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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The price of populism in Tamil Nadu -Srinivasan Ramani and Deepu Sebastian

The price of populism in Tamil Nadu -Srinivasan Ramani and Deepu Sebastian

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published Published on Apr 23, 2016   modified Modified on Apr 23, 2016
-The Hindu

The politics of patronage and personality in the State has reduced the electorate to passive recipients of welfare.

“The food is good. The place is clean. Actually, I prefer the cleanliness over the menu,” P. Divaraj chuckles. “The real reason I’m here is because it’s the end of the month and I’m running out of money.” A 10-minute walk from his office to Amma Unavagam on Santhome High Road in Chennai and all it cost Mr. Divaraj, a software professional, was Rs.15 for a midday meal of curd rice, sambar rice and lemon rice.

The canteen, inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on February 19, 2013, was the first Amma Unavagam to be opened in the State. On a good day, says canteen supervisor S. Santhisree, its 16 staff members serve between 4,500 and 5,000 meals. There was even a time when the outlet would serve up to 7,000 meals a day. “It came down when we stopped giving out parcels. People used to buy 10, 20 meals at a time and we had to turn many away,” she says.

Lunch, served between 12 and 3 p.m., is the busiest time of the day. Lemon and karuveppilai (curry leaves) rice are served on alternate days, sambar and curd are permanent fixtures; servings of 350 grams cost five rupees each. Breakfast, which usually sees 1,500 idlis and 150 plates of pongal served, is served from 7 to 10 a.m. Idlis go at one rupee each, pongal at five rupees. Things are calmer come dinner time: 500 chapattis — three rupees gets you two chapattis — and 3.5 kg dal suffice.

Friday may not have been a good day. “I think the heat is keeping people away,” Ms. Santhisree says, constantly glancing at the timepiece behind the serving counter: one in the afternoon, when offices in the area begin their lunch breaks, had gone by. Queues of three and four keep forming outside the window where she sits, accepting cash in advance. Patrons wipe sweat off their brow as they bend over steaming rice in the tiles hall. Even as they eat, a large flat-screen television in the background beams exhortations of actors and sportsmen — ambassadors of the Election Commission —to vote in the upcoming Assembly elections.

There are the regulars such as Mariaselvi, a sweeper with the Chennai Corporation, who has dropped in for lunch after completing her shift. And there are seasonal patrons such as Mr. Divaraj.

The clockwork precision of Amma Unavagams is a testament to how ostensibly ‘populist’ government schemes end up positively impacting the common man’s life. Framing welfare as the distribution of public and club goods — be it “Amma canteens”, subsidised salt, or goods such as grinders and mixers which have been distributed during the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime as also similar initiatives during the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) regime — helps it reach the people beyond sectional interests. The efficiency of the delivery of goods and services in both the regimes has been very high.

Competitive populism, however, has a flip side to it, and its practice across the political divide in Tamil Nadu — along with the personality-driven politics of both AIADMK and DMK — has stunted the evolution of a genuine liberal democracy in the State. “Formal” aspects of a liberal democracy are adequately institutionalised, but the “substantive” aspect of choice and differentiation that is facilitated by difference in ideological and political positions is increasingly becoming a chimera.

A differentiation lost in time

It was not always like this in the past. From the very beginning, the AIADMK, under the leadership of popular actor and long-serving Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran, used benevolent patronage and a pro-poor posturing as its calling card. The AIADMK has retained patronage — a form of governance where its political support is based on “transactions” between the client (the people) and the patron (the party in power) — to ensure support for itself. These transactions were either public goods and welfare in the form of subsidies that are not targeted, or “club goods” and services to “clients” across communities. Patronage politics had enabled the AIADMK to cater to large sections among Tamil Nadu’s poor and the MGR appeal, burnished through his well-spread fan associations, owed itself to the efficacy of this system.

The DMK, on the other hand, was more of a cadre- and agenda-driven organisation that emphasised the need for a circulation of elites from middle castes and communities while empowering the state bureaucracy to implement public welfare. The DMK initiated a series of reforms based on affirmative actions that have had significant impacts in Tamil Nadu society over the years. The DMK’s turn to “benevolent populism” or its strategy to also indulge in what is called the “freebie” culture was something new, adopted only in the late 2000s in order to emulate the AIADMK.

Almost a decade of such patronage politics and populism of this kind has meant that there is virtually no political distinction between the DMK and the AIADMK. In fact, what distinguishes and differentiates the two is the leadership of the parties and the animus that they share for each other. The consequence of this form of competition is the reduction of the political contest to one of persona and leadership rather than issues and policies.

Third front or more of the same?

Even the emergence of a viable third front — with the coming together of the People’s Welfare Front (PWF), the actor Vijayakant-led Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), and the Tamil Maanila Congress led by G.K. Vasan — ahead of the Assembly elections is unlikely to alter the picture substantially. The PWF, a more cohesive grouping which includes the Tamil nationalist Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, a party representing a Dalit core in the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and the Leftist forces in the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Communist Party of India, seeks to present a progressive, programmatic alternative to the two Dravidian parties.

But its dependence upon the DMDK and the projection of Vijayakant as its chief ministerial candidate has on the one hand shored up the possibility of a viable accretion of votes for the front and on the other hand reduced the significance of the PWF’s “differentiation”.

If the manifestos, the policy statements and the ideological positioning (or the lack of it) of these dominant players are considered, what emerges is the lack of a distinct differentiation.

There is little to differentiate between the AIADMK, the DMK and the DMDK (or for that matter, the MDMK on economic and social issues that matter to the Tamil Nadu electorate) if one considers the left-right ideological/progressive-conservative social spectrums to place these parties.

What is common to these parties is their insistence on populism, leader (and associated family) supremacy which entails the subsuming of the image of the party, its organisation and its political positions to the persona and authority of its supremo. Their political appeals are directed to all segments of society in varying degrees and there lacks a clear differentiator in respective support bases based on cleavages in society.

The DMDK has not sought to stay away from the politics of populism either. In fact, its manifesto for the 2016 elections only takes the culture of patronage to an absurd degree. Competitive populism and the promise of patronage on coming to power remain the dominant mode of public engagement.

The flip side of populism

To a certain degree, competitive populism, as the “Amma canteens” show, is not necessarily antithetical to public interest. But the flip side is the lack of intervention by the state to address social and economic inequities which cannot be simply wished away by patronage. Patronage- and personality-driven politics also bring along with them the problem of corruption. It reduces the electorate as passive recipients of welfare, who use elections as sites of transactions (social bribes). It is no wonder that the authoritarian attitudes of select leaders and dynastic nature of the Dravidian parties are taken for granted even by the electorate. This has reduced democracy to a shell in Tamil Nadu and does not augur well for a liberal democratic order.

There is also the fiscal impact of distribution and subsidy programmes that leave little for the state to spend in productive and long-lasting investment that could transform the economy. Persisting grievances and lack of differentiation have resulted in the Dravidian parties taking turns in government despite the efficiency of patronage. That in itself should be a signal to the parties to shed patronage as the only manner of governance and political culture. As things stand, this does not seem possible at least in this round of Assembly elections.

The Hindu, 23 April, 2016, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/on-freebie-culture-and-price-of-populism-in-tamil-nadu/article8510081.ece?homepage=true


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