How Brahmins became invisible in Tamil Nadu’s politics

The disappearance of Brahmins from the politics and political discourse of Tamil Nadu appears to be near total, with just three of 160-odd serious contestants in the Lok Sabha elections in the state and in Puducherry being from the community.
J Jayalalithaa was the last Brahmin to make it to the top job in the state — only the second — and might well be the last for decades to come, despite talk of a Brahmin revival with BJP’s entry in 2014.
Though firmly entrenched in the administration since the British era, Brahmins were never able to dominate the states’ legislature or executive.
A Brahmin was the first to occupy the chief minister’s chair after the Madras legislative assembly elections in 1952 (the first one to be held based on universal adult franchise) but that did not forward their cause. “C Rajagopalachari was roped in by Congress to cobble together a coalition government in 1952, primarily to stall the Communist Party of India from forming a government. Congress needed a tall figure like him to bring smaller parties around. Rajaji’s manoeuvring skills helped. He happened to be a Brahmin, but he never promoted Brahmins,” said columnist R Rangaraj.
After Rajaji faded out in 1954, Congress was dominated by non-Brahmins such as K Kamaraj and C Subramaniam. It was only in 1991 that Jayalalithaa, a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar, became CM. Even so, few Brahmins made it to electoral politics in her time. When V Maithreyan, a former BJP leader and self-proclaimed fan of Jayalalithaa, joined AIADMK, she accommodated him in Rajya Sabha. She was hesitant to field him in LS elections. Instead, Jayalalithaa targeted the politically influential Thevar community, which paid her dividends, said political analyst T N Gopalan.
In the 50s and 60s, Brahmins joined the legal profession in hordes. In the past 25-30 years, many Brahmins have moved out of Tamil Nadu. While some took to financial services, many have joined IT. They have spread out to other parts of India and the globe. Agraharams, the traditional enclaves of Brahmins, are getting transformed across the state as inclusive living spaces.
Though many Brahmins like R Venkataraman, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Subramanian Swamy shot into prominence in politics in later years, they chose to operate from Delhi.
The 1967 elections, which brought DMK to power in the state, sealed any possibility of a Brahminical resurgence. “The first DMK chief minister, CN Annadurai, did not pursue an aggressive anti-Brahmin policy. But his successor M Karunanidhi ensured that the entire government setup and the executive were virtually cleansed of Brahmins. It was quite natural, because OBCs account for more than 70% of the population. Brahmins constitute only 2.5%-3% of the population. Still, Brahmins had disproportionately represented the body politic in the state for long,” said Gopalan.
Until Independence, they got into the administration as they were more educated. “The rationalist movement of Periyar EV Ramasamy and the resultant assertion of non-Brahmins pushed Brahmins to the margins,” said Gopalan.
With BJP’s effort to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu, Brahmins may try to regain some lost ground but that is not going to be easy.