Rationalism is not necessarily a virtue in mass politics. But irrationality seems to have a special place in Tamil Nadu’s politics. Shocking as Wednesday’s violence in Madurai is, it also brings to light the dark side of a political culture. Tamil Nadu is not the only state in India where ugly sides of dynastic politics result in bloody street battles. Family wrangles and public fights marked the politics of Andhra Pradesh following the death of N.T. Rama Rao. But Tamil Nadu offers a baffling mix of social progress and political backwardness. Bengal and the old Madras Presidency were the two regions in India that benefited first from Western education during the British rule. These were also the two areas where industrialization took root earlier than elsewhere. And, in the post-liberalization period, Tamil Nadu has been among the centres of fastest economic growth. Strangely, the state’s social and economic progress resulted in a brand of politics that was almost an oddity. The Dravidian movement that began as a rejection of the Brahmin domination of society was the beginning of casteist politics in India. The anti-Hindi agitation of later years stoked thinly-veiled secessionist sentiments. In claiming a special status for their filmstars-turned-politicians, the people turned them into demi-gods. The fans would live and die for their larger-than-life heroes and heroines.

The problem for the chief minister, K. Karunanidhi, is that he, as much as any other leader in the state, is both a creator and a victim of this culture. The supporters of one of his sons set fire to the office of the newspaper, Dinakaran, burning three people alive. Their anger was directed, not at a political adversary, but at another of Mr Karunanidhi’s sons. The worst aspect of the violence, of course, is that the sibling rivalry resulted in an attack on a newspaper and the loss of three innocent lives. Tamil Nadu’s politics of hero-worship, always a potential threat to rational choices, is clearly facing a new crisis. That explains why the Dravidian parties today need the support of national parties such as the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party in order to wield power in the state and share it at the national level. The anti-Brahmin and the anti-Hindi politics has lost much of its relevance today. But family dramas must still be projected as political culture.