2019-Year End Reading - Books and Good Works

Every new year has several new things to note and look back. But certain aspects are more important to remember for near future. Here are some odd things that I would like share as first post of year end things.

Few basic economics books for making work our commonsense works better for understanding the world better.

This book on Indian Economy gives a beautiful narratives "draws parallels between China, Europe, East Asia, United States, Independent India" 

A collection of year-end reads to give you food for thought

The era of right’s might

Best Non-Fiction books of the decade

This piece of work is really gloomy than the real Indian Economy upon it paint so easily with pains without truths!

This piece on CAA is something i would have liked to stress upon it with more elucidating facts of literacy of democracy

A Review Of The Indian Constitution

Recently, the Indian Free Market Economist Atanu Dey has given a talk on the review of Indian Constitution at Srijan Talk, New Delhi. 

His talk beautifully covers the underpinning issues and challenges of Indian Constitution and Economy both historically and in evolutionary approach. 

It is a must watch for anyone interesting in understanding the art and science of evolution of humanity, wealth creation, why poor countries are poor, the rules of free society with what the State should do and should not do., etc.

The entire talk is at video. There is also a brief clip of Q and A for quick grasp.

The Planned Chaos of Erode City

I have new article published on The Planned Chaos of Erode City by Centre for Public Policy Research. The below are some excerpt of article.

Unsound Cities

Out of 100 big cities in India, 10 cities are in the State of Tamil Nadu (Chennai, Madurai, Coimbatore, Salem, Tiruchirappalli, Tirupur, Erode, Thirunalveli, Vellore and Thoothukkudi) in terms of population size with four lakhs and above. Tamil Nadu is the most urbanised state in the country. These cities are Tier I, Tier II and Tier III and have become rattled with many challenges and critical issues that were debated for decades. But few were piloted for plausibility in implementation and fixing the gaps to scale it up. In the last 25 years, hardly anything achieved in Tier I cities in Tamil Nadu substantially to showcase as “The Model” for Tier II &III cities and towns for implementing the so-called “Best Practices” on public civic deliverables. The age-old centralisation of power and control mechanisms are still a daunting factor to defeat the 18 delegated functions envisaged in the 74^th Constitutional Amendments made in 1992 to strengthen urban local bodies.  

However, in order to shackle the redundant decades-old challenges and critical issues of cities such as solid waste management, construction of toilets for individual houses/community, quality drinking water, hygiene and sanitation, sewerage management, protecting water streams from pollution, streamlining streets for all kind of people and not merely for mighty vehicles, Green Parks, streets lights, etc., there were few initiatives in the last five years mainly driven by the Government of India’s initiatives to identify ways and means to address by streamlining city governance structure with the aid of technology and institutional collaborations.

For decentralization to work, dispersion of power is MUST!

The interesting new book "In Service of Republic The Art and Science of Economic Policy" has been receiving wide discourse in public among different stakeholders. Its not surprising to see some are not able to understand the core issues highlighted in the book due do their own egos!

Here are some review and excerpts published by different platforms:

Taking Governance Decentralisation Seriously

“The organic development of the economic system, with freedom in the hands of each individual, works better than instructions from the top.”

Interview with Vijay Kelkar & Ajay Shah: ‘The middle-income trap can happen here’

India’s leaders must choose a few things to do, do them well, and only then move on to other things, Kelkar and Shah say

this readable collection of essays should be in the hands of as many lay people as students of economics and public policy.

Vijay Kelkar suggests single GST rate of 10 % as the ideal reform of the indirect tax structure

Of Mao, Modi and law of unintended consequences

The “cost to society for every rupee of public funding is around 3” compared to 1.5-2 in developed economies.

CAA Myths Busters

The following are my views on the recently passed The Citizenship Amendments Act, 2019:

India is a land of peaceful living for all those humane brothers and sisters only.

Blood sucking of any types will not be tolerated in the land of India. Every responsible citizen of India has both moral and constitutional responsibility to defend our country’s laws.

BJP- concerns about minorities refugees of neibhouring countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Congress & opposition- concerns about only Muslims in India whose rights are protected equally to others in the country.

BJP- Talks about refugees of three neibhouring countries.

