 "Jayalalithaa: Tamil Nadu's mercurial pharaoh")
He grew in politics and films simultaneously. In his 30s, he was a khadi-clad, rudraksha-wearing Congressman, struggling to make a mark in films. He worked to a plan in both his films and politics. In earlier films such as Marma Yogi, Andaman Kaithi, Nadodi Mannan and Manthiri Kumari, he espoused personal ideals such as helping the poor, being chivalrous and fighting injustice. This made him popular among the poor.
This was an image that was to endure and define both his film career — it spanned over six decades — and his politics. Ramachandran was conscious of his image as a romantic, sensitive, righteous hero, always with the weak.
As the DMK rose in popularity in the 1950s, he hitched his stars to the party and started campaigning for it. He used songs and dialogue in his later films such as Anbe Vaa, Oli Vilakku and Vettaikaran as propaganda vehicles for the DMK, a symbiotic relationship. Each used the other to grow. In the early 1960s, he became a Member of the Legislative Council (MLC). In 1967 and in 1971, he was elected to the legislative assembly on the DMK ticket from a constituency in Chennai. While his film career and acts of generosity made him popular, his political role brought him in direct contact with the vast network of his fans’ association. This gave him access to people and helped in knowing the pulse of the masses.
In 1972, MGR was suspended from the DMK. An annual World Congress of Tamil Scholars was a vehicle for politics for all Tamil Nadu parties, as the politics of the state was defined in terms of defiance of pro-Hindi north India. The undivided DMK was crowded with middle-rank leaders craving a place in the sun. In this atmosphere, M G Ramachandran publicly called for accounts from the organisers, charging them with defalcation of funds. An angry M Karunanidhi dismissed him from the party. The Tamil scholars and intellectuals, the educated Dravidian middle class, the city-dwellers and the organised trade unions stayed with the DMK. Unorganised workers, the pavement dwellers and urban poor went with MGR. He founded the Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK) and used his films such as Idhayakkani and Nettru, Inru, Nalai to boost the party.
A series of heroines starred opposite him. But, none of them was as deeply touched by politics as much as Jayalalithaa Jayaram, whose first film with MGR was Aayarathil Oruvan (One in a Thousand, 1965) in which he was a Robin Hood type of figure, dashing and adventurous. Despite a 32-year age difference, the pair clicked and the film was a runaway hit. The dialogues in the film highlighted injustice in society and the plot portrayed the hero as a leader of the oppressed. “Thonrumbodhu thaayillaamal thonravillaiye” (We cannot imagine life without our mother (India, in this case)) sings MGR (actually T M Soundararajan) nasally (in the movie, as an aside, MGR sings this song, set to a martial tempo, dressed as a pirate who plays a harp, while cavorting on a ship with a nicely rounded Jayalalithaa).
She once said poignantly: “One third of my life was influenced by my mother; two thirds by MGR. It is all but gone now. A third is now left for myself.”
Till then, very little was known about Jayalalithaa – this was only her second film. The only authoritative accounts of her early life are contained in an autobiographical series of articles in the mass-circulated Tamil magazine Kumudam in the late 1970s. Entitled Manamtirandu Solrain (I am baring my heart), the series talks about her early life, the abject poverty her family had to face and, as a result, how she was pushed into the world of cinema by her mother. The series breathes bitterness at her early life, the relentless discipline of learning dance, music and acting, a robbed youth and the circumstances of her father's death, who died in penury.
She recounted all this again to journalist M D Nalapat in an interview telecast on Doordarshan in 1999. She said: “All my life, I have been accustomed to working very hard. I can remember being free and carefree only until the age of four. After that, my schedule was strictly regimented. I had to get up at five in the morning, have a classical Carnatic music lesson, then, of course, go to school. And, in those days, school lasted from nine in the morning till 4.15 in the evening, and I was given strict instructions not to stay back and play with the other children.”
“There would be two dance teachers waiting for me (at home). There would be an hour's training in Bharata Natyam and after that, a second dance teacher to give me another hour's training in other classical dance styles such as Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Kathak. By the time all this was over, I would be exhausted. There would barely be enough time for me to complete my homework, have dinner and fall into bed.”
“As I grew older, the hours of dance practice became longer. My mother could sing beautifully, she could play the veena and the violin. But, she never got an opportunity to learn classical dance and so she had an obsession with it. She wanted to make me another Bala Saraswati, another Kamala Laxman, another Yamini Krishnamurthy. So, once I was 16, I was propelled into the film industry. Then again, it was hard work. I worked even six shifts a day. All through my film career. I never had any time to rest or sleep. It was work, work, and work all the time.”
The Kumudam series also talked of her fascination with cricket. Then, as she embarked on an account of her association with MGR, the series ended abruptly. The last one was called Manamtirandu Sollamudiyallay (I an unable to speak from the heart).
