Tamil Nadu has just seen its latest political twist. More than half of the AIADMK’s 47 MLAs defied the party whip to help Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK)-led coalition sail through the Assembly floor test on Wednesday. The rebel faction has solidified a split in the AIADMK, which is now staring at an erosion of its relevance amid the rise of the TVK. Splits, however, are nothing new for the Dravidian parties that have dominated Tamil Nadu ’s politics for almost 60 years now. What’s crucial is that none of the splits appears to have diluted their “Dravidian ideology”. So ingrained is this ideology in the state’s psyche that it will endure even with the TVK in power, says veteran Chennai -based journalist Kalyan Arun, who teaches at the Asian College of Journalism. Indeed, Vijay has invoked Periyar as his guiding light and spoken of inaugurating a “new era of real, secular social justice”, signalling continuity with the state’s long social justice tradition.…