Why a hopeless Tamil Nadu no longer cares who runs the show

Singer and political commentator TM Krishna, in a well-articulated essay, says that he is disturbed at the apathy of the people in a state that has, for several weeks, run without a chief minister. What's worse is that with no official detailed bulletin that respects her privacy as well as gives her electorate information on her health, one is in a state of limbo.

He, like me, is pained that we don't really seem to care as business continues to happen as usual. He accurately points out that the culture of freebies has made people apathetic and so long as a Raja will dole out gifts to the public, they are happy. He also hopes that the politicians in Tamil Nadu will realise that the love and affection they get from the people are not real and laments that politicians have used fear, threats and physical violence to extract compliance.

He asks for an awakening, but it is my strong opinion that such awakening is impossible beyond dashing off a few articles and, maybe, open letters that are read by everyone else except the person they are addressed to.

Why am I so pessimistic? It is because, while I share Krishna's concern, I also see Tamil Nadu and her governance a 2,000 years back and that helps me understand that the people will continue to be apathetic and the politicians will continue to rule by fear. There are other mechanisms that have to work. It is impossible to change the present or the future if we don't understand the past.

Why Tamil Nadu's past holds the key

Why study the past in Tamil Nadu especially more than 2,000 years back, one may well ask. The reason is that the past helps us understand what needs people fulfilled by thinking and behaving the way they did. Strange as it may seem, our fundamental needs haven't changed. We crave to fulfil our biological/physical needs of food, shelter and sex. We yearn for affiliation, for companionship and fulfilment in the heart. We are excited in the mind by having a separate identity of being different from others and being valued by them. Technology helps appease these in different ways, but our needs are eternal and universal.

Just like politicians today, kings in the past were driven by deeper fears and insecurities. Most kings were like politicians today. Tamil Nadu had a system for containing this so that the king's ability to wreck long term sustenance of the society by his desire for power and rule through fear was curbed. It was recognised that politicians/kings were people who were capable of prioritising their needs over the community. There were two checks - the temple and the poet/Brahmin.

The temple's role in keeping the king in check

Tamil Nadu has the unique distinction in India of having more than 50,000 inscriptions in its temples. None of them have anything to do with mythology or religion, but have interesting things to say on economics, sociology and politics. Inscriptions date back to about 1,600 years. We also have poems from about a 1,000 years back from the Tamil Sangam anthologies that were saved through the efforts on the forgotten scholar U Ve Saminatha Iyer. Between the earlier poems and the later temple inscriptions, it emerges that the temple acted as an institution which checked the king from using fear and violence to satisfy his selfish needs and guard against locals from being apathetic.

Temples in Tamil are literally translated as "King's House" not "God's house". Everything we expect from the government was provided by the temple and since it was local, accountability is high. Elsewhere in this piece are the evidences that I cite to make this point.

This system ensured the powers of the king were at a bare minimum - he was to protect the territorial integrity of the kingdom and maintain internal law and order. For this, he was allowed to collect taxes and let the local communities decide on issues dear to them - tolls, taxes from travelling traders, maintenance of water sources and fixing the prices of local produce.

Krishna mentions that kings gave gifts to people. In Tamil Nadu, temple walls tell a different story. Kings gave gifts to temples and the locals and the kings ensured the temples used them wisely for the benefit of the entire community.

The kings were the final arbitrator of laws, but rarely were kings allowed to interfere in local affairs - it was just not practical and so, affairs were sorted out locally most of the time. This kept the king in check. Since communities revolved around the temple that provided for basic survival needs of the local community, any issue especially those with regard to farming was immediately dealt with.

Inscriptions on disputes show a wealth of communities represented and issues ranging from water sharing, land demarcation to bigger criminal issues. Decisions typically seem to have been resolved in one or two meetings of the community. Today, I don't even know the name of my councillor and even if I call the corporation helpline, I do so with a mindset that it won't work (whereas it actually has done!).

Today's apathy stems from the reams of bureaucracy one has to face in Tamil Nadu, perhaps all over India. In the past, the temple was the one-stop shop and the local community meant every dispute had to be settled and settled fast. This institution has not found a modern counterpart.

The role of the poet and Brahmin law expert

Today, with the Madras December concert season coming up, dancers and musicians will be busy with performances soaked in Bhakti and love for God. Sangam poets, the performers of the past, especially those that find a place in the Purananuru like poetess Avvaiyar, had a different agenda. They were the conscience-keepers of the king.