Her relationship with MGR has been cause for much speculation. He formally brought her into politics in 1982. Bright and ready to learn, she found herself on her way up, being made the party’s ‘propaganda secretary’. An admirer noted that her entry in politics was befitting a 'queen'. She was carried through the streets by enthusiastic ADMK workers, wearing a golden crown and holding a golden sceptre. Considered a thinker, she was nominated to the government's high-level committee on the noon-meal scheme, serving afternoon meals to children to ensure they stayed in school.
But, the older rank and file of the party, resentful at her sudden rise, connived against her. Suddenly, she found MGR had dropped her. She was kicked upstairs and sent to Delhi, ostensibly on promotion to the Rajya Sabha as MP in 1984 but, in reality, to bring down her public profile a notch or two.
Then, in 1987, MGR died. What followed was a free for all. Those opposed to her in the party propped V N Janaki, MGR’s legal wife. Expulsions and counter-expulsions followed. When Jayalalithaa tried to take her place on the gun carriage next to his body for MGR’s funeral, she was pushed off, insulted. A faction in the AIADMK heaped humiliation upon her. Worse, the Congress decided it was more prudent to go into the assembly elections with the faction of the AIADMK headed by MGR’s widow than Jayalalithaa. As Janaki was a figurehead, that experiment did not last long.
After various machinations, Jayalalithaa came to power as chief minister. An Imelda Marcos period followed, alleges the opposition. Her first term saw her take two important steps. Again, reflecting her own circumstances, she said after she became CM: “It is my firm conviction that a woman should marry only if she wants to raise a family, not simply because she needs a man to support her”. As many as 100,000 women were given entrepreneurship training so that they could set up their own small industries. Female infanticide was prevalent in many pockets. So, Jayalalithaa launched the ‘cradle baby’ scheme: If families did not want girls, they were invited to leave the babies in cradles placed outside social welfare centres, no questions asked. The government adopted and brought up these babies. A sum of Rs 5,000 was placed in a fixed deposit in the adopted child's name and when the child attained 18 years of age, she received Rs 20,000.
She also launched all-women police stations. “It had been brought to my notice that women were suffering untold persecution and cruelty in their homes but very often they were reluctant to go to complain to a police station, manned entirely by men. So, I first started one all-women police station in Madras. It became so popular that I ended up opening 57 such police stations all over the state” she said, at a conference.
There were also charges of corruption. From 1991 to 1996, Jayalalithaa was accused of using her official position to acquire government land in 1992 for Jaya Publications, of which she was a partner. It caused a loss of Rs 3.5 crore to the exchequer, although she was later discharged in the case. The Central Bureau of Investigation was asked to find the source of a donation of Rs 3 crore from abroad that was reflected in her income tax returns in 1992-93 but the laws decreed that no taxes were to be paid on it as it was a gift in foreign exchange. In 2000, she and erstwhile ministerial colleagues were convicted of having allowed a seven-storeyed luxury hotel to come up in the hill station of Kodaikanal, in brazen violation of building laws applicable to such areas, which permit only two floors, a decision taken by her during her chief ministership from 1991 to 96.
These were only a few of the cases against her. There were more but she was defeated badly in the 1996 assembly elections, her party winning four of 234 seats.
Before she was CM, her assets were worth Rs 2.01 crore. After five years in power, these were calculated to be disproportionate by Rs 66.65 crore. Lists of her assets were leaked to the newspapers — 28 kg of jewellery (worth Rs 51 crore), 91 wristwatches, 41 air-conditioners, 10,500 sarees, 750 pairs of footwear… the star seizure was a gold belt that weighed 1,044 gms, with 2,389 diamond, emerald and ruby stones, and engraved with a dancing peacock in the middle, alone worth Rs 46.79 lakh….
Her rival, the DMK did everything to punish her, including setting up special courts and imprisoning her in jail like a common criminal "with cockroaches and rats" in her cell, she complained.
The 2001 Tamil Nadu assembly elections saw a rout of the DMK and the reinstallation of Jayalalitha as CM. Because of the plethora of legal cases against her, she had to quit the chief ministership and instal a “loyal soldier of the party”, O S Panneerselvam as CM. After acquittal by a lower court, she won a byelection, made Panneerselvam resign and was CM till 2006.
Her second term record was mixed. She banned lottery tickets without bothering about revenue loss to the state, when the poorest in Tamil Nadu saw lotteries as their only chance of getting rich. She dismissed 200,000 government servants at one go, stopped free power to farmers, increased the price of rice in the ration shops, cancelled ration cards of all those who earned more than Rs 5,000 per month, hiked power and bus charges, passed a law seeking to curb religious conversions, and banned animal sacrifices in temples.
But, after the 2004 Lok Sabha election were announced, she allowed animal sacrifices in temples and resumed free power to farmers.
Her antipathy to criticism is legendary and her contempt for journalists well known. “No one can get anything out of me or subdue me by threats, harsh treatment; it only makes me more stubborn, inflexible, unbending, determined. The only way one can get me to cooperate is to be nice to me, pamper me, cajole me, talk to me kindly, softly” she said in 1985.
