The J Team

All the election hoopla in Tamil Nadu was too much for everyone to follow all the time. While newspapers were busy deconstructing the decline of family politics in the state, news channels were banking on poll statistics to establish the viability of the regime that would follow in M Karunanidhi's stead (albeit simply by way of being institutionalized in nature and not a social grouping).

However, one way or another, the AIADMK's victory was imminent and so the populace were concerned more with what would follow after the victory. There, right there, lay the disappointment, and funnily, I shouldn't have been surprised.

On CNN-IBN, Cho Ramaswamy was Sardesai's man when it came to soliciting a representative voice of the Jayalalithaa administration, and he remained stubborn that what was happening was not a case of negative voting despite arguments to the contrary: by virtue of "experiencing" the J administration in 2006, the people he claimed were ushering her in. Either-or, J only had to campaign to achieve some sufficiency of recognition and make her local MLAs' names known to the people of their respective constituencies - which she did.

However, Cho also remained stubborn that the last time J was in power, she provided an able administration - a point on which I stand by Ramachandra Guha: she did not. An able administration does not serve the same purpose as an able institution does, and even though the J Team was more of a political institution by way of exhibiting a certain readiness to adapt to changing situations - both political and social - I've never been able to recover fully from the aftermath of the TANSI case. Simply focusing on DMK's shortcomings doesn't mean some of Karuna's initiatives weren't pertinent, successful or helpful.

While the DMK administration (or, the D-a from now on) proffered a structure to facilitate the easy transformation of directive authority to executive authority, it never fully went beyond the initial purpose for which it was suited - the creation of authority - observable through its adherence to the fundamentals of oligarchical governance. At the same time, the J-a was more democratic and therefore proffered increased political representation.

What followed, thus, was a limitation imposed upon each party against achieving its best with ease. I'll concede that was an ecumenical claim to stake, but its every interpretation stands the test of argument. The D-a was limited from the outside: its patriarch was constantly under criticism for involving his extended family in political decision-making and policy-framing, an obvious digression from the mandated exclusivity of the social and political strata of the power-wielding sector.

The J-a, on the other hand, has defaulted by limiting itself from the inside: where it would have been much easier, or simpler, or whichever way one chooses to put it, to pursue a different policy-perspective other than the preceding DMK govt., J now seems bent upon tarnishing the name of Karuna. And, as has been the national tradition for some time now, nothing exposes the fallacy in such actions as a simply conflict.

One of the lesser popular actions of the D-a was the institution of the Samacheer Kalvi, a scholastic restructuring aimed at unifying the various syllabi in scope and orientation. While it succeeded to some extent with the orientation-aspect, it failed with the scope-aspect: even my 13-year old cousin expressed disappointment with the loss of academic quality in the new textbooks.

If I was elected to power (a funny image as it is), I would've let the program remain; I would've formed a legislative committee to study the educational needs of the state and corroborate or dismiss - as may be the case - the claims of the previous government; finally, I would've upgraded the textbooks to include and exclude the necessary information to ensure that the needs of the state are met.

However, the J-a has let its political history have any bearing in the decisions made by it: one of the first things J did was induce the (short-lived) debates necessary to eviscerate the Samacheer Kalvi program with what might seem a derisive disregard for the disruption caused in the students' lives - especially when the national-level higher-study entrance tests have remained reputably unperturbed in terms of their syllabi or format. Such an action retains explicability only in the context of some personal agenda.

Could this be an inherent nature of the party? Probably. After all, politicians in India never acquire power; the incumbent ones just lose it. Every time the AIADMK has come to power, the DMK has had a discernible decline; every time the DMK has come to power, the AIADMK has had a discernible decline. In April 2011, the people of Tamil Nadu still retained fresh memories of the 2G scam debacle: was it, after all, a matter of vengeance? Because the ideological symmetry is unmistakable.