Is Vijay’s TVK ideologically bankrupt? |
Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit
ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures
Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story
More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice
Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit
ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures
Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story
More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice
Is Vijay’s TVK ideologically bankrupt?
TVK's pragmatic centrism, founded on coalition and compromise and favouring wide appeal over rigid doctrinal purity, has got Vijay where he is. This exposes the charge of political naivete.
Fans and followers frequently characterise him as a lion. But what kind of political animal is Vijay really? The TVK’s victory in Tamil Nadu has lent a new salience to this question, the subject of debate in print and television, not to speak of the definitive decrees on social media.
Is Vijay ideologically ambivalent, or worse, bankrupt, as his detractors claim? Does he lack a clear, cohesive governance policy? Is his administration already compromised by political and administrative naivete?
The TVK is frequently portrayed as a non-Dravidian alternative to the two traditional majors, the DMK and AIADMK. At the same time, there are some who claim he is not very different from them and speak of the TVK as if it were a third Dravidian force. This begs the challenging question: What exactly is Dravidianism or a Dravidian party?
Political ideologies and movements are far from easy to precisely define. They may seem like mere descriptors, but terms such as fascism, wokeism and liberalism have what some philosophers call “emotive meaning”. In essence, their meanings are also dependent on subjective feelings and value judgements. Dravidianism is no different — a contested label rather than a clear-cut analytical tool in many explanatory contexts.
As a result, it seems more worthwhile to examine where the TVK and the two majors differ on specific issues or policies, rather than look at it through the prism of a Dravidian/non-Dravidian binary.
It only requires a cursory glance to list a few of the policies on which the three are aligned. They have strongly opposed:
The NEET for medical admissions in Tamil Nadu, which they regard as undermining equitable access to education
The Centre’s three-language policy, which they see as a covert way of promoting Hindi
The one-nation one-election idea, which they argue is a threat to federalism and state........