Rule of the Commoner: Dmk and Formations of the Political in Tamil Nadu, 1949-1967 (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781009197175)

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has been singular in heralding and establishing a firm regional polity among the Indian states after the Indian Union was inaugurated as a republic. Academic scholarship has often treated the DMK as a Tamil nationalist or ethno-nationalist formation without conceptual clarity or critical insight. Rule of the Commoner demonstrates with persuasive evidence that the DMK appealed to a federalist and not nationalist imagination. The DMK's combining of the non-Brahmin Dravidian identity and allegiance to Tamil language led to a counter hegemonic formation of the plebes and left populism. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau, the book argues that the DMK achieved the construction of a people as Dravidian-Tamil, with Tamil being the empty signifier of the social whole, Brahmin vs. non-Brahmin divide functioning as the internal frontier leading to the formations of the political. It elaborates the conceptual scheme under the three rubrics of Ideation, Imagination and Mobilization.

Author: Rajan Kurai Krishnan, Ravindran Sriramachandran, V. M. S. Subagunarajan
ISBN-10: 1009197177
ISBN-13: 9781009197175
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 01/26/2023
Pages: 280
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.30w x 0.94d