Congress & opposition- mistakenly link with Muslims in within India.

CAA- provides legal solutions to recognize the citizenship of minorities’ refugees in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

Congress & Opposition- argues that minorities’ refugees of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh should not be given citizenship unless otherwise majority communities of those countries are given citizenship. Will the same Congress and opposition argue for Hindus in those countries? It is evident that in the past, several policy mistakes were done by Congress & others which failed miserably to protect the rights and lives of these minorities in those countries.

BJP- in the last several decades the Hindu, Sikh, Parsi, Buddhist and Christian as minorities’ communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh were prosecuted (more in invisible manner other than legal, decline of these communities population is evident)

CAA- is aims to provide remedy to the evils systems created by Congress which now misinterpreting and misleading the innocent people in the country.

CAA -is meant to enable and empower minorities’ refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, and is not meant to deprive any Indian citizen.

Congress- which did not do anything worthwhile to empower the Muslims in India in the last several decades, that is why they are now asking the BJP government to empower the Muslims of India first, its petty and shameful.

BJP- provides solutions through CAA to correct the mistakes done by Nehru, his family and party.

Congress- hides the truths of CAA and misleads the public so that the public cannot recognize the folly of Nehru, his family and his party.

BJP- the logic behind excluding the Muslims in the CAA is very clear that in all three countries they are the majorities, and is obvious.

Congress- leaders makes mockery of CAA and failed to understand that simple logic. Even though, they all understand that very much but wanted to play the bad politics over it to gain the foolish psychic profits with which they are miserably struck for quite long time!

Congress- failed to articulate in the parliament debate on the Bill and lost the debate. Now, it wanted to play indirectly with life of public for their private gains. Some innocent students are victims of this indirect game play with bogus analysis.

When B.R.Ambedkar was studying in Columbia University for his Masters degree in 1913, Freedom Fighter Lala Lajpat Rai met him outside the university library and asked to join the politics. But Ambedkar refused saying that he has come to study with scholarship, which is a strong indication that a student in colleges or universities should mind themselves to study well only.

The students should not misunderstand the law making vs bad politics by which the lives of students, police etc would be in danger.

It is evident that in the last hundred years, all revolutions led to dictatorship or authoritarian regime.

Jai Hind
Vanakkam

Reading on Veteran Statesman -Rajaji's 14st Birth Anniversary

On 10th December, 141st Birth Anniversary of Rajaji was celebrated across the country albeit in a small way. He was one of the great modern India's free market economic thinker Statesman. The social media attributives went too late recognizing the birthday of Rajaji!

The following are some of the major remembrance of Rajaji's great contributions to the Indian economy, society and polity by various people:

From Swarajya Magazine- On Rajaji’s Birthday: Four Must Read Articles

Also Five Must Read Articles   

We tend to think of Rajagopalachari as a messiah against "license raj", but he was also a social conservative

C. Rajagopalachari: The icon India needs today

Rajaji’s birth day as Entrepreneurship Day

Selected Works of C. Rajagopalachari: Volume V, 1931–35. All five Volumes are here.

LET NOT INDIA FORGET RAJAJI-A BRILLIANT, FAR SIGHTED INTELLECTUAL

The Indian media both print and electronic are very sacrosanct about giving importance to political news and negative news for publication rather than giving a much needed importance of liberal ideas. The article like the below would not get published in right time in Indian media including at regional level. That is the sad state of affairs. Approximately, every media gives at least 60 percent of the publication spaces to the political and advertisements rather than the much needed deserving matters and things. Hence, I am producing the entire article below for record:

LET NOT INDIA FORGET RAJAJI-A BRILLIANT, FARSIGHTED INTELLECTUAL By N.S.Venkataraman

When Nehru passed away, Rajaji was devastated and paid tributes to Nehru stating that Nehru was "Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important for the nation and eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation”.

Rajaji (C.Rajagopalachari) was born on 10th December ,1878 and passed away on 25th December, 1972.

In the month of December, on the occasion of the birth and death anniversary of Rajaji, as one remembers his life history that was marked by robust thinking, simple life style, principled approach to the issues and guidance for the nation, one can see that most of the far sighted thoughts of Rajaji are highly relevant to the present time.

