the storm
brewing in his own backyard. The tragedy of Rajaji was that his intellectual
heft blinded him to the sociological shift; he was solving problems with
19th-century logic in a 20th-century democracy. He believed he was serving
tradition; the voters believed he was preserving a trap.
Kingmaker’s Golden Age
When
Rajaji exited, the Karuppu Gandhi (Black Gandhi), K. Kamaraj, stepped in. If
Rajaji was the pedestal of the Congress, Kamaraj was the front porch,
‘Thinnai’. Rajaji hugged the peaks, Kamaraj hogged the plains. Kamaraj was the
quintessential Tamilian—unpretentious, astute, and deeply connected to the
rural heartland.
Kamaraj’s
rule was the Golden Decade. He didn’t need a PhD to know that a hungry child
cannot study. He introduced the Mid-day Meal Scheme, a stroke of compassionate
genius that filled the schools and the stomachs of Tamil Nadu. He reopened
6,000 schools closed by Rajaji and added 12,000 more, ensuring a school existed
within a mile of every child. Enrolment doubled between 1955 and 1962. He
constructed dams like Lower Bhavani, Vaigai, and Mettur, and turned the state
into an industrial capital.
Under
him, stalwarts like R. Venkataraman (RV) and C. Subramaniam (CS) worked with a
missionary zeal. RV developed the industrial estates in Guindy and Ambattur—the
seeds of the manufacturing Mecca we see today—and CS laid the groundwork for
the Green Revolution. Kamaraj’s simplicity was legendary; he unhesitatingly
disconnected a private water line installed at his mother’s house because
“the municipality’s job was to provide public, not private, water.”
He was the Sovereign of the Soil who never needed a crown to command respect.
Kakkan: The Saintly Sentinel of Simplicity
In
the constellation of Kamaraj’s cabinet, one star shone with a particularly pure
light: P. Kakkan. As the Home Minister and later the Works Minister, Kakkan was
the living embodiment of the Gandhian ideal. A Dalit leader who rose through
the ranks via the Quit India movement, his simplicity was not a political pose
but a way of life. Legend has it that even as a powerful Minister, he would
often be seen travelling by public bus or standing in line like a commoner.
When he lost his cabinet berth later, he returned to a life of such modesty
that he had to be admitted to a government hospital as an ordinary patient in
his final days.
Kakkan’s
was the clean image the Congress desperately needed to counter the DMK’s
allegations of corruption, but the party often failed to project his saintly
stature beyond the administrative files. He was the conscience of the party
that the party itself eventually forgot to listen to. His life remains a
poignant reminder of a time when the Hand of the Congress was clean, even if
its head was increasingly in the clouds.
Yet,
even in this golden era, the seeds of decay were being sown. The Congress in
Madras was becoming a geriatric ward of leaders who looked to Delhi for
approval and the past for inspiration. While Kamaraj was building schools, the
DMK was in demolition mode with its rhetorical blitz. The Congress spoke in
statistics; the DMK spoke in alliterations. The Congress still held on to the
Hardware of governance, but the DMK was winning the Software of the Tamil soul.
Delhi Connect: Nehru – TTK Drama
Jawaharlal Nehru arrives for the Budget Session along with T. T. Krishnamachari.
One
cannot discuss the Congress in TN without Jawaharlal Nehru who was held in a
state of mystic reverence. To the Tamilian, he was the Pandit who promised a
modern India. However, the dynamics between Nehru and the Tamil leaders were
often complex. T.T. Krishnamachari (TTK), the brilliant but mercurial
businessman-turned-politician, was Nehru’s favourite.
TTK
was the architect of India’s modern industrial push, but he was also the centre
of the Mundhra/LIC scam, the first major financial scandal of independent
India. Exposed by Feroze Gandhi, the scam was a great embarrassment for Nehru
and a tool for the opposition. While Nehru loved the intellectual rigor of men
like TTK and CS, there was an underlying patronizing tone from Delhi. Local
giants like Satyamurti were often sidelined in the national narrative. Even
then!
The
Congress was becoming a party where the Tail (the State) was increasingly
wagged by the Head (Delhi). An earlier visit to Madras in 1946, saw Nehru
praising Rajaji while dismissing Kamaraj’s faction as a clique, a slight that
Kamaraj never forgot but Nehru never fully rectified. Such disconnect between
the Intellectual Elite of Delhi, and the Dhoti-clad Cadre of the South was a
fissure that the DMK filled with linguistic cement.
Kamaraj Plan & Sunset
M. Bhaktavatsalam took over as Chief Minister in 1963 after Kamaraj’s move to Delhi
In
1963, Kamaraj moved to Delhi under the Kamaraj Plan, resigning as CM to
“strengthen the party.” It was a noble sacrifice that turned into a
tactical suicide. He left the state in the hands of M. Bhaktavatsalam, a man of
dubious talent and zero charisma.
