Cat-And-Mouse Over The Bull Game

Recent Jallikattu protests can portend fresh potential for Tamil nationalism. But the state's people have developed a stake in the larger federal polity.

- T.N. Gopalan

The Jallikattu bulls have a contextual link to Tamil Tigers. Back in the early 1980's, droves of Lankan rebels had a free run of the islandnation—with the blessings of India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi. Madras did its back-up, with CM M.G. Ramachandran playing a second fiddle. The motives, though, differed. Indira was driven by certain geopolitical considerations, while the actor-turned-politician had to walk the extra mile to fight taunts of being a Keralite and prove his ‘Tamilness’.

Rajiv Gandhi took over the mantle in New Delhi in 1984, and continued to patronise the Tamil militants. Crackdown came about much later.

True, there were so many groups hotfooting around, but it was Velupillai Prabhakaran and his LTTe that caught popular imagination. Unlike the others who claimed to be driven by larger social vision, Prabhakaran’s approach was far simpler—and deadly too. The Tigers kept inflicting maximum damage on the majority Sinhalese, never mind the possible brutal reaction of the state. On both sides of the Palk Straits, the LTTe fed into the frenzy and thus emerged the sole champion of anything Tamil. Through all the ups and downs of the guerilla war, a strong vocal minority remained fiercely loyal to Prabhakaran.

Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, the founder of the Dravidian movement, did talk of a separate Tamil Nadu, but it did not have many takers. even his own disciples turned their back at some stage, eager as they were to enjoy the fruits of power. They didn’t mind hobnobbing with the ‘Brahmin-Bania nexus’ of the northerners. A logical conclusion was becoming part of the NDA and its deafening silence during 2002 when the BJP-led coalition was in power at the Centre.