If the temple ensured the locals did not slip into apathy, the poets ensured kings did not allow their fears and insecurities to threaten and force the people. Kautilya says that it is impossible for a politician not to steal public money just as a bee cannot resist tasting a bit of nectar it sips. Earlier systems recognized that kings and politicians are often motivated by deeper fears and insecurities and those were probably what made them reach the position they did. So it was more about moderating it rather than hoping they would change.

Many poems in the Purananuru remind kings that insecurity and fear would always be motivators for the ambition and while they enablethe individual to rise, they don't serve him to sustain for eternity.

Beyond the Sangam age, when poems became more soaked in bhakti, the trend continues - several verses especially from former chieftains like Tirumangai Alwar who sometimes mentions kings, cite Narasimha, Rama and the Trivikrama avatarsfrequently - episodes when kings who got a bit above themselves were "cut down to size".

Their words are well-chosen. In some verses they discreetly remind the king that has to submit his will to that of God and in others they say that God resides in temples but in nature and the hearts of all living things as well!

As society became more urban and complex 1500 years ago, the balance for kings who ruled out of fear was set by the local governments usually headed by Brahmins. Brahmins, not just by birth but by qualification(in the law books). When new villages were created, land was divided into shares or "pangu" and curiously, the Brahmin shares were far lower than the others. Economically, they were not well off but were supported by the temple and their main job was to settle local disputes and interpret the dharma shastras much more than "priestly" duties.

What if there were errant Brahmins? The penalties were far stricter, for a Brahmin when he erred did so knowingly while a Dalit erred he may done so unwittingly. Ejection from the community, heavy fines, death were the punishments handed out. Village assemblies weren't a cozy group of Brahmins either.

On occasion, even weavers or oil-pressers were taken as representatives if they were strong stakeholders in the community. Why the temples and Brahmin/poets failed as checks for apathy and rule by fear?

The decimation of both the temple as an institution in the local community and the absence of a poet/Brahmin to check the king or the community started in the last 500-600 years. Vijaynagar kings, who ruled from far off Hampi had no patience, stakes or time for the meticulous upkeep of such a decentralised federation and preferred amore centralised hierarchy.

Local settlement of issues, awareness and activism for rights reduced and the primary role for Brahmins moved from interpreting laws and checking the excesses of the king to exclusive focus on the temple and religion and actually singing the king's praises.

This trend also shows up in music and other arts as well, when gradually, entertainment praising the king became more important in temples and court than those that helped him rule more justly.

The final blow

Dravidian parties struck a further blow by making Brahmins the scapegoats. They pushed the community out, but have no courage to deal with the caste atrocities that continue to happen in the state by other castes. Brahmins preferred lucrative jobs to the more thankless and dangerous job of keeping the ruler's ego in check.

The courts, the press and mainstream artists who ought to have taken on the role of the Sangam poet or the medieval Brahmin law expert are inundated with more "pressing" issues like cricket, political leaders attending funerals and upcoming films. Musicians and dancers prefer the esoteric realms of oneness with God to reminding the rulers that their duty is to put the dharma of the community over svadharma.

Writers like me can write and stimulate the mind, but words have a more powerful way to goad to action when they have music in them and they come from a mouth rather than an impersonal computer screen.

Where do we go from here?

Before we ask for change, let us accept that most often political leaders are propelled by deeper fears and insecurities which are what got them there in the first place and more important allowed them to hold on to the power. Dasaratha needed a Vashishta to remind him to not renege on a promise made to Viswamitra, Ravana was destroyed because he did not heed to good advice, our poets and the law counsels did their bit in history to rejoice in the king growing great but not allowing the boon to become a bane.

The larger electorate especially in a state like Tamil Nadu where basic physical needs are largely met will continue to be apathetic. The middle class will be absorbed in their struggle to meet their physical and psychological needs and fears. The elite will continue their pursuit of the good life. This is the reality - that humans are, at the end of the day, need-fulfilling machines.

First recognise this reality. That done, let us look at how institutions like courts, the press and artists that have replaced the temples and the Brahmin law councils can perform better and more importantly, how the people who constitute them can keep their own internal checks and balances.

When systems within the courts and our media block their individuals from playing out their fears and insecurities we have hope. When artists perform to galvanise the audience to act and not just clap, there is hope.

The electorate will be apathetic and the politician goaded by fear and its use to drive compliance, but awareness and change will have to come from the modern versions of the temple and the poet/Brahmin.