The
Bhaktavatsalam regime was the Twilight. Everything that could go wrong, did.
The 1965 anti-Hindi firestorm turned the state into a battlefield. As students
set themselves ablaze and the DMK leaders were being arrested, Bhaktavatsalam
was seen as too rigid, refusing to engage with the emotional core of the
protest. While students were being shot and Periyar was supporting the
government, the geriatric Congress looked like a collective graveyard
candidate.
They
were deaf to linguistic pride and blind to the rice crisis. The
administration’s response to the 1965 agitations was a classic case of official
miscalculation, deeming what was essentially a revolution as a mere law and
order problem; by calling in the military and treating student leaders like
common criminals, Bhaktavatsalam effectively radicalized a generation of Tamil
youth against the tricolour. He was a Statute Book Premier in an era that
required a People’s Poet.
The Great Rivalry
The
final nail was the rivalry between the two titans: Rajaji and Kamaraj. Rajaji,
never one to forgive a slight, had formed the Swatantra Party. A libertarian,
he hated the License-Permit Raj of the Congress and aligned with his former
nemesis, the DMK. He provided the Brain to the DMK’s Brawn. At one point, most
ironically, he even supported Anna’s anti-Hindi pitch, and then reportedly called
on Brahmins to shed their misgivings about DMK and vote for it!
By
1967, the Congress was a hollowed-out fortress. They were up against a Rainbow
Alliance led by Anna’s DMK, orchestrated by Rajaji, which included the CPI and
the Swatantra Party. The result was an Electoral Earthquake. Kamaraj himself
lost in his home turf of Virudhunagar to a student leader named P. Seenivasan.
It was a humiliation from which the Congress never recovered.
The
party that had built the dams and the factories had lost the battle for the
ballot because it had stopped speaking the language of the Tamil kitchen. The
Congress had become a Museum of the Past while the DMK was the Manifesto of the
Future. And all, thanks to Rajaji’s inside job!
Satraps as Scraps
What
remained was a party of Satraps. Notable leaders like RV (R. Venkataraman) and
C. Subramaniam eventually found their way to the Rashtrapati Bhavan or
international glory, but they could never reclaim the Fort. The Congress became
a party of Delhi-appointees, men who waited for the morning flight or a call
from the capital to tell them what to think. They had forgotten the lessons of
Satyamurti—that a leader must be born of the soil, not the switchboard.
The
connection Nehru and then, Indira had with the Tamil masses was genuine.
Nehru’s funeral in 1964 saw Madras mourning as if it had lost its own father.
Indira’s resilience was admired by the Tamil women who saw her as a Durga in
near total devotion and love. Yet the local Congress unit failed to build on
this emotional capital. They were an unimaginative, servile group that chose to
bark at the moon while the DMK was capturing the sun.
The 1971 Abdication: Final Goodbye
Karunanidhi greets Indira Gandhi.
The
tragedy reached its climax in 1971. After the Congress split in 1969, Indira
Gandhi needed Karunanidhi’s support in Delhi. In a disastrous move of
short-sighted capitulation, her Congress agreed to a pact where they wouldn’t
contest a single Assembly seat in Tamil Nadu in exchange for nine Lok Sabha
seats.
Kamaraj,
now in the Old Congress (Cong-O), watched in horror as his party officially
abdicated its right to rule the state. This was the moment of the Great
Abandonment. To save her throne in Delhi, Indira traded the state’s future. The
Congress workers in the districts felt like soldiers who’s generals had
surrendered before the first shot was fired. The party that fought the British
valiantly had voluntarily become a pillion rider on the Dravidian cycle, which
is repeated in every poll cycle to date.
In
the 1971 polls, Karunanidhi trounced the combined might of veterans Kamaraj and
Rajaji, securing 184 seats, while the Congress (O) was decimated.
A Suicide in Slow Motion
By
1971, the Congress hadn’t just lost an election; it had abandoned a
civilization; a betrayal of a people who still regarded it in all reverence as
the party of freedom struggle. It was a failure of imagination and intent. The
Congress leaders were content to be Satraps in Delhi satisfied with Scraps
rather than Sovereigns of the South. They chose the High Command’s whisper over
the People’s Shout. By refusing to even step into the arena for a minimal
fight, the Congress remains guilty of making Tamil Nadu a Forbidden Land for
national parties forever.
As
we look back, the Congress exit was not a murder by the DMK; it was a slow,
methodical suicide. The party had the men—Rajaji, Kamaraj, Satyamurti, Kakkan,
TTK, RV, CS—but it lacked the vision and unity to see that in Tamil Nadu, you
cannot rule the stomach if you ignore the soul. They left the field open, and
the Rising Sun didn’t just rise; it occupied the entire sky.
Next
| Karunanidhi’s Coronation: Pen-Master, Pulse & The Plot