Let us highlight some of the actions and thought process of Rajaji that have stood the best of time.

Conscience Keeper :

Rajaji had close friendship with Mahatma Gandhi that was marked by mutual respect.

While speaking about Rajaji, Mahatma Gandhi said that Rajaji was his conscience keeper. What can be greater tribute to Rajaji’s sagacity more than what Ganhiji said about him ?.

Gandhiji led a glorious life of activities that was guided by his conscience. When Gandhiji said that Rajaji was his conscience keeper, it reflected on Rajaji’s brilliant intellectual capability combined with ethical and moral force.

Inter caste marriage :

Several critics of Rajaji, then and now, in Tamil Nadu made castiest remarks about Rajaji in a motivated manner .

However, it has been seen that most of such critics and some politicians in Tamil Nadu pay only lip support for inter caste marriage, though they speak loudly about the need for it to eradicate casteism.

On the other hand, Rajaji gave his daughter in marriage to Gandhiji’s son, though Rajaji and Gandhiji belonged to different caste. In this process, Rajaji ensured greater respectability and approval for the inter caste marriages in the country.

India Pakistan relationship:

Due to several historical reasons, it appears that it is almost impossible task for India and Pakistan to live in peace and harmony.

Rajaji realized such situation immediately after independence and said that people to people relationship was the need of the day between India and Pakistan. He said that development of mutual good will and understanding between citizens in various walks of life in India and Pakistan would force the politicians in both the countries to strive for amity.

Even today, this Rajaji’s suggestion appears to be the only way for India and Pakistan to live without animosity in the long run.

Opposition to Hindi :

During the pre independent days, Rajaji strongly advocated that every person in Tamil Nadu should learn Hindi language.

However, after the independence, when central government took measures that amounted to imposition of Hindi in non Hindi speaking states, Rajaji took strong objection and started opposing imposition of Hindi very strongly. At the same time, Rajaji repeatedly pointed out that he did not hate Hindi language.

When central government realized that even Rajaji was opposing the imposition of Hindi, it reversed it’s policy.

Prohibition in Tamil Nadu :

Rajaji was a strong advocate of prohibition and wrote several articles and made speeches in support of prohibition.

Rajaji was shocked when the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu Karunanidhi decided to lift prohibition to boost government ‘s income.

In spite of his ripe old age and inspite of the fact that Rajaji had the status of the former Governor General of India and in pouring rain, Rajaji went to Karunanidhi’s house and Rajaji appealed to Karunanidhi not to lift prohibition. However, Karunanidhi rejected Rajaji’s appeal and went ahead to lift prohibition.

Today, Tamil Nadu’s social fabric is severely disrupted, as large number of people have taken to liquor habit. Life of several women and many poor families have been shattered, as many menfolk have become liquor addicts.

Many people in Tamil Nadu think that Karunanidhi’s decision to life prohibition has become a curse for Tamil Nadu’s future and it’s social stability and progress. If Karunanidhi had listened to Rajaji’s appeal and refrained from lifting prohibition, perhaps Tamil Nadu would have emerged as model state for India.

Simple life style :

It is known that inspite of the lofty government positions he held , Rajaji used to wash his own clothes everyday.

Can we see today any politician or minister adopting such simple life style?

Population control :

Today, there is widespread concern in the country that level of population in India is increasing at alarming rate.

Inspite of several steps initiated by Government of India over the years, population growth could not be brought to acceptable level.

Rajaji anticipated this problem and said that population cannot be controlled by spreading contraceptive awareness amongst the people.

Rajaji said that with the spread of education and poverty eradication and better awareness of the issues involved, people themselves would realize the disadvantage of having large family and reduce the family size.

This is already happening in some parts of the country to some extent.

Political culture :

In the independent India, Rajaji and Nehru had serious difference of views with regard to economic development programme for the country.

While Nehru strongly believed in promoting public sector enterprises, Rajaji was of the view that without strengthening and encouraging private sector, Indian economy would not improve to the desirable level. As a matter of fact,Rajaji founded Swatantra party to spread his views and there were strong exchanges between Rajaji and Nehru on matters of economic approach.

