Muthuvel Karunanidhi passing away has brought back disparate images of my five unlikely years in Chennai as regional editor of the Indian Express. I use the term “unlikely” because someone born in Mustafabad, raised in the Urdu ambiance of Lucknow would generally be expected to expire from culture shock in the four-storeyed office in which every forehead was decorated with vertical, horizontal even circular designs. It was a riot of Vermillion, ashen and turmeric. The sight stoked my curiosity but it did not repel me.

Karunanidhi, an atheist like his gurus, E.K. Ramaswamy Periyar and C.A. Annadorai, had an amusing take on ‘names’. So long as Brahmins were busy with the shape of ‘names’ on the forehead of the temple elephants, the Dravida movement had nothing to worry about. In his gruff, theatrical voice what he had drawn my attention to was a 200-year-old litigation on what should be the shape of the ‘namam’ on the forehead of the elephant at Kanchipuram (Devarajaswamy) temple. One set of Ayyangars (Vaisnavites) called Vadagalai insisted on the U design. But the Thengalai sect would invite the elephant to walk over them unless it was a Y. If the lower court permitted one design, the opposite side would throw a ginger fit. The case zigzagged from one court to the next, but it was not resolved. Eventually, the matter went to the Privy Council.

If both the sides were defying court orders, why were they or their office bearers not sent to jail? As De Gaulle told the cabinet considering sedition charges against Jean Paul Sartre for supporting freedom fighters in Algeria – “No” boomed De Gaulle, “you don’t send Voltaire to jail”.

Likewise, all the judges including the ones on the Madras High Court bench hearing the case in 1976, refrained from punishing religious ardour. How can anyone complain against the Uttar Pradesh Police for showering rose petals on the rioting ‘kawarias’? ‘Aastha’ is ‘aastha’ after all.

For Karunanidhi all of this would be amusing. The things he felt strongly about he proceeded to take up as themes around which he wove his transformational politics. The way Karunanidhi burst upon the political scene in 1953 required political imagination. He pulled together several ideas that were dear to him and which moved the people to their core. The slogans were: my land is sacred to me and no one will appropriate it; my language will not be supplanted by another; capitalists from the north should be resisted if they come with hegemonic intent.

Karunanidhi put his finger on the pulse. When industrialist Ramakrishna Dalmia set up his cement factory, he sought to change the name of the town ito Dalmianagar. Students led by Karunanidhi came out in large numbers. The town reverted to its original name. Kallakudi. Brian Friel wrote Translations, a powerful play on a similar situation in Ireland in the 19th century.

This agitation set the scene for the much bigger agitation in 1965 against the imposition of Hindi. Two year later, the DMK came to power and soon abolished the three-language formula – Tamil and English would suffice.

It was only proper that he should have found a resting place beside his mentor ‘Anna’.

Relations between Karunanidhi and M.G. Ramachandran were strained since ‘Anna’s’ death in 1969. Karunanidhi’s much greater organizational control was being undermined by MGR’s cinematic glamour.

I never got to know either well: my inability with Tamil stood in the way. But with journalists MGR was both inaccessible and vindictive, if crossed. Meeting him, however, was both, a gastronomical treat and psychedelic show. The interior of his residence was a series of criss crossing, cavernous passages until you came to what in racing terms is called the ‘straight’, a 30-feet dimly-lit narrow hall, at the end of which, like a deity, sat MGR, with his trademark cap and dark glasses. He gestured that I sit on the sofa beside him. Suddenly a trolley materialized which heralded the beginning of elaborate hospitality, an endless procession of delicacies which served a twin purpose: they titillated the palate and discouraged conversation.

For me, raised on different aesthetics, MGR remained an enigma. And yet, by every yardstick, he had shot into the charismatic stratosphere by projecting an inexplicable persona. Jayalalitha performed the impossible: she amplified charisma.

We have seen the mess the AIADMK, the two charismatic leaders mindlessly left behind. DMK, however, has always more real in its politics. Not only was Karunanidhi more intellectually agile, he had his feet firmly on the ground. The cadres are in place. The next line of leadership (Stalin for instance) have been in the drill for quite some time. But the transition may be problematic.

