The riveting rise to power of the Tamilaga Vettri Katchi (TVK) led by C. Joseph Vijay jostles for mind space with the most momentous of electoral outcomes in Indian history. The particular changes that the stewardship of this charismatic actor, though a political novice, will bring forth can only be speculated upon as we are merely weeks into the results, but the significance of his victory for the polity can be seen immediately. Vijay’s statements have scotched all speculation on his politics and, therefore, likely moves. He has named the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) his “ideological opponent” and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) his “political adversary”. This shows remarkable clarity and ingenuity, apart from daring, not usually associated with an early-career politician. It ensures that the TVK cannot ever be accused of willingness to trade Tamil identity for handouts from the centre. It also signals that the party is not willing to cede to DMK the status of guardian of the Tamils. That he could win the election, even though with less than a majority, suggests that he has convinced the electorate of his message: the dominance of the so-called “Dravidian parties” is over.Also read: How Vijay Uses the Politics of SilenceIn many ways, Vijay is fortunate. He has inherited the reins of one of India’s leading states. Tamil Nadu has a strong and diversified economy that is growing rapidly and has substantial reserves of human capital, even if it is not spread widely across the population. It also has an able and, more importantly, committed bureaucracy focused on advancing the state’s interests. As the Dravidian parties have been at the helm for close to 60 years, the credit for steering the economy must go entirely to them, even if the foundations of its welfare schemes and the industrial progress may have been laid by the government of K. Kamaraj. However, in this picture of overall success there is one egregious failing, higher education. In 1947, Madras city boasted a large number of institutions of higher learning providing education in the arts and sciences and professional colleges training doctors, engineers and lawyers. Arguably, these institutions were as good as any in the country and towered over their counterparts across southern India. The measure of their excellence was the migration of students from elsewhere in the region to study at institutions of the University of Madras. Madras, the city, itself was a melting pot. Young men and women came here attracted by its cosmopolitanism, even if it had colonial elements to it. The relative confidence of the city’s culture encouraged many to reconsider their provincial identity and led them to see themselves as belonging to a world larger than the one from which they had come. By 1947, the University of Madras had already produced outstanding research. In the sciences, as recorded by Stephen Hawking, S. Chandrasekhar had already imagined the work that would win him the Nobel Prize in Physics many years later. P.J. Thomas of the economics department did pioneering work surveying the villages of Madras Presidency and went on to become the first chief economic advisor to the Government of India. After 1947, due to the efforts of its Vice-Chancellor A. L. Mudaliar, the university was able to attract the physicist G.N. Ramachandran, whose work in x-ray crystallography is claimed to have rivalled that done at University of Cambridge by James Watson and Francis Crick, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. That a researcher at the University of Madras was an equal player in what is acknowledged to be one of the most significant advances in twentieth-century science is now a distant memory. Finally, it is not widely known that three of the first four finance ministers of India were alumni of one college of the University – the Madras Christian College. A head of the department of economics, Malcolm Adiseshiah, served as the deputy director-general of UNESCO. It would, however, be wrong to focus exclusively on these examples of global success. Many alumni of the University of Madras made a mark in early independent India as members of the civil service and the professions, reflecting equally the excellence of the instruction and the liberal environment at the university.Somewhere along the way, however, as Tamil Nadu’s economic prowess grew, its first university lost its vitality. While the loss may not be unique to the universities of Tamil Nadu, the Dravidian parties are not without a role in the decline of the University of Madras. Apart from the rampant politicisation of appointments and the expectation that those in leadership positions must toe the party’s line, the flaring ethno-nationalism of the DMK left speakers of Dravidian languages other than Tamil ill at ease. By the mid-seventies, the university had hollowed out completely, with little intellectual capital to speak of. To top it all, the intellectual deficit was compounded by a severe, ongoing financial crisis, reported in the press in June 2025, leading to repeated delays in paying salaries and pensions to its staff. The situation was so dire that they had approached the chief minister for assistance. The financial precarity that the university had reached was not inevitable. For a state with the economic heft of Tamil Nadu, maintaining a university in reasonable financial health is not a tall order. It is clear that this was not a priority of either of the Dravidian parties. Authoritarian political parties across the world have shown themselves to be hostile to the independence of universities, as reflected by Margaret Thatcher’s vicious cuts in the United Kingdom of the eighties, and most recently, in Donald Trump’s highly publicised depredations against the United States’ universities. The Dravidian parties may have been more muted in their approach, but their relationship with the world of ideas, defined by the extreme partisanship and an almost single-minded focus on caste in the appointment of faculty, has directly contributed to the parlous state, both intellectual and material, of the University of Madras. Its revival would require a strong act of will. Tamil Nadu has a rich culture of writing in Tamil that is widely read and actively discussed. This writing, whether as fiction or as direct political engagement, has often also served as a radical critique of its society. While it would be an invaluable resource for any state, it cannot supplant the role of a university. A university education is a form of socialisation of the young along lines thought appropriate by society. As it can locate itself, if it so chooses, on the virtual worldwide web of knowledge, the university is a conduit for ideas from many sources and a site of their cross-fertilisation. India, leave alone any state within it, cannot afford to remain out of this web. However, to benefit from global exposure a country’s universities require funds and intellectual capital. This has been grasped by the Chinese political leadership, who have turned China’s universities into powerhouses of technological advancement through active engagement with the rest of the world. But the purpose of a university is not only to develop newer technologies that raise productivity, as artificial intelligence (AI), for instance, is expected to do. A society creates a university so that it would hold a mirror to itself, pointing to its deficits and showing the way to true progress. Despite the impressive economic strides Tamil Nadu has made, it could yet benefit from a vigorously independent space where its challenges are debated without fear or favour. A flourishing university is the best possible such space.In his first speech after being sworn in, Chief Minister Vijay mentioned education as one of the areas he will focus on during his tenure. Hopefully, his efforts will include a reversal of the decline of the University of Madras. Pulapre Balakrishnan is the author of India’s economy from Nehru to Modi: A brief history (Ranikhet: Permanent Black).