So the National Front has finally been launched at a rally organised by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) in Madras. Nothing could have been more appropriate. After all, the DMK is a regional party par excellence; at one stage it even stood for Tamil Nadu’s secession from the Indian Union; and it remains stoutly opposed to the propagation of Hindi and its use at some stage in the future as the language of inter-state communication in place of English. It has, of course, changed with the passage of time and experience of office. But it still espouses an intense kind of linguistic-cultural nationalism which has no parallel in the country with the exception of the now split AIADMK and the Akali Dal. Indeed, it will not be too much of an exaggeration to say that the DMK gave up its secessionist platform at least partly because it did not have much of a choice in the matter, faced as it was with a government in Delhi which would never have compromised on the issue of the country’s unity and which had the capacity to cope with whatever kind of challenge it could have mounted. And needless to recall either that the DMK government in Madras set up what was in the sixties a record in corruption and discrimination, or that the party split on the issue of corruption. It is another matter that the leader of the breakaway group, Mr M. G. Ramachandran, vastly improved on his predecessor’s record in corruption. It is equally appropriate that the so-called presidium of the Front should have denounced the Indo-Sri Lanka accord and accused New Delhi of having let down the Tamils in the island republic for there cannot be the slightest doubt that this is the kind of stuff of which the country’s foreign policy will be made, should the Front come to power at the Centre. The only surprise, if any, is that the “presidium” did not endorse the Anandpur Sahib resolution.
In Madras, the Janata party was represented by Mr Ajit Singh. Neither of the two principal contenders for power in the organisation, Mr Chandra Shekhar and Mr Ramakrishna Hegde, could be present because they were engaged in a last-minute bid to avert a possible split which failed. Apparently if the split does take place, both Janatas can be easily accommodated in the Front. Thus the cause of “opposition unity” need not suffer as a result of a split in the Janata. The same holds true in the case of the Lok Dal. In Madras, the strongman of the Dal, Mr Devi Lal, duly attacked its formal head, Mr HN Bahuguna, and charged him with trying to hamper the formation of the Samajwadi Lok Dal. But that too need not cause concern to the proponents of opposition unity. Two Lok Dals can fit into the National Front as comfortably as two Janatas. What could be more representative of India of the dreams of men who are determined to fragment the political process itself. And who can be better suited to preside over the search for such unity than the man who fancying himself as Lord Siva in his Ardhanareshwar form puts on a woman’s dress?