Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026.
The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Modi, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
One point on which the Tamil Nadu government's new committee to study state autonomy and relations with the Centre, or federalism, suffers from compared to an earlier effort pertains to the membership.
Yes, both have three members, but the members of the present one are not as apolitical as those of the previous one.
Hence, going beyond the political ideology of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government of Chief Minister M K Stalin, the personal motives and philosophy of the panel members too will be questioned as and when the panel submits its report.
Comparisons between the two commissions are inevitable especially when the broad issues are one and the same -- implying that many, if not all the problems flagged by the previous one remain.
Both are products of the 'Dravidian model' governments. More to it, they are also the initiatives of a father-son duo chief ministers, the late M Karunanidhi and incumbent Stalin.
There is no denying the way political and ideological barbs that were thrown at the DMK government of the time, hence the commission and later, its report.
That included the present one that it's a 'diversionary tactic' for the DMK state government to fend off governance issues that is said to have overwhelmed Stalin the chief minister and political master.
Interestingly, both panels had a non-Tamil as their chairperson, as if the political leadership wanted it to look less biased, for a universal appeal beyond the state and their times.
Yet, there is no denying that the chairman of the Karunanidhi-appointed commission, Justice Dr P V Rajamannar, a Telugu, was a 'domiciled Tamil'.
Before becoming possibly the longest-serving chief justice of any high court in the country, for 13 long years, from 1948 to 1961, Rajamannar was also the advocate general under the British era Madras Presidency, 1944-1945.
Rajamannar's father had served as a judge of the Madras high court before moving on to the Mysore high court as chief justice.
Young Rajamannar grew up and studied and practised law in Chennai, then Madras. Interestingly, he was also a Telugu litterateur and his story Nida Leni Aadathi was made into a full-length film in Telugu (1974).
What made Rajamannar better qualified for the job in the state autonomy commission was not only his knowledge of law, including constitutional law. Among other honours, he was also a member of the Fourth Finance Commission appointed by the Centre -- and had some insight into how the finances of the Union and the states worked.
Like Rajamannar, a second member of the committee, Justice P Chandra Reddy also had a judicial background, more than administrative or economic, administrative or political background.
He too was a Telugu, who did his college studies in Chennai and practised law in the city before moving over to the linguistically created (unified) Andhra Pradesh high court, first as a justice and then as a CJ, before moving back to Madras as CJ -- and acting governor in the mid-1960s.
Of course, the third member was a Tamil, Dr A Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar of the famed 'Arcot brothers' twins.
He was an acclaimed medical doctor by profession and to date is the longest-serving vice-chancellor of the reputed Madras University, for 27 years.
Admirers from the political class of the time saw in him a streak of the Justice Party, the ideological forebear of the DMK -- but there was no evidence to the same.
In comparison, members of the present panel, starting with the chairperson come with some kind of political/ideological baggage that may be attributed to their collective findings, however unbiased and balanced they be.
At a time when the national discourse on the 'three-language formula', funds-sharing among states, NEET, NEP and delimitation, Chairman, Justice Kurian Joseph is a native of Kerala, and was a Supreme Court judge for five years from 2013.
His verdict in multiple cases of import was independent of one another, and did not reflect any ideological mooring, of the all-American kind, for instance.
It was thus that he was on the Bench that ruled that all 'coal block allocations' since 1993 were illegal.
In the triple talaq case, he was among the judges who ruled the Indian Islamic practice of matrimonial divorce by men, unconstitutional.
In the same vein, he also advocated reforms in the collegium system of appointments to the higher judiciary, and in another case, questioned the efficacy of capital punishment.
Post-retirement, Justice Joseph defended the judges' actions post-retirement, stating it was necessary to preserve the judiciary's independence.
All this apart, there is nothing to show that as chair of an important committee, though constituted by a state government, Justice Kurian Joseph has had judicial expertise on state autonomy and Centre-state relations that is consummate with the demands of a 'globalising India', where 'identity politics', whether based on religion, region, language or caste, has greater relevance and purpose than in the times of the Rajamannar committee (1969-1971).
The same applies to the other two members of the committee, namely, veteran bureaucrat Ashok Vardhan Shetty and Dr M Naganathan.
Post-retirement, the former is known for his strong public positions on 'identity politics', especially centred on castes and 'social justice', independent of the Dravidian ideological plank.
The third member, Dr Naganathan, yes, is an economist by training and profession, more as a university teacher, and then as the chairman of the state planning commission during Karunanidhi's final stint as chief minister, 2006-2011.
In the fitness of things, his pro-Dravidian ideological orientation may not be what is required to address issues that need to be tackled by the Kurian Committee, in terms of conceptualisation, Constitution and the economy.
Purely as an aside, Naganathan's son, a medical doctor, Ezhilan Naganathan, is incidentally a DMK legislator from the Thousands Lights constituency in Chennai, having defeated popular actor Kushboo Sundar.
When Stalin took over as chief minister some social media posts campaigned for Ezhilan, a medical doctor, to be the next health minister.
The position went to former Chennai Corporation mayor M Subramaniam, who it was said had the 'pulse of the people', owing to greater exposure at the grassroots-level.
