TIRUCHY: While the revocation of Article 370 evoked mixed reactions across the political spectrum in India, the overwhelming solidarity with Kashmiri leaders by people from Tamil Nadu, particularly the DMK party, may have been intriguing to some.
But there is history behind the stand taken by DMK chief MK Stalin, who has called for an all-party meeting in Chennai on August 10 to discuss the issue. And, in doing so, he has only followed in the footsteps of his predecessors in the party and the Dravidian movement. Way back in 1948, when the then Prime Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Sheikh Abdullah, wanted to resign his post, DMK founder and former Chief Minister CN Annadurai wrote in his publication Dravida Nadu an article titled ‘Kashmiril Puthiya Por’ (A new war in Kashmir), in which he said Abdullah was deceived by the then PM Jawaharlal Nehru.
The article recalled how Nehru encouraged Abdullah to revolt against the Maharajah of Kashmir during pre-Independence and how Nehru threw his weight behind Maharajah post-Independence.
Later, when BR Ambedkar resigned from the Cabinet in 1951, Viduthalai, a Dravidiar Kazhagam publication, edited by its leader Periyar EV Ramasamy, carried an editorial. ‘Ambedkar Vilagiathu Yen?’ (Why did Ambedkar resign?), arguing that the Kashmiri people should be left to take their own decision on Kashmir and urging both Pakistan and India to come out of the Valley.
On his part, former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi maintained a good relationship with Sheikh Abdullah, whom he often addressed as ‘Kashmir Singam’ (Lion of Kashmir). The two leaders had last met at the former’s Gopalapuram residence in Chennai on February 12, 1975. When Sheikh Abdullah died in 1982, Karunanidhi, as leader of the opposition in the TN Assembly, urged the government to name the Kohinoor Bungalow in Kodaikanal after the Kashmiri leader. It was in that bungalow Abdullah was kept from 1965 following his arrest on charges of conspiracy against the State.
Later on, when his son Farooq convened a conference at Srinagar in the 1980s to discuss autonomous power to the States, the DMK sent its representatives. Even when the DMK forged an alliance with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the Dravidian party put forth a set of conditions. One among them was there would be no change to Article 370. So, there is no surprise that in the just concluded parliamentary session DMK MPs opposed the revoking of Article 370.
Political analyst Subagunarajan commented, “For long DMK has been insisting on a federal India by devolution of powers from Centre to States. The DMK’s stand on Kashmir issue should be seen in this light.”