Signing you in

When M K Stalin addressed the DMK’s MPs through a video conference from London on July 16, the resolutions formally adopted spoke of Cauvery water, the Mekedatu dam, state autonomy, and constitutional values. Yet, the most consequential message was contained not in the resolutions. It was in what the party carefully chose not to commit itself to. The DMK is no longer promising automatic opposition and, instead, is assuring careful examination.

For a party that only three months ago burnt copies of the proposed Delimitation Bill in protest, organised demonstrations across Tamil Nadu, and stood shoulder to shoulder with the INDIA bloc against the proposed legislation, the new language marks a striking shift.

“We will study the final text of the Bill before taking a decision,” DMK organising secretary R S Bharathi said, adding that if the Centre incorporates the party’s recommendations, “there is no need for the DMK to oppose it”. The remark may prove to be one of the most important political recalibrations the party has made since losing power a couple of months ago.

The DMK insists it has not softened its commitment to federalism or Tamil Nadu’s rights. Party leaders argue that if New Delhi changes its position, it is only logical for the DMK to respond accordingly. Yet, politically, the message is unmistakable.

Neither the BJP nor the Congress will receive the DMK’s blind loyalty and the yardstick, Stalin told his MPs, would be “state autonomy” and the Constitution. The timing is hardly accidental, given how much has changed in these two months.

The DMK has lost the Assembly election. Almost every major ally that once formed the backbone of its coalition — the Congress, the Left, the VCK, and the IUML — has crossed over to support the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) government. The party has skipped an INDIA bloc meeting, sought a new seating arrangement in Parliament away from the Congress, and now finds itself occupying an unusual political space: outside government in Chennai, outside the Opposition bloc in Delhi, and possessing one of the largest regional contingents in the Lok Sabha.

With 22 MPs, the DMK remains a significant force in Parliament. That makes it valuable to both sides. Should the BJP-led government seek to reintroduce contentious legislation — whether on delimitation, simultaneous elections or other constitutional questions — the DMK’s support or abstention could substantially influence the arithmetic in the House.

The party, however, appears determined to maximise that leverage rather than spend it in advance. Thursday’s resolutions reflected that approach. The MPs resolved to forcefully raise Tamil Nadu’s concerns on the Cauvery dispute, demand a tribunal on the Mekedatu project, and continue championing federalism and state rights.

Stalin later wrote that every DMK MP would function as the “voice and conscience” of Tamil Nadu. That formulation perhaps best captures the party’s emerging doctrine.

For decades, national alliances often have defined regional parties. The DMK now appears to be attempting the reverse: allowing regional interests to define national alignments. Whether that proves sustainable remains uncertain.

For the first time in decades, the DMK is being squeezed simultaneously from multiple directions rather than confronting a single principal rival. It is against this backdrop that Stalin, before leaving on his personal visit to London, urged cadres not to lose heart. The DMK, he said, had always risen “like a phoenix”. Victory had never made the party arrogant and defeat had never broken it. The party, he argued, remains strong enough to write “the next hundred years” of Tamil Nadu’s political history. Whether such optimism alone can answer the organisational questions confronting the DMK is another matter.

After decades of aligning with one political camp or another, the DMK is signalling that neither the BJP nor the Congress will enjoy its automatic support. Instead, every Bill — from delimitation to federalism — will be judged solely on whether it serves Tamil Nadu’s interests. The shift reflects not merely a tactical recalibration but a recognition that the political ground beneath the DMK has fundamentally changed.

The movement built by C N Annadurai and expanded by M Karunanidhi long relied on its formidable grassroots machinery. But like many family-led regional parties, it also faces the delicate challenge of generational transition. Leadership succession, while politically settled within the Karunanidhi family, unfolds in a state whose politics is becoming increasingly fluid and competitive. The next generation will inherit not the relatively predictable landscape of the past but one reshaped by coalition politics, a powerful new rival, and an electorate that has shown itself willing to overturn long-standing certainties.

Perhaps that explains the caution now visible in the DMK’s parliamentary strategy. The party is no longer trying to be the BJP’s fiercest opponent or the Congress’s most dependable ally. Instead, it is attempting something more difficult: becoming indispensable to both without belonging entirely to either.

For now, the message from London is unmistakable. The DMK wants New Delhi to understand that its support is no longer assumed. It has to be earned, Bill by Bill, vote by vote, and always through the prism of Tamil Nadu.

The irony is difficult to miss. For a party whose leadership has passed from Karunanidhi to Stalin and now to Udhayanidhi Stalin, even private family milestones inevitably acquire political symbolism. As the DMK prepares for perhaps its toughest electoral decade since the 1990s, its leadership transition appears settled. Stalin is in London attending the graduation ceremony of Udhayanidhi’s son, Inbanithi, who has completed a sports management programme. The question that looms over the family is what kind of political landscape he will eventually inherit.