How Karunanidhi pitched for greater state autonomy in the 1970s

The choice of ‘Union Government’ versus ‘Central Government’ reminds us of the age-old Tamil adage – ‘Will the mouth get burnt by the mention of fire?’ If the BJP’s cries of wolf is inane, the discussion on these terms remains mere semantics even as the debate on state autonomy becomes polemical in an increasingly centralising environment.  At the time of independence, Tamilarasu Kazhgam’s Ma. Po. Sivagnanam visualised a ‘Tamil Nadu’ within the Union with the right to self-determination as was the case in the erstwhile USSR. In the fervor of independence and the post-independence honeymoon phase that lasted under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the idea was cold turkey. 

In 1962 after the DMK dropped its demand for Dravida Nadu, its founder CN Annadurai recalibrated the party’s goals to a federal India where states enjoy ‘fuller autonomy’, thus breathing life into Sivagnanam’s vision. Nevertheless, till today the idea of a truly federal India remains a mirage. In fact, the pendulum has swung in the other direction that the Supreme Court in the COVID-19 vaccine pricing case had to remind the Union government that the Constitution speaks of a ‘Union of States’. Here we look at the spirited advocacy of the idea by former Chief Minister and DMK leader M Karunanidhi in the 1970s. 

On 17 March 1969, during his first visit to Delhi as Chief Minister, Karunanidhi indicated setting up an expert committee to study Centre-State relations and transferring of powers from the Union government to the states. On 21 March, participating in the 1970 National Development Council (NDC) meeting, a 44-year-old Karunanidhi issued an ultimatum to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to announce the Salem Steel Plant in that meeting failing which, he said, he would withhold consent to the Fourth Five Year Plan. There were no precedents for such a strident style of advocacy but this time it paid off. On 17 April that year, the Prime Minister made the announcement in the Lok Sabha and laid the foundation stone on 16 September that year. So far so good.

Seeking power-sharing and self-reliance 

Conscious of the party’s separatist antecedents, Karunanidhi always added the caveat that regional autonomy should not be conflated with separatism and, on the contrary, would bind India stronger. But Karunanidhi was way ahead of his times. Having been wrought in the immediate aftermath of the painful Partition, the quasi-federal Constitution was heavily weighted in the Union government’s favour and this was not going to change in his lifetime. While Karunanidhi’s detractors saw a bogeyman in the demand, the young Chief Minister’s efforts failed to gain real traction. In one of her rare comments, in 1973, Indira Gandhi described the demand ‘irresponsible’ and Karunanidhi joined the issue with her.  

Despite the odds and the writing on the wall, emboldened by the massive mandate in 1971 Karunanidhi seemed to believe he could attain state autonomy during that term. Karunanidhi, like his predecessor, felt heavily constricted. He wished to spruce up the ramparts of Fort St George but was told that it belonged to the Ministry of Defence and he needed to seek approval from the Union government. The Chief Minister’s heart sank. The Union government was hanging in the balance with his support but then his powers as the state’s Chief Minister were supine. There were other issues. For instance, his wish to install a statue of Rajaraja within the Big Temple, a UNESCO heritage site was shot down by the Archaeological Survey of India to preserve the integrity of the 1,000-year-old temple. But there were serious substantive issues. The Chief Minister advocated power sharing and more teeth for the states on taxation and finances so that they were self-reliant. But other than the financial devolution, his fellow Chief Ministers were coy about power sharing.  