The MGR-Jayalalitha charisma had obscured the Dravida movement’s earlier anti-Hindi, anti-north, anti-Brahmin edge. In the absence of Karunanidhi’s hardnosed pragmatism, the second line of leadership may fall back on more radical regionalism indeed, parochialism, to score points over each other.

(A senior commentator on political and diplomatic affairs, Saeed Naqvi can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com. The views expressed are personal.)

Former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri on Monday claimed that “true loyalists” of M. Karunanidhi, his father and the late DMK President, were with him.

Paying homage to Karunanidhi at his memorial at the Marina Beach here, Alagiri, who was expelled from the DMK in 2014 for criticizing party leaders, told reporters that he poured his anguish about the party to his father.

He said his anguish was about the party and not about the family and the public would come to know the whole story at the appropriate time.

Alagiri declined to comment about the DMK’s Executive Committee meeting to be held here on Tuesday, stating that he was no more in the party.

Alagiri aspired to succeed to the DMK’s top post but Karunanidhi, when he was alive, preferred his other son M.K. Stalin over the former.

Describing the pro-Khalistan rally in London by the Sikhs as a conspiracy to divide the country, the Congress on Monday questioned the Narendra Modi-led government’s silence on it.

“As a sinister conspiracy is hatched to revive militancy in Punjab, why are BJP-Akali Dal mum? Why has the 56′ Modi government been stunned into a conspiratorial silence? Isn’t it a conspiracy to break the country? Why silence then?” Congress spokesman Pradeep Singh Surjewala said in a tweet attaching a news report about the pro-Khalistan rally.

The Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a human rights advocacy group with radical leanings, held what it calls a “London Declaration” on an independence referendum for Punjab at Trafalgar Square in London on Sunday.

Thousands of Sikhs and their supporters gathered to demand a ‘Referendum 2020’ campaign in Punjab.

They also brandished banners reading “Free Punjab, End Indian occupation”, “Punjab Referendum 2020 for Khalistan” and “We will re-establish Punjab as an independent country”.

In its first reaction to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s published interview, BJP ally Shiv Sena on Monday described it as “akin to sheer propaganda”.

“The reporters sent questions to the PMO, which sent written replies. Many have treated it as an interview. In other words, it is propaganda,” the Sena said in ‘Saamana’ and ‘Dopahar Ka Saamana,’ the party’s mouthpieces.

“It happens in China, Russia, and Communist countries, a case of one-sided dialogue,” it added.

The Sena pointed out how, in a direct interview, many questions could have been asked and any “fake statement” would have been detected by the interviewer. “That much freedom must be allowed to journalists.

“The incumbent Prime Minister seems to have ended this tradition. He answers what he deems proper and the interviews are published accordingly,” the Sena said in a commentary.

It noted that in the interview, the Prime Minister indicated that seven million jobs were created in one year, of which 4.5 million came up between September 2017 and April 2018.

“The implication is that by 2019, double and triple number of jobs will be created, the PM feels,” the Sena pointed out.

“If the interview had been conducted face-to-face, the journalist would have got the opportunity to ask supplementary such as in which sectors these jobs have been created and how to verify (the claims).

“If so many jobs have indeed been created, then why do unemployed youths rampage on the streets for employment and job reservations?” it asked.

It said barely two years ago after demonetization, there were huge job losses, both in the organized and unorganized sectors.

“Mumbai’s core job-creating sectors such as construction, production and service industries now resemble a desert,” the Sena said.

“In the recent (Maratha) agitation, over 500 factories were attacked in Aurangabad and Pune, thanks to the government’s policies,” it said.

“In the past four years, the PM did not hold a single press conference but expressed his mind through (radio program) Mann Ki Baat which the media reported, but it brought no laurels to Modi,” Saamna said.

“Before the (2014) elections, Modi was a friend of the media, but after becoming the PM, he has retreated into a cage… If this continues, then many journalists may lose their jobs.”