However, their mutual respect and admiration remained intact reflecting the civilized political culture of both these leaders.

When Nehru passed away, Rajaji was devastated and paid tributes to Nehru stating that Nehru was “Eleven years younger than me, eleven times more important for the nation and eleven hundred times more beloved of the nation”.

Economic programme :

Rajaji strongly advocated the promotion of private enterprises in a big way and said that private initiatives are much needed for industrial and economic growth. He also criticized Nehru’s economic policies as “permit license quota raj”

Today, it is seen that central and state governments in India are taking special care to encourage private sector and are adopting industrial economic policies almost similar to what Rajaji advocated.

Pride of Tamil Nadu :

Tamil Nadu has seen in the past great personalities with blemishless personal life and strongly committed to the cause of human welfare , disapproval of division of society on any ground and they had unflinching loyalty to the cause of India.

Such great personalities who hailed from Tamil Nadu in the pre independent days include Kamaraj, Bharathiar, V.O. Chidambaram, Periyar, Rajaji and others.

Periyar and Rajaji were often thought by people as political adversaries. However, it was known that Periyar consulted Rajaji on personal matters and both of them had healthy relationships, inspite of different political views.

When Rajaji passed away , in his ripe old age sitting in a wheel chair, Periyar went to the cremation ground and wept inconsolably.

Today, we see in Tamil Nadu some political leaders belonging to different parties even hate to meet or speak with each other. They need to learn from Rajaji and Periyar about political culture.

Appeal to indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi:

While India remembers Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel and a few others on their birth and death anniversary, Rajaji does not get such national attention which he richly deserves.

On forthcoming birth anniversary of Rajaji on 10th December, I appeal to the Prime Minister Modi to remember Rajaji and pay his tributes to this great man that will receive national attention and the younger generation will understand and appreciate Rajaji’s high qualities of wisdom, honesty and intellectual brilliance and contribution to the national cause. Such role models are the need of the day.

N. S. Venkataraman is a trustee with the "Nandini Voice for the Deprived," a not-for-profit organization that aims to highlight the problems of downtrodden and deprived people and support their cause. To promote probity and ethical values in private and public life and to deliberate on socio-economic issues in a dispassionate and objective manner.

India needs institutional frameworks for 21st Century

Two Indian economists have come up with a very interesting book on Indian economics which is a "intersection of economics, political philosophy and public administration". And the book is titled  "In Service Of The Republic: The Art And Science of Economic Policy".

Vijay Kelkar gave a lecture at NCAER, which is part of this book. The lecture is here and worth to read fully. It has lots of public policy thinking culminated from Kelkar's practical experience in working with Government of India in different capacities. 

The essence of this book is very timely and has envisioning of future India looking ahead of fifty to seventy years period. According to this news report:

"Intensification of the 1977-2011 strategies will not suffice: what is required is rethinking the foundations," the authors suggest.

They say economic policy operates at the intersection of economics and politics and the ideal policy pathways must be worked out on blackboards, but then the conflicts of democratic politics are played out and determine the policy choices in the real world.

"Hence, our analysis draws as much on the timeless themes of building the republic as it does on public economics. In India, the modernisation of the political system and the economy is taking place at the same time - and feeding into each other. In this process, economic policy strategy must serve the larger objective of building the republic.

"The foundations of liberal democracy - the principles of debate, dispersion of power, the rule of law and curtailing executive discretion - are integral to solving the difficulties of economic policy that afflict India today," the book, published by Penguin Random House India, says.

Excerpted with permission from the book is here. Also a piece by authors in Mint is here.

In the livemint article, authors make very opt and pertinent points to grab the current situation of institutional systems of Indian democracy, which are worth to ponder and reflect upon it, because these are very subtle observations from sharp minds with no bias of any beast of ideology:

"Our key submission is that a lot of government intervention, and the licence-permit-inspector raj remains in place. The early dawn of economic freedom that was promised in 1991 has not evolved into a mature market economy. Private persons are beset with government intervention. The instincts of central planning are alive and well among policymakers. There is a great deal of arbitrary power in the hands of the government. Extensive interference in the economy by the government, the policy risk associated with future interventions, and the fear of how arbitrary power in the hands of the government will be used have led to a loss of confidence in the private sector."

