Former Prime Minister V.P. Singh (1931-2008), who was responsible for the introduction of quotas for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in Central government institutions, will be remembered in Chennai on his 15th death anniversary (November 27). Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will unveil his statue on the Presidency College campus in the presence of former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party is viewed as an inheritor of the (Ram Manohar) Lohia legacy of political mobilisation of BCs.
V.P. Singh had a “special connection” with Tamil Nadu at least for two reasons: the implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations on reservation for OBCs and the establishment of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, both of which were favoured by political parties of the State. The two events occurred in a matter of months in 1990. While the decision in the early August 1990 on the Mandal Commission’s recommendations was a sequel to the plan of dismissed Deputy Prime Minister Devi Lal to hold a rally of farmers in New Delhi, the formation of the Tribunal was in response to the Supreme Court’s directive of May 1990 to set up the body in a month.
Assembly resolution
A fortnight after the decision on the reservation, the State Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution expressing its “gratitude” to the Union government, according to a report in The Hindu on August 22, 1990. Moved by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, the resolution thanked the National Front (NF) government, headed by Singh, for “having taken the revolutionary decision of giving effect to social justice in the history of India”.
Rejecting the contention of the Congress members that Singh had announced the reservation to divert people’s attention from the Devi Lal episode, the then Chief Minister recalled that even in June, the Prime Minister wrote letters to Chief Ministers, seeking their views on safeguards to be provided to the BCs. The AIADMK and the Congress, then allies, had also supported the resolution.
A month later, Singh appreciated the resolution at a DMK rally held on the Marina where his speech was translated into Tamil by Vaiko, then a DMK MP. He spoke of the limitations of the “highest rooms in Delhi”. According to him, “transformation comes from huts and villages, from workers, farmers, the oppressed and the deprived. We are there in Delhi not to shuffle the files” but to shuffle the “inequities in social, economic and political order. And that is our mandate”.
As for the Cauvery issue, Singh toed the line of the Supreme Court’s judgment despite his party, Janata Dal, being a major force in Karnataka. Its Karnataka unit did not favour a Tribunal. About 10 days after the judicial pronouncement, Singh went on record that the Centre would have to follow the court’s directive “since that is a correct and normal procedure”. This was when the Karnataka government was preparing to file a review petition.
However, the then Chief Minister, Veerendra Patil, who belonged to the Congress, accused the Singh government of “having abdicated its responsibility” and faulted it for cancelling unilaterally a scheduled meeting to be attended by the then Union Minister, Manubhai Kotadia, and the Chief Ministers of all the basin States in Chennai on April 20.
But Karunanidhi had all along been appreciative of Singh over the formation of the Tribunal. When the former Prime Minister died in November 2008, the former Chief Minister, who had, by then, become an ally of the Congress, recalled the decision in his condolence message. In January 2009, a resolution, adopted in memory of Singh, did mention his role in the Cauvery matter.
Singh’s engagement with Tamil Nadu included his participation in the launch of the National Front in Chennai in September 1988, along with four Chief Ministers including N.T. Rama Rao; at the swearing-in of Karunanidhi as Chief Minister in January 1989; and his speech at a public meeting at T. Nagar seven months later as part of the Opposition’s campaign against the Congress government at the Centre. What was more noteworthy was his defence of the Dravidian movement in the run-up to the 1989 Assembly election when the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had said Tamil Nadu had been destroyed under the “Dravidian Rule”. Demanding Gandhi’s apology, Singh said that perhaps the Prime Minister “had not read” Indian history and also that of Dravidian culture and its contribution, said a report in The Hindu on January 19, 1989.
A balancing act
During his poll campaign in Kancheepuram then, Singh did a balancing act to respect the sentiments of believers and the followers of the Dravidian movement. While offering salutations to Kancheepuram, which was the seat of the Sankara Mutt with a glorious tradition, he noted that the city was also the birthplace of DMK founder C.N. Annadurai.
As the Prime Minister, Singh agreed to have a meeting of the National Integration Council in September 1990, which, Karunanidhi said, was in response to his request. The DMK doyen, in an interview to this newspaper published on May 1, 1991, praised him for establishing the Inter-State Council under Article 263 of the Constitution and said “he could accomplish what could not be done in the last 40 years”. For the State’s ruling party, Singh was important for one more reason: the DMK’s first Union Minister, Murasoli Maran, was part of his Ministry during 1989-90. As an aside, it was at an election rally attended by Singh in Chennai, that LTTE operative Sivarasan had conducted the dry run to assess the security for a former Prime Minister, before the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in Sriperumbudur.