Given the possibilities that next year's assembly elections could throw up, Stalin told the state assembly that an interim report had to be submitted by January 2026.
The outcomes may well find its way into the DMK's poll manifesto, thus seeking to keep the electoral focus still on the BJP-ruled Centre and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The committee has two years to come up with its final report, but the very life and longevity of the panel would depend entirely on the assembly election results.
If the DMK alliance returns for a second consecutive term, the panel will continue its work. If not, there will be a review, where the AIADMK and BJP partners, along with other partners may discuss and debate the relevance of the committee and the interim report, before deciding on continuing with its work.
Against this, the recently revived BJP-AIADMK alliance will try and fix it on Stalin and his governance, or lack of it, hoping to benefit hugely from anticipated anti-incumbency against the state administration.
The BJP in particular is likely to try and embarrass the rival DMK-INDIA combine in the state by pointing out how the Emergency era 42nd Amendment of then prime minister Indira Gandhi had taken away 'Education', for instance, from the State List to the Concurrent List of the Constitution.
That's because the mandate of the new panel is to recommend ways to retrieve and restore lost powers of states as in education, finances, etc.
Suffice to point out that as far back as 1971, the Rajamannar Committee had recommended the very abolition of the Concurrent List, shifting most powers to the State List.
The panel further wanted the abolition of the Central Services like the IAS and IPS, and also Articles 356 and 365, respectively empowering the Centre to impose President's rule in states, and declare that a state 'cannot function according to the Constitution', leading up to Article 356.
However, there is judicial protection against the misuse and abuse of Article 356, after the S R Bommai verdict, 1994.
The judgment laid down that the majority of a state government cannot be proved on the lawns of Raj Bhavan but only in the assembly concerned.
Yet, new issues pertaining to the 'federal principles' have cropped up since, especially under the 11-year-old government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Rather, this is the perception behind the Stalin government's decision to appoint a new committee to study the existing models and issues and come up with recommendations.
Yet, there is no knowing if the CM had consulted his counterparts in non-BJP ruled states and invitees like Odisha's five-term BJP chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who all attended the Stalin-initiated Joint Action Committee on delimitation.
Before the Rajamannar Commission, there was the Administrative Reforms Commission, or Santhanam Commission, appointed by the Centre in 1966.
Another central panel, the Justice Sarkaria Commission was appointed a decade-and-a-half after Rajamannar, followed by another under former Chief Justice M M Punchhi, in 2007, both set up by the Congress governments of the day.
In between, the BJP-NDA government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee appointed the Justice M N Venkatachalaiah-led National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution in 2000.
The committee submitted its report two years later, and was widely debated, but with no real follow-up action forthcoming, then or since.
Ahead of the finalisation of the terms of reference of the Venkatachalaiah Commission, the ruling BJP leadership at the Centre was believed to be discussing the wisdom of changing from the prevailing parliamentary scheme to a presidential form of government, elected directly by voters across the country.
Such a thinking was shaped by the anti-Indira 'Janata Party sweep' of 1977, when the ruling Congress at the Centre lost power despite recording a massive win in the southern districts but was a wash-out across the north with massive representation in the Lok Sabha.
However the concept was reworked to arrive at a new Terms of Reference and title for the Commission after the BJP suffered a few electoral reverses in the 'Hindi belt'.
With the result, the Venkatachalaiah report was discussed even less than the Sarkaria recommendations, whose spirit at least found expression in the Bommai verdict.
The worse in terms of exposure was reserved for the Punchchi Committee Report.
Right now, Tamil Nadu reactions to Stalin's initiative are on expected lines, with allies welcoming it as a timely intervention and the Opposition dubbing it as politico-electoral ploy.
The BJP's new state president Nainar Nagendran was quick said that the 'DMK's separatist tentacles are out in the garb of autonomy'.
Strong words from a former 'Dravidian' political leader from the breakaway rival AIADMK staple.
There is no denying the general perception that AIADMK founder MGR, if not his self-styled political heir, Jayalalithaa, was more 'national' and 'nationalist' than the DMK's Karunanidhi.
This was more so after MGR had added the prefix 'all-India' to the original name of the party, ADMK, when the owner-less draft 42nd Amendment threatened the deregistration of 'anti-national' political parties.
Incidentally, or otherwise ironically, the DMK parent that had professed a 'separate state' demand since inception in 1949 and gave it up in 1960, did not try to make changes of the MGR kind despite the Centre targeting the party and its leaders in multiple ways during the Emergency.
The critics' claim that the DMK gave up the 'separatist call' only fearing the Defence of India Rules, in the face of the Indian Communists' perceived support for China in the 1962 War, is patently misleading.
If anything, with a small victory in elections 1957, the first poll outing of the DMK, the party felt the positive nature of mainstreaming and also the space that Indian democracy provided.
This meant that the DMK increased the assembly numbers from 15 to 50 between 1957 and 1962 -- to sweep to power five years later in 1967.
That was the beginning of the alternating of the two Dravidian majors in state politics and elections that has lasted till today.
N Sathiya Moorthy, veteran journalist and author of the book, Justice Party to Jayalalithaa and After: The Success Story of Dravidian Polity, is a Chennai-based policy analyst and political commentator.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff
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