Karunanidhi and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 

On 19 August, 1970 Karunanidhi constituted a three-member committee with Dr PV Rajamannar as chair and Dr AL Mudaliar and P Chandra Reddy as members. Three weeks later, on 12 September, Karunanidhi sponsored and presided over a State Autonomy Conference in Madras in which EV Ramasamy Periyar, West Bengal Chief Minister Ajoy Mukherjee, Parliamentarians Muhammed Ismail, Pranab Mukherjee, N Sreekantan Nair, Arangil Sridharan, SM Krishna, and other leaders participated. This was also a moment when Karunanidhi could take heart from the developments in India’s neighbourhood. In 1970 Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Sheikh Mujib) won a majority on a six-point plan limiting Pakistan’s federal government to defence and foreign affairs. On 26 March 1971, Sheikh Mujib declared an independent Bangladesh. Beginning 28 March, Karunanidhi’s nephew and Member of Parliament Murasoli Maran penned a five-part article in Murasoli titled Lion’s Roar of Freedom in Bangla Country to celebrate its birth.  

Karunanidhi was greatly enamoured by Sheikh Mujib’s ideas. Three days after Bangladesh’s declaration of independence, on 29 March 1971 he said, “I believe no one in India would wish to create a Mujibur Rahman in each state.” The next day, at the NDC meet in Delhi, speaking in English he justified the demand for regional autonomy. Sheikh Mujib would manifest in his other references during that term. It reached a point when at the 12-13 February 1972 DMK conference at Rajapalayam, the state government’s public relations department exhibited a picture of Karunanidhi and Sheikh Mujib with lines on state autonomy inscribed at the entrance of the conference and brought out a booklet which it later destroyed on reflection. On 24 May 1972, PM Indira Gandhi had commented on the posters as strange.  

The Rajamannar Committee

On 27 May 1971, the Rajamannar Committee came up with recommendations that would have turned the Centre-state equation upside down. Suggesting an Inter State Council made up of Chief Ministers and headed by the Prime Minister, the Committee recommended the forum as the place for decisions of national importance or affecting state/states after consultations. It recommended including corporation tax, customs and export duties and capital value tax that were the preserve of the Union government in the divisible pool and investments of less than Rs 100 crore to be in the state domain. Suggesting the transfer of several items from the Concurrent and Union Lists to the State List, the Committee said that on civil and criminal matters High Courts remain the highest court and the Supreme Court be a constitutional court. Karunanidhi appointed the Sezhian-Maran committee to study the report which came up with a 8,226-word report and a briefing to the DMK’s executive that endorsed its views that informed the state government’s views.  

The Rajamannar Committee report along with the state government’s endorsement of the report was forwarded to the Prime Minister on 15 June, 1971. On 22 June, Indira Gandhi responded that the Administrative Reforms Commission had gone into the issue and its report was under consideration. She said, “These are important issues and we intend to consult all the Chief Ministers.” This of course would take 12 years and the irony would be that it would come on the heels of the southern Chief Ministers’ meet in Bangalore in which Karunanidhi’s bete noire MG Ramachandran as the state’s Chief Minister would participate. Karunanidhi had long complained that MGR and his cohorts had not supported the regional autonomy demand. 

Swatantra leader Rajaji compared Karunanidhi’s clamour to Charles Lamb’s A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig. In the story, swineherd Ho-ti’s son Bo-bo accidentally burns their cottage along with the nine piglets. Tempted by the smell of the burnt meat the boy feels the meat, burns his fingers and takes his fingers to his mouth to cool it tastes the crumbs of the scorched skin and discovers its deliciousness. Neighbours haul the father-son duo to court after realizing that the duo’s cottage caught fire every time there was a farrow. The jury ends up tasting the roast meat and rendering a ‘Not Guilty’ verdict. People burn their cottages to roast pigs until a wise man tells them there was no need to burn their houses down. Similarly, said Rajaji, some Chief Ministers reminded him of the story as they welcomed Bangladesh’s uprising, implying that Karunanidhi wanted to burn down the house (India) to roast the pig (autonomy). 

