Annadurai's dream converted into family enterprise

In Tamil Nadu’s political lexicon, the analogy of the double-barrelled gun is almost a historical artefact. It dates back to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) founder C N Annadurai use of it to describe the double impact of his outfit’s participation in Periyar’s August 1952 campaign against the imposition of Hindi.

So when the current DMK boss ‘Kalaignar’ M Karunanidhi’s sons, M K Stalin and M K Azhagiri, spoke about working like a “double-barrelled gun” sometime back to quell speculation about differences between them, they unknowingly revealed how far the party had travelled from its glory days during the anti-Hindi struggle.

The anti-Brahmin movement that ‘Periyar’, or E V Ramaswami Naicker, and ‘Anna’, as Mr Annadurai was known, unleashed on the Tamil people has morphed into the present DMK — a family-centric enterprise plagued by a struggle for succession between Mr Karunanidhi’s sons, characterised by Kalaignar’s own obsession with a legacy to rival Anna’s if not exceed his and, most strikingly, kept in business — it is brisk business given the DMK is now more powerful than it has ever been with stakes at both the state and central levels — by a lack of ideological compulsion.

It is apt then that in the year Mr Karunanidhi is attempting to recreate the magic of the World Tamil Conference, first held during Anna’s reign as chief minister in 1968, comes a new book by senior UN diplomat, R Kannan, that tracks the creation of the DMK and its unique contribution of challenging the domination of Hindi through the life story of ‘Anna’ in an eponymously-titled book. Thus, even as the succession drama in the DMK unfolds, the book’s appearance puts into context the Dravidian party’s evolution.

It offers a well-written and sympathetic peak into the mind of the man who came to be seen as the father figure or rather the ‘Anna’ (elder brother) to all in the DMK ‘family’. Mr Kannan brings out Anna’s magnanimous personality through his impressive journey from a political novice under Periyar to the CM of Tamil Nadu in three decades. Here was a true seeker of knowledge, an ‘Arignar’ or scholar, a voracious reader, a prolific journalist and a popular dramatist/film script writer.

For further: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Annadurais-dream-converted-into-family-enterprise/articleshow/5791134.cms