"The founding energy of liberal democracy is the pursuit of freedom, of people being masters of their own fate. We need to shift away from notions of a developmental state, where big initiatives originate from the government, towards a philosophy of respect for the self-organizing system that is a free society. We need to rely far more on private negotiations, private contracts and civil society solutions, rather than turning to the government to solve problems. The state should be the last resort in resolving difficulties, not the first."

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) and E.V.Ramasamy (1879-1973)

I wrote the below two para as part of an article, this two para was not included in the final published article.

Erodu- Peace and Firebrand

The mathematics genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) was born in Erode. He lived a very short span of 32 years, for that we curse nature forever! He has immensely contributed to the world of mathematics quite miraculously on which the world talents still discover the meanings. His life was full of struggle with abject poverty and number games with scientific meanings with abreast fire in thinking for thoughts. He gave a new infinite definition to zero! But the killer nature gave 94 years of long life to his wife Janakiammal Ramanujan (1899- 1994) but not without strives for better living. She had decades of tailoring of painful life with poverty before receiving recognition along with for her revered husband from governments and scientific community across countries.

The self-respect crusader E.V.Ramasamy (1879-1973) known as Periyar who lived a long life of 94 years was born in Erode in a wealthy family. Periyar’s quest was to demystify the Hindu traditions under the lenses of communists’ ideology. The social milieus of the early part of the twentieth century forced Periyar to be of progressive in the social discourse which he took frantically with the engine of egos than sound reasoning. Great Tamil Scholar K.A.P.Viswanatham was statute critic of Periyar and wrote a list of 14 compliant against EVR for entrusting him as president of Justice Party.

Science was everything for CV Raman

The following two news articles in ToI recently reveals interesting information about Indian Nobel Prize Winning Scientist CV Raman. There is much to learn from his pure scientific research and experimental works.

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"Delivering a lecture on “The life and works of Sir CV Raman” at the Tamil Virtual Academy on Saturday, Rao said Raman saw former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s emphasis on ‘useful applied research’ as misplaced."

“Raman argued that fundamental science needed to be insulated not just from government, industrial and military pressure, but even from instructional pressure,” said Rao. When Nehru called for scientists to step out of their ivory towers, Raman told him men in ivory towers mattered the most, as they were the ‘salt of the earth’ to whom humanity owned existence. The full article is here.

“C V Raman is an unparalleled scientist and his life has many motivating factors about it, which would definitely benefit younger generations. I believe using art to popularise science is an effective way to create awareness on various ideas. Thankfully, I had access to Namboothiri, who responded quite positively to the thought,” The entire article is here.

Economics of Patterns

Kapil Viswanathan has good piece in Livemint on economics of modern vs traditional. Some excerpts:

"Friedrich von Hayek, the Nobel prize-winning economist, believed that there are no laws in economics; only patterns, and we must learn to recognize these. Doing so involves breaking away from a Newtonian mindset of definitive and predictive models and equilibria, and approaching the study of economics from a fundamentally different perspective."

"As Hayek advises, we must attempt not to shape results as a craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate growth by providing the appropriate environment, as a gardener does for plants."

The leapfrogging of Indian Smart Cities

The leapfrogging of Indian Smart Cities

B.Chandrasekaran, works in public policy

Indian cities were evolved as a driving force for development and growth in the last thirty years by infusion of mass migration for education and employment opportunities. Most of the Indian cities are not developed in a particular design with an order either by the State or by the societal norms or market forces which evolve spontaneously. Hence, most of the urban population in India lives not in orders with designs of civic amenities and public services. In other words, the cities are facing huge challenges in dealing with social equity, economic viability, and environmental sustainability on access to the services and facilities of common utility.

The pace of urbanisation has been increasing in recent decades without the basic livable amenities which are more threats in the short term than opportunities. India has 4,041 cities and towns. According to Pratap Padode, Founder of Smart Cities Council India Chapter, "China has developed 30 cities in the last thirty years with over 1 million population. India has 53 cities or rather urban agglomerations with over 1 million population while China has over 160. The municipal act needs an overhaul if we expect a commitment for building sustainable cities that will last centuries." Even after more than two decades of passing the 74^th Amendments in 1992 which empowers urban local bodies to govern its affairs with autonomy is yet to be realized fully.

