The newly elected government of Tamil Nadu, led by Stalin, has roped in who’s who of Indian and American economists including Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan.
Other members are Arvind Subramanian, former Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India; Jean Dreze, welfare economist and social scientist; and S Narayan, former Union Finance Secretary, and former Economic Advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The fiscal situation of Tamil Nadu is precarious with persistent high revenue and fiscal deficits, and a large overhang of debt. At the same time, expectations of people are very high… that the Government will deliver on faster economic growth, social justice and equality…,” the state said in its notification.
It is good to see that the Tamil Nadu government has hired good professionals to improve the socio-economic indicators of the country. However, given the exponentially increasing fiscal deficit and the socialistic welfare measures announced by the government, only a radical push for economic growth can save the state, not the socialistic policies that DMK is known for.
Earlier at the second sitting of the opening session of the new Legislative Assembly, Governor Banwarilal Purohit said: “The government will revitalise the state’s economy and ensure that benefits of economic development reach all segments (based on) recommendations of the advisory committee.”
Also, it is interesting to see that a party whose existence has been defined by anti-Brahminism has roped in so many Brahmins to advise them on the economy. Rajan, Subramanian, and Narayan are Tamil Brahmins, the community which was forced to exit Tamil Nadu by the goons of DMK.
Moreover, in the victory of DMK, Prashant Kishore, a Brahmin from Bihar played a crucial role. Before the elections, Stalin tried to shed his and party’s anti-Hindu image and toured many sacred Hindu places in the state. It can be safely assumed that the anti-Brahmin and anti-Hindu politics is dead from Tamil Nadu because both mainstream Dravidian parties have learnt that being Athiest would no longer win them elections, and also the government is ready to have the advice of Brahmins.
DMK has been famous for its anti-Hindu and anti-Brahmin bigotry in the garb of Dravidian ideology. This anti-Hindu stance is amply clear from the statements of late DMK President M. Karunanidhi who said, “Lord Rama is a drunkard“. The late president has also remarked that the term ‘Hindu’ means ‘thief’. He stated, “Who is a Hindu? You must ask Periyar EVR. A good man would say the word Hindu means a thief.”
However, after losing two assembly elections successively to AIADMK, which, despite being a Dravidian party not only embraced Hinduism but promoted the same, the DMK learnt that it is not possible to come to power in the state by opposing Hinduism.
Previously, before the assembly election, in an attempt to remove the ‘atheist’ tag of the party, Kanimozhi, the DMK candidate from the Thoothukudi constituency chose to launch her campaign from the temple town of Tiruchendur. Moreover, Stalin made tall remarks in a public rally, saying he is not against Hinduism and further added that his wife goes to temples, and he does not prevent her.
The people of Tamil Nadu are as religious as the rest of India, and the majority of people in the state are devoted Hindus. One must not be taken away by the propaganda of fringe elements that the state has a higher number of atheist and ‘rational’ people. It is good to see that Stalin is embracing Brahmins in his advisory team and has assembled a good team to improve the socio-economic condition of the state.