Our editions in Tamil Nadu had a brief item the other day on the sudden death, in a vehicle collision, of a district head of the ruling party, the DMK. Vasuki Murugesan, 45, was being driven, it appears, to Coimbatore airport when the car she was in tried to overtake a vehicle and collided with an oncoming gas tanker. She died on the spot. A tragic way to go; the photograph of the collision makes it clear how gruesome an end it was. We have little idea of the sort of person she was, but let us unreservedly say it was a loss; we wish her soul in peace. Having said so, we’d like to dwell a bit on why she was rushing from Karur to Coimbatore to get to the other end of the state on time. It appears, explains the police, that she needed to be at Chennai airport to greet deputy chief minister (and heir apparent) M K Stalin on his return from abroad. We’ve heard of rigid protocol in connection with official ceremonies: there is a more rigid and far more chancy code, if unwritten, that comes with the desire to rise, or even to keep one’s seat, in our top-down structure.
In which, catching the eye of the boss and being known to be assiduous in paying respect are rather important, to put it mildly. (Not only in politics, one may add). And so, Vasuki was racing to be there in the queue, hands folded, amidst her other jostling counterparts, to explain to the great one how happy one was to have him back in person and how relieved that he was back to give guidance and inspiration. If this was unique to the DMK, other parties could have jeered, but in this matter, they’re all clones. Tamil Nadu has pioneered some aspects of this culture and taken it further along than other states in the region, but the difference is not substantial. To have told Vasuki that this was not the sort of India our pre-1947 giants spent their lives for would have struck her as being thoroughly irrelevant. And so, the question is: whether one takes such a culture as given, laid down by the gods or, whether we can think if there is something to be reformed in this regard? Not by someone who will, some day, come flying down on a white horse.