In her personal life, Jayalalithaa remained deeply unhappy. Her attempts at ending the relationship with MGR and yearning to lead an uncomplicated married life had ended in nought. Her first love, another film actor, Sobhan Babu, led her on but ultimately found he was unable to divorce his wife. Surrounded by political intrigue, Jayalalithaa had to hone her instincts of self preservation and eventually came to depend on women. She relied till the end on a comrade called Sasikala till the end.
There were problems with this, too. Sasikala’s nephew, Sudhakaran, was ‘adopted’ by Jayalalitha as her foster son. In that capacity, he ran JJTV, a TV channel. Then, he was disowned, after the income tax department swooped to ask for an explanation on how he had amassed personal wealth amounting to Rs 50 crore. Jayalalitha and Sasikala conducted Sudhakaran’s wedding with pomp and glitter, only to later disown him.
Her relations with the Centre were equally mercurial. In 1998, she formed an alliance with hitherto foes, including Subramanian Swamy, who had led an anti-corruption campaign against her, and the Bharatiya Janata Party, until then an untouchable in Tamil Nadu. This dysfunctional alliance helped Jayalalithaa and her allies win 30 of the 40 parliamentary seats in the southern state.
However, before long, she was just as quickly turning friends back into foes. From day one, the relationship between Jayalalitha and the BJP soured. It began with her demand that Subramanian Swamy be made finance minister. For the next 13 months, she held the fragile government hostage with threats that she could pull her 18 MPs out of the coalition at a moment's notice — as she finally did, leading to a Lok Sabha election. When she aligned with the BJP, it was because “it would be a national shame if that foreigner [Sonia Gandhi] comes to power. There are many able Indians to lead India". And, yet, 13 months later, at a tea party held in her honour, she had a short meeting with Congress leader Sonia Gandhi. She described the brief talks as a political earthquake and then sent her own tremor through the governing coalition by withdrawing two ministers from the government and pulling out of the co-ordination committee. Ahead of the 2009 general election, Jayalalithaa forged an alliance with Left parties, plucking them away from their traditional ally, the DMK. It was a bad decision. Of 39 seats, the DMK alliance got 27 and the AIADMK 12. The DMK was in power in the state as well and between 2006 and 2011, the government spent Rs 4,000 crore to provide free colour TVs to eligible households. It didn’t help. The AIADMK came to power in 2011 and has been in government since. In two years in power, it spent Rs 2,917 crore on mixies and grinders and allotted Rs 1,500 crore in the next financial year.
As CM, Karunanidhi constructed a magnificent Rs 1,100-crore oval-shaped new secretariat-cum-assembly complex, turning the 300 year old Fort St George secretariat into a library for the Central Institute for Classical Tamil Studies. Jayalalithaa turned that into a hospital. Over the past 10 years, her inexpensive meals scheme, subsidised pharmacies and the freebies (including cash) that accompany every election might not make for a healthy democracy but do represent a winning formula (ADMK won 37 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in 2014, with 44 per cent of the vote share).
You could argue all this has little to do with her. In her second tenure, particularly, she was largely an absentee CM, putting in only a few hours at the Secretariat, leaving it to the bureaucracy to guess what she might want. She spent months resting at her farm house in the Tamil Nadu hills, frustratingly inaccessible. Problems of the sugar sector (where the state government could have helped) or even big multinationals like Nokia could have benefited from the CM’s intervention. With just a little bit of effort, Tamil Nadu could have been propelled as India’s best run state.
But, the CM’s health, it was clear, was deteriorating. Even before her conviction and jail term, months would go by and she would not meet ministers and bureaucrats. Officers had to go to her residence, send files in, wait to be buzzed in or await the files. It could be hours, it could be days. In most cases, she would not meet at all: The file would come back with notings.
When in jail, the pressure on bureaucrats was to be more succinct and clear in their notes, there being no possibility for a face to face discussion. Things were run via a committee of bureaucrats headed by advisor Sheela Balakrishnan. In some ways, clearance was faster.
But, everyone at the 28-minute swearing-in after she was elected in a byelection noticed the national anthem had to be curtailed because she was finding it difficult to stand. There was a proposal that she file her nomination for her election to the assembly from home but the Election Commission ruled that out. She operated from home. A series of modified sheds outside her house would serve as waiting rooms for bureaucrats who wanted files cleared. They would hand over the papers to some young girls who were domestics. They would take the files and bring these back. Friend and confidante Sasikala was very much in evidence but none of her relatives. It was pretty much ‘rule by the buzzer’.
If the CM met so few people, had so little contact with the outside world, how could she keep tabs on what her colleagues were doing? Through a complicated system of intelligence gathering, say bureaucrats, which called from reports from the state intelligence departments, ‘loyal’ bureaucrats and party workers. Jayalalithaa is no longer there but the system she has created will be replicated by her successor. She has left behind a legacy that is both original and colossal.