A FEDERAL FACE-OFF

Ever since the DMK came to power as the first nonCongress regime in Tamil Nadu in 1967, seldom have its governments enjoyed the best of relations with the institution of the Governor.

- Amarnath K. Menon

The first DMK chief minister C.N. Annadurai often remarked that a state needs a Governor like a goat needs a beard. It’s understable for a party that espouses federalism and social justice—and has been dismissed twice by the Centre, in 1976 and 1991—to carry a sharp sense of that relationship as an essentially conflictual one. So history was bound to impinge on the present when ex-IPS officer R.N. Ravi was named Tamil Nadu Governor in September 2021. Thol. Thirumavalavan, president of the DMK’s alliance partner VCK (Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi), acidly noted Ravi’s past in the Intelligence Bureau and painted him as “someone capable of attempting to undo assertion of linguistic identities”. If the situation was rife with potential for conflict, it has now been fully realised.