Further, according to UNDP’s Research Paper (2000) titled “Decentralisation in India Challenges & Opportunities” which revealed that “it is not surprising that most municipalities were and still exist in a financially precarious position. In 1986-87, the income of all municipal bodies in Class 1 towns exceeded their expenditure only by Rs.311 million. The overlapping territories and responsibilities between ULBs and Development Authorities led to problems of non-co-ordination, and more seriously increased corruption and lack of accountability".

The main impediments faced by cities across India are Municipals Acts which are redundant in many ways resisting to change its bureaucratic mindsets towards the aspirations of millennials. Any city qualified to be the best in its quality should have excellences in services delivery in basic services like equitable access to roads, potable water, sewage systems, street lights, footpaths, power supply, and proper education and healthcare facilities with the precision of compliance systems to the residents with open and transparent governance systems. Without the above, the tweaking here and there will only help short-term gains of social attention and political gimmicks to the vested interests groups of which the larger public are not a party to.

It would be interesting to see the outcomes of major projects initiated under India's Smart Cities Mission because the structural reforms which were said to be prerequisite were not carried out to make concrete efforts to improve the basic amenities for better living of all. In the process, though much has gone into the underpinning challenges faced in the reorientation of the process for urban planning and designing which are no less than the age-old red-tape system yet to adopt new changes.

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had launched targeted programmes to improve the basic amenities in 100 cities through Smart City Mission in June 2015. Now, it has been more than four years eloped since the launch of Mission. Out of 100 cities, 90 of them were selected between January, 2016 and June, 2017. The under the Smart Cities Initiatives, the involvement of critical masses was often faced with the dilemma of expansion of existing cities or the creation of new ones. Mostly, the existing cities are decided to repair it instead of building new cities.

While launching the latest Progress Report 2019 on Indian Smart Cities, the Secretary of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs informed that till now total projects completed in various cities are 1,100 only which is worth Rs.201 billion. Also, Pratap Padode said that only “10% of the planned projects have been completed in the past three years.” This is very minuscule compared to what has been aimed to achieve by end of March 2019.

However, more on the pipelines, out of the 5,000 projects taken up across 100 cities, nearly 3,880 or 78 percent of the project proposed were given tenders for implementation. The tendered 3,880 projects are worth Rs.1,418 billion and projects under implementation are 3,100 which is worth Rs.1,004 billion. Also, the Progress Report highlights the cities which have tendered for various projects are 12 Smart Command and Control Centres for the comprehensive city-centric data management system, 92 public-private partnership projects, 107 smart road projects, 10 Smart Solar projects, 31 wastewater treatment projects, and 46 Smart Water projects. It could be possible that many of these projects were designed in the pretense of OUTCOME based approach for the sustainability of assets created.

It clearly shows that the present urban local body’s capacity to scale up the initiatives with smart solutions are stuck with its bureaucratic mode of planning, designing and implementation with little or no space for public participation. Urban local bodies have to constantly upgrade the skills and capabilities to their functionaries to overcome emerging challenges. Though, the current systems of urban local bodies are under tremendous pressure from stakeholders to change its styles of functions with more transparency. They should strive to involve the private agencies which have high creditability among the public to develop the process and designs to implement the projects in a time-bound manner.

The framework of Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) for Smart Cities was said to be well-thought-out plan but very little has been grounded to effect changes. For example, out of 11 Smart Cities in Tamil Nadu, only Chennai Smart City had appointed CEO and other staff under SPV. All other cities are functioning without CEOs and thereby the SPVs are ineffective. Moreover, many Smart Cities are yet to appoint the subject experts from the private sector as Directors in their SPVs to have an inclusive process of decision making. Therefore, the foundation for building cities of the 21^st century nature is still far away from the foreseeable future.

