Organizational revamps and the appointment of new district secretaries will be of little help for the Dravidian giant in meeting the challenges it faces. What has really changed is the electorate and their language.
As a result of the recent loss in the Tamil Nadu assembly elections, the DMK is now considering revamping of the party organization altogether. Now that the party president, M.K. Stalin, lost the seat from Kolathur and 15 ministers were defeated, the party high command has decided to rework the membership list, work on grooming of younger members, set an age limit for the district secretaries etc.
While the institutional approach of the DMK sees the issue as the need for the party’s usual servicing, the question arises whether the party is fully aware of the times it is going through.
Limitations of Organizational Change
It would be wrong to underestimate the power of the DMK’s organizational strength, its cadre of the district secretaries and its strong institutional memory which helped it withstand numerous hardships. Nevertheless, the party fails to comprehend the times it is going through and thus tries to solve the problem at a much lower level than it really needs.
The appearance of TVK (Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam) did not mean that the fort of the DMK was broken because TVK was more organized and had better cadres. The new political outfit managed to capture the change in the demographic and cultural profile which the Dravidian politics failed to understand.
What has really changed about today’s Tamil electorate is that the voter is still inheriting the social justice ideology, language pride and welfare state created by Dravidian politics. Nevertheless, he/she does not see DMK as the only bearer of the ideological heritage.
For the voters from the younger generation, the DMK rhetoric looks like the status quo ideology rather than a radical one.
Shift in Worldview of Political Parties
While talking to the executive committee of the party, Stalin had rightly argued that institutions have a tendency to become victims of their own worldview. Nevertheless, what remains as the focal point for the action strategy of the party is that it should become a better version of the classical DMK.
This strategy operates on the assumption that the electorate will continue to exercise choice through the traditional dichotomy. In case the electorate begins to raise a question on the very concept of political process and legitimacy of politics, the solution offered would be merely cosmetic in character.
It was the capacity of the DMK to challenge the political status quo through the language of street politics, film politics, and culture politics that made it strong earlier. But now, the DMK has no option but to assume the role of an establishment in the wake of politics knocking at its doors.
