Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s decision to rename Tamil Nadu’s breakfast programme after former chief minister K Kamaraj might look like a welfare-scheme rebranding, but the political message is far bigger. By putting the Congress stalwart and Nadar icon Kamaraj back at the centre of a flagship scheme launched by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Vijay is taking a calculated swipe at the Dravidian giant while reaching out to a community with considerable electoral weight in southern Tamil Nadu.
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For Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters watching the developments, the move also presents an opportunity for the party to turn Kamaraj from a Tamil political icon into a wider OBC symbol and build a coalition around him ahead of the 2029 Lok Sabha election. One such BJP group has even appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to name a Central government scheme after K Kamaraj.
On September 22, the Tamil Nadu government led by CM Vijay issued an order renaming the Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme as the Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Breakfast Scheme. The programme was launched by the previous DMK government of MK Stalin in September 2022 for students from Classes I to V in government and government-aided schools.
After the actor-turned-politician’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)-led government came to power, the scheme was expanded to students in Classes VI to VIII on July 15, Kamaraj’s birth anniversary. The subsequent decision to attach Kamaraj’s name to the scheme adds a political layer to what was already a welfare programme. In 1956, Kamaraj pioneered the statewide expansion of the school meal programme in Madras State, providing free noon meals to poor primary-school children.
For Ravindran Duraisamy, who leads Team RD Modiji for 2029, the choice of Kamaraj by Vijay is not accidental, but intentional.
“Nadar is the second largest OBC community [in Tamil Nadu], as per the Amba Shankar Commission (1982–1985). Around 40% of the Nadars are Christians today. This community is attracted to CM Vijay, who himself is a practising Christian. Now by naming his breakfast scheme after Kamaraj — the Nadar community’s leader and the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu — Vijay is trying to tease the DMK and, at the same time, woo the Hindu Nadars,” Duraisamy told India Today Digital.
Ravindran Duraisamy is the convenor of the Team RD Modiiji for PM 2029, which is an entrusted unit of Gujarat’s Bharat Padak. The 21-member team focusses on providing insights and advice about social problems and other political developments to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Duraisamy told India Today Digital that his Team RD Modiji for PM 2029 had urged PM Modi to forge an alliance with the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka and contest the 2024 Lok Sabha elections together, arguing that such a tie-up could strengthen the BJP-led challenge to the Congress. The BJP and JD(S) eventually entered into a pre-poll alliance for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, with the JD(S) contesting three seats in Karnataka.
CM VIJAY USING KAMARAJ AS A POLITICAL MESSAGE
The political significance of Kamaraj goes beyond his record as chief minister who led the Congress in Tamil Nadu. He remains deeply associated with the Nadar community and with a different political tradition from the Dravidian parties that have dominated Tamil Nadu for decades.
Kamaraj’s political legacy was built around Congress, rural development, education and welfare. His image also carries an unusual political advantage in the state. He can be invoked without directly embracing the ideological vocabulary of the Dravidian movement.
That makes him particularly useful for Vijay, who is trying to establish the political identity of the TVK outside the traditional DMK-AIADMK framework, which is wholly dominated by the Dravidian model of politics.
“Vijay is playing on the anti-Dravidian plank,” Duraisamy told India Today Digital. “The Tamil Nadu politics, when Kamaraj was the CM and Karunanidhi and MGR started the DMK, the complete politics was Dravidian politics versus anti-Dravidian. The DMK was completely successful in gaining the Dravidian dominance and pushed Kamaraj to the sides. Now Vijay is trying to play the same card against the DMK.”
That is the larger political gamble by the Tamil Nadu chief minister who emerged to power within two years of entering into politics.
The DMK has long been the dominant political expression of Dravidian ideology in Tamil Nadu. Vijay does not have the organisational history or ideological lineage of the Congress-era Kamaraj, but invoking the former chief minister gives him a way to position himself against the established political apparatus of the state.
It allows Vijay to counter the Dravidian giants that Tamil Nadu’s political history did not begin with the Dravidian movement and that welfare politics can be associated with an alternative legacy.
TVK’s political imagery draws from five figures who represent different strands of Tamil Nadu and India’s social and political history. They are Periyar EV Ramasamy, K Kamaraj, BR Ambedkar, Rani Velu Nachiyar and Anjalai Ammal. Vijay has, since the establishment of his party, hailed Kamaraj as the role model for clean governance and his emphasis on education.
WHY IS THE NADAR CALCULATION IN TAMIL NADU SIGNIFICANT?
The Nadar calculus of Vijay has a distinctly southern Tamil Nadu dimension. TVK mainly holds its base in Chennai and other central parts of the state.
The Nadar community is estimated by political observers to account for a significant share of the electorate in several southern districts, particularly Kanniyakumari, Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Tenkasi and Virudhunagar. Its influence varies sharply from constituency to constituency, with some pockets having particularly high concentrations.
Duraisamy puts the community’s statewide electoral weight at around 6% to 8%, while stressing its concentration in southern Tamil Nadu.
For Vijay, the community presents an interesting political proposition. He is himself a Christian, and Christian Nadars form an important section of the community. At the same time, Kamaraj provides a bridge to Hindu Nadars who might not necessarily identify with Vijay through religion, but support his welfare pitch. This is where the renaming of the school-meal scheme becomes more politically interesting than a routine tribute.
MODI BACKERS SMELLING A THREAT BY VIJAY AND AN OPPORTUNITY TO OBC CONSOLIDATION
Duraisamy’s organisation, Team RD Modiji for 2029, has been pitching Kamaraj as a national OBC figure who could help the BJP construct a broader social coalition.
“Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi recognised Kamaraj as a great leader,” Duraisamy told India Today Digital.
Duraisamy said the team has also approached Modi with a proposal to name a central government scheme after Kamaraj. In its communication to the Prime Minister, the group argued that such a move could help connect the BJP with OBC communities beyond Tamil Nadu.
The pitch is expansive. It proposes bringing together communities such as Nadars, Ezhavas, Bhandaris, Jaiswals, Ahluwalias, Gouds and Idigas around Kamaraj’s legacy. The argument is that Kamaraj’s legacy could serve as a bridge connecting different OBC communities.
The BJP, which has been trying to expand its footprint in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, has sought to broaden its social base by reaching out to different OBC communities across the southern states.
That is an ambitious proposition, because caste identities and political alignments vary significantly across states and communities. But the pitch shows how some Modi supporters are looking at Vijay’s Kamaraj outreach through the lens of a broader OBC consolidation strategy. If Vijay is using Kamaraj to challenge the DMK’s ideological dominance, the BJP supporters see the same icon as a potential instrument for building a larger anti-DMK and OBC coalition.
For Vijay, Kamaraj is a way to tease the DMK. Meanwhile, for the BJP’s Modi backers, Kamaraj could become a potential political bridge to 2029.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