Remembering Tall Leadership of C.N.Annadurai

Remembering Tall Leadership of C.N.Annadurai

B.Chandrasekaran, interested in Indian Economic History

During the period of last century, Tamil Nadu always had tall leaders with vision for the development of people and protecting the interests of the State. Notably C.Rajagopalachari, Periyar E.V.Ramasamy, K.Kamaraj, M.Bakthavatsalam, C.N.Annadurai, M.Karunanidhi, M.G.Ramachandran and J.Jayalalithaa have all played a pivotal role in the politics of Tamil Nadu. These leaders have also possessed remarkable assertiveness and played a catalytic role at national level to get the demands of the State from Central government.

For the first time, there is an unprecedented vacuum in today’s Tamil Nadu politics without strong leadership especially after the demise of both J.Jayalalithaa and M.Karunanidhi in 2016 and 2018 respectively. Their mentor C.N.Annadurai’s fiftieth death anniversary marks this year. Annadurai was passed away on 3^rd February, 1969 at a midst of most active in politics and leaving a remarkable political career. He was born on 15^th September, 1909 at a place called Kancheepuram near Chennai to a weaving family. He rose to a tall formidable stature. He was called Bernard Shaw of South. He had many hats, a prolific writer, orator, publisher, editor, etc.

Tamil Nadu is now not only a leaderless State but leaders without vision and caliber to attract masses. The leaders who are at the helm of the affairs are neither clean image nor dutiful to the masses who voted them into power. Indeed, it is ironic that today’s political leaders are fumbling with Central government for favours without strong political leadership skills to represent the concerns of the people and demand what is due from the Central government in constitutional provisions.

While C.N.Annadurai had groomed next level of leadership to take over from him, but his admires both M.Karunanidhi and J.Jayalalithaa carefully avoided grooming the next level of leadership. As a result, the ability of Edappadi K.Palaniswami and O.Panneerselvam is not only clueless but appears deep-rooted lethargic attitude in government machineries. Also, these leaders have no credibility of any kind except the benami gangs and their own baggage of corruption charges. But one thing is common for all of them which is the lack of an assertive political leadership and decisive in matters of importance of the State’s interest.

Therefore, there is a lot to learn from CN.Annadurai’s strong leadership and his vision for the State. Despite his differences with Rajaji and Kamaraj on many aspects, he always maintained high regards to both of them for their knowledge and clean image of simplicity with which they served for the state and country.

Annadurai clearly emerged as tall leader who was admired by masses after Rajaji and Kamarai to take over the political leadership of the State in 1969. Both Rajaji and Kamaraj worked with Mahatma Gandhi for freedom movements. But Annadurai worked with Periyar E.V.Ramasamy for social reforms and parted with his own vision. Unlike Rajaji, Kamaraj, and Periyar what distinguishes Annadurai was that he had a vision for his people and the State to work with it and strived relentlessly till his last day.

Reading original works of Annadurai reveals sadly a big gap between what he envisioned for his people and the State and the parties which ruled the last fifty years in ignoring greatly. His concern for poor people’s suffering is something which was not followed in letter and spirit for bettering after his demise.

He founded the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in 1949 with his supporters after parted from his political guru Periyar. Its myth that Annadurai followed Periyar’s crude methods of social reforms, he actually had his own approach as moderate with adjustable temperament. Anna disagreed and condemned his political guru Periyar's fanatics about the burning of Hindu God's photos in public places and using vulgar languages in public meetings against Hindu God. He also understood the pitfalls of extremist’s ideas and current underpinnings of the social norms which are centuries old which cannot be eradicated through electoral politics or iconoclasm approach.

According to P.C.Ganesan, who wrote a biography of C.N. Annadurai (1982) under the serious of ‘Makers of Modern India’ published by The Publications Division of Government of India, Annadurai was never an “atheist” (page 108). 

In an interview which has been mentioned in the Ganesan’s book, Annadurai himself had said that “I was always pleading for real faith in god. I mean by real faith, prayer to God through service and work which will be related to the generating of faith in society. I have always tried to see that our people do not lose faith in god. At the same time, I had been anxious that they do not become hypocritical in their life”. Ganesan worked with Annadurai who edited an English Weekly “Homeland”.