State autonomy as decentralisation 

At the 30 May 1972 NDC, Karunanidhi pitched his demand as decentralisation to meet people’s minimum demands quickly and efficiently. He lamented that states had no power to set up industries, collect income tax, float loans for development or get assent for even socialistic measures passed in the Assembly. If these were substantive grouses the Chief Minister, high on symbolism, would regret that while collectors unfurled the national flag on Independence Day or Republic Day Chief Ministers did not have that honour and it was left to the Governor. “Do not consider these as trivial. These are matters of self-respect and honour of the State,” he said. While Indira Gandhi largely chose to ignore the shrill noises her lieutenants said they sensed danger. On 14 October 1973, Karunanidhi himself claimed in an opposition meeting on social justice in Allahabad that Congressmen wanted to dismiss his government because of his demand. Three days later, on 17 October 1973, the Anandpur Sahib resolution sought a larger Punjab with its own Constitution and the Union government’s authority confined to defence, foreign relations, communications, railways, and currency. Anchored in Sikh rights the resolution perfunctorily mentioned federalism. The Sikh demands would worry Indira Gandhi. 

On 16 April 1974, terming the resolution ‘historic’ and ‘the most important in his public life’, the Chief Minister moved a resolution in the Assembly requesting the Union government to accept his government’s views and the recommendations of the Rajamannar Committee and proceed to effect immediate changes in the Constitution to establish a truly federal set-up. This was at best a naïve or sunken cost fallacy. On that occasion, Karunanidhi came up with the following analogy: he said, following Independence a person was released from prison. When he tried to embrace his child, he saw that his hands and legs were still bound. In the joy of leaving jail, he had forgotten to remove the chains. “Similarly, India has attained independence. Why should its limb-like states be bound by unnecessary concentration of powers at the Centre?” The Chief Minister asked, wondering if the ‘domestic colony’ should not be ‘eradicated’. Murasoli said it was the ‘first salvo fired’ against the ‘domestic colony system’. Karunanidhi said he was seeking state autonomy ‘for all’. He explained that the Inter-State Council proposed by the Rajamannar Committee would have necessitated discussions and that even state autonomy ‘won’t be enough’ to act on Katchatheevu. He wanted the states to decide on their contribution as opposed to the Union government taking their contributions and then returning a portion of it. He described the Union government as ‘illusory’, arguing that the state government was intertwined with the common man.   

After five days of discussions, on 20 April, as the Congress failed to empathise with him an exasperated Chief Minister who replied for 110 minutes said, “This is why the hell we ask for this.” On 28 April, in his reply to the council debate, Karunanidhi described the extant powers to a shirt for a four-year-old child, with the state that was no more that young being asked to wear it. While the opposition saw his demand as superfluous, the ADMK fudged the issue. The resolution was put to vote and carried by a majority.

On 15 August 1974, Karunanidhi would become the first Tamil Nadu Chief Minister to hoist the national flag at Fort St George. His long standing demand had finally been heeded. But Karunanidhi yearned for more than tokenism. In 2007, in an op-ed piece in a daily titled ‘Autonomy in State and Federalism at the Centre’ Karunanidhi said that the idea of regional autonomy ‘started reverberating through the length and breadth of the States’. One wishes that this was true. Much water has flowed since the Rajamannar, Sarkaria and the 2007 Punchhi Committee reports. The latter two are extremely tepid compared to the far reaching Rajamannar report. While they speak to some extent on the tinkering of the financial arrangements they are extremely coy about any transfer of powers from the Union government to the states. In fact the Punchhi Committee has recommended another layer of security with a Homeland Security like forum to preserve the country’s unity. While the Rajamannar recommendation of the Inter-State Council was achieved in 1990 the body remains a far cry from Rajamannar and Karunanidhi’s vision of it serving as a forum where the states and the Union government would be equals. The Council last met in 2016 and has met only 11 times in these last 31 years.

Is there hope? Like liberalisation that had removed the shackles of a ‘self-reliant’ India, a time will come when India will not be required to be united by statutes alone. That will be the dawn of a truly federal India.

R Kannan is the senior political officer with the UN in Darfur, in Sudan. He is also the biographer of Anna.