The latest incidence of violence in Tamil Nadu involving the ruling party, the DMK, brings to focus the extent to which the political process in the state is steeped in criminal violence.

In response to a survey conducted by the Tamil daily Dinakaran that showed the Chief Minister Karunanidhi’s second son M.K. Stalin to be “emerging as his (Karunanidhi’s) political heir”, supporters of the first son M.K. Azhagiri, who is also one of the leaders of the DMK, attacked the office of the newspaper in Madurai, burnt copies of the paper and vandalized shops and establishments, resulting in the loss of several lives and lakhs worth of property. The ruling DMK took no action whatsoever to bring the culprits to book, since those who were involved in the crime were themselves members of the ruling family.

With callous nonchalance, the ruling party organised a massive celebration, immediately after the mayhem, to commemorate the 50th year of Chief Minister Karunanidhi becoming a legislator. The high profile celebration had all the blessings of the ruling party at the centre. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Governor Surjit Singh Barnala participated in the celebrations and spoke volumes about Karunanidhi’s “dedicated service to the people”.

With deep anger, People’s Voice condemns the criminal violence that has been unleashed by the ruling party, with the direct involvement of its leaders, and the attempts by the centre and state to dismiss the crime as of no consequence. It demands that those responsible for these heinous crimes should be severely punished, no matter what their position and political affiliation are.

Such violence and mayhem by the major political parties of the ruling class in Tamil Nadu, the DMK and the AIADMK, is a regular feature of the politics practiced in the state. In February 2000, a mob of AIADMK workers protesting against a verdict against Jayalalitha, the party leader, set a bus ablaze killing several students at Dharmapuri.

The years of rule by the DMK and the AIADMK, is one long episode of the brazen use of money and muscle power by these parties to capture political power at all costs and rule the state on behalf of the bourgeoisie. The ballot and the bullet are used to marginalise the people from the political process so that they have no say over their own affairs, and also used to terrorise them and keep them away from all affaris in the political sphere. Criminal murderous squads are deployed by bourgeois political parties to “settle” their internecine and inter-party contradictions, and the keepers of “law and order” in this “democracy” who are used to suppress any sign of revolt from the people, sit quiet or even directly abet the criminals of these political parties.

The situation in Tamilnadu, like in the rest of country, calls for active intervention by the political forces who want to being the workers and peasants to the center stage in the polity. This is the task that the Communist Ghadar Party of India has taken up for solution.