Annadurai admired Mahatma Gandhi for his simplicity and his vision for the country. Anna stood by Gandhi for the prohibition of liquor in Tamil Nadu throughout his life but M.Karunanidhi lifted the prohibition after his demise. Both Rajaji and Kamaraj pleaded to Karunanithi not to lift the prohibition but he did not agree on the ground of revenues. Similarly, M.G.Ramachandran who came to power after split from DMK by forming All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam also followed the same as Karunanithi. J. Jayalalithaa promised for total prohibition both in power and when not in power but gigantically failed by blaming the DMK!

Moreover, Annadurai strongly believed and stood by it throughout his political career that there should be a considerable distance between the political leader who is having a higher position in government and their family to serve the people impartially without nepotism and despotism. He also believed that there should be a considerable distance between the ruling party in government and the party affairs to serve equally, the concerns of all sections of people represented by different political parties.

Both DMK and AIADMK did not follow these aspects in the last fifty years of ruling Tamil Nadu. Indeed, there was no difference between the DMK’s past President M Karunanithi and his family. If DMK voted to power only Karunanithi would become Chief Minister and it was ruled out long back that he can only be the party Chief also. But Anna did not encourage the policy of one person having both CM and Party Chief.  The party and political power were enormously glowing with each other paving all kinds of nepotism. Anna’s true Dravidian principles were put into a vain soon after his death but carefully used for vote motives.

In the case of AIADMK, it was few families who did the same kinds of nepotism practiced by the DMK. The democratic values propounded by Annadaurai were in vain soon after his passing away in both the parties which also applies to all other parties in Tamil Nadu. This is not something which Annadurai could have expected from his trusted lieutenants. Tamil Nadu was once cherished with tall political leaders who adhered to political principles without expecting favours of any kind. Now, it is daunting quite dangerously that the mighty power and money become a rule book for entry into politics.  

The current Dravidian polity becomes a too tangled with either in Tamil language or the most paralyzed identity of Tamil culture. Both are deeply rooted with vested interests of the political establishments which invariably either polarize or bipolarize the vote banks. At times, it looks even too circumvention when both DMK and AIADMK followers paint with block colour on the names written in Hindi at national highways/railways/central government offices in Tamil Nadu. It’s ridiculous but that these parties have indoctrinated their cadre with chauvinism. It’s nothing but anti-national.

Ironically, the Dravidian parties which hate Hindi language but a large number of Hindi speaking labourers have been employed in industries run by Tamil people who do not like the Hindi. It is a mockery, nowhere in the world is seen a situation like this. Moreover, there are all kinds of Hindi speaking traders from north India who are ranging from tiny Paani Puriwala to big shopkeepers and mall owners in all across Tamil Nadu.

I have come crossed many children of northern Indian families studying in government schools in Erode learning not only Tamil language but studying other subjects in Tamil too. If Annadurai is alive today, according to his biographer R.Kannan “Anna would have treated the question of language as a personal one, leaving the choice in the individual's hands.” Therefore, learning Hindi in Tamil Nadu as an optional subject would not harm Tamil language rather it would aid greatly to strengthen the Tamil language market to rest of India. Also, the States in North should not hesitate to introduce Tamil as optional subject in their schools.

Ideology does not matter to him always but yet Annadurai was an independent thinker and writer who genuinely concerned about the welfare of people. He was very much conscious of an active political career not having enmity in any manner with other leaders. He also did not hate or poke with lose languages on anyone in the political arena and that is what everybody admires him even after fifty years of demise. His life and works have great lessons to contemporary politicians who are aiming to capture the power. Their understanding of the State’s core challenges is very poor.  Thus, these leaders neither have leadership caliber nor clear vision for the State.

Annadurai always believed that a leader has to be genuinely concerned about people's plights rather than aiming to capture the political power within a year of founding a party. He also strongly believed that founding a political party is quite different from coming to power with the trusts of people. He called this as mature politics should always venture in contributing to the challenges of the State and concerns of people. DMK came to power only after matured politics of 18 years with genuine concerns over issues and challenges of the State. He did not oppose anything blindly but invited openly others to convince him with facts and arguments to serve better in the interests of common people needs. Will our politicians learn from Anna or for that matter what is good from both Karunanithi and Jayalalithaa? Only time will tell us the truth.