Every five years I watch Tamil Nadu vote with the same frustration. Not because my side is losing, I pledge allegiance to no one. It is deeper: the party I want does not exist. The right-of-centre, freedom-first, market-oriented party TN needs remains a conspicuous vacancy in Indian politics. The only exceptions are Andhra's TDP which tries, but ultimately ties itself to the BJP. Gujarat has the culture, but no political vehicle apart from Hindu nationalism.
I am not alone, though you would not know it from the campaign coverage. The discourse assumes that every voter fits somewhere on a spectrum between the DMK and the AIADMK, with the fringe options being Tamil nationalism or communist solidarity. Nobody seems to mind that an entire ideological quadrant sits completely empty, not because Tamil Nadu debated these ideas and rejected them, but because they were erased over decades without a debate.
Ask politically engaged Tamils what "right wing" means and the answer is usually a mix of Brahminism, Hindi imposition, and the BJP. That lazy conflation has hobbled Tamil political thought. Hindu nationalism and classical liberalism are tagged the same, so any case for economic freedom draws suspicion of being a card-carrying member of the Sangh Parivar. Parties avoid it simply because there is no obvious way to win an election in Tamil Nadu on classical liberal ideas.
It's also worth noting that BJP's failures in the state have nothing to do with voters rejecting free markets. It has everything to do with their (rightful) rejection of authoritarianism and the centralising instincts of Hindu nationalism. These are different things and our inability to grok it leaves our politics intellectually hollow.
The party TN needs would have nothing to do with the BJP's project. It would be secular by conviction, Tamil by identity, and liberal by economic philosophy.
A Brief History Lesson
The irony of this story is that the only Indian political figure who ever built a genuinely classical liberal party was himself Tamil. Rajaji founded the Swatantra Party in 1959 to oppose Nehruvian socialism. His party stood for a market economy, individual liberty, the dismantling of the Licence Raj, and the defence of property rights. By 1967, it had become the single largest opposition party in Delhi.
It never took hold in TN because of poor timing. Rajaji launched his party just as the DMK had won by a landslide and was reordering Tamil politics around Dravidian identity, rationalism, and social justice. In that climate, any association with the old order was fatal, and for all his brilliance, Rajaji carried the baggage of caste conservatism that made him easy to dismiss. After his death, the party quickly dissolved and nobody has since attempted to occupy that space.
Despite the Politicians, Not Because of Them
Amit Varma often says that India's rapid growth was never because of our politicians but despite them. Nowhere is that truer than Tamil Nadu.
By most measures my home state leads India on multiple fronts, including manufacturing, exports, literacy, female workforce participation, human development, and per capita income well above the national average. Both Dravidian parties love claiming credit for this, but the foundations predate them and will outlast them: a culture that values education and commerce, a coastline made for trade, and entrepreneurs who built industry in spite of policy, not because of it.
The Counter Factual
If Tamil Nadu truly backed free markets, cut red tape to attract global investment, protected property rights, and let people rather than the government decide how to use money, it would get richer. There’s plenty of evidence that this works. South Korea, Estonia, Ireland, or even Singapore (if you ignore their authoritarian instincts for a moment) grew by staying open, rewarding merit, enforcing the law, and letting the state steer rather than control.
Even in the 2026 election, with new parties like Vijay's TVK joining in, every party still falls into the same trap: promise more freebies and become more statist with little focus on individual freedom, limited government, free markets, and property rights. TN needs a party that trusts ordinary people to spend their own money better than officials can. Until a leader is willing to say that economic freedom builds lasting wealth better than government handouts, that big gap in Tamil politics will stay empty.
Someone needs to pick up the baton from Rajaji. Maybe I can hope to vote for something other than NOTA in 2031.