Politics at play - Tamil Nadu issues an Ultimatum to the Union Government.

Created after Indian Independence in 1947, the Parliament of India is an expression of the faith that the people of India have in principles of democracy. These are participation by people in the decision-making process and government by consent. The Parliament in our system has immense powers because it is the representative of the people. Since there are 543 elected (plus 2 nominated) members in Lok Sabha, to have a majority, a party should have at least half the number that is 272 members or more.

Often times in the recent past it has been difficult for a single political party to get the majority that is required to form the government. They then join together with different political parties who are interested in similar concerns to form what is known as a coalition government. Many parties in the coalition have used the number of seats to turn Government policies to their advantage.

Perhaps this is where the new strategy of the Tamil MP's to resign en masse comes in the picture. I am no one to comment on the political tactics adopted by the Government of Tamil Nadu. They had always used their seats in the Parliament to get what they want. The centre has been giving in till now. Some how a new found confidence, perhaps because of the confidence gained by surviving the vote-of-confidence.

Giving the time frame of a fortnight to New Delhi to respond, an all Party Meeting organized by the Government of Tamil Nadu warned the Union Government of India that all forty members of the Indian parliament representing Tamils would resign en masse if New Delhi failed to take up the right steps to protect Eezham Tamils.

Politics in Tamil Nadu, over the past half a century, has had two distinct schools: fan clubs and political oratory. Yes, the odd protest movement has evened out the periodic person or party; largely though, the Tamil Nation has been a binary solution space.

Dravidian orator politicians are a vanishing tribe today. They speak Tamil with a diction that makes little practical sense and with sentence constructs far removed from how regular people speak the language in their everyday lives. It’s a tradition that has had a long and often elegant history. Born as a means to tackle the upper caste hegemony on politics that depended on speeches made in English with a British accent, it certainly was one of the pillars on which Tamil Nadu carved a distinct identity for itself. That cliché can only be understood in its entirety when one considers how different the state is – both in terms of its politics and the attitude of its peoples to the Indian state.

The AIADMK, by its very nature, has been more a fan club than a political party. MGR wasn’t a great orator and Jaya isn’t either – and they don’t need to be as leaders of the other school. The Congress probably has the best speaker of Tamil, if in a non-Dravidian style — P Chidambaram. However, neither the Congress nor the finance minister can win anything by themselves in the state anyway.

Great oratory, by itself, has rarely won elections. It needs an emotive issue that fools voters, requires great orators who appear committed to a cause and a very low penetration of mass media. With the Sri Lankan military almost capturing the L.T.T.E strong holds, this seems a write time to cause some media stir and turn the vote banks.

In my opinion, what happens in Sri Lanka is their internal issue. If the people of Tamil Nadu turn against the Indian Government and demand that they want an independent country, Government of India would take the same stand that Sri Lanka has taken against the Eezham Tamils. For every nation, its sovereignty is most important.