 "Jayalalithaa")
Jayaram Jayalalithaa, the actress-turned-politician who held the chief minister's chair in Tamil Nadu for four terms did not have an easy journey. However, she swam against the tide to become 'Amma', as she is affectionately called by her partymen.
While she became “a phenomenon” in the state politics of Tamil Nadu, on her way she earned herself many titles – from Amma to Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader) and the iron lady. Even as many criticised her for ruling the state with an iron fist, those who supported her, including many corporate leaders, lauded her style of functioning. She exuded power and moved the masses with her communication skills.
From Komalavalli to Amma
Born in Karnataka on February 2, 1948, into an Iyengar family, she was first named Komalavalli after her grandmother –– and later given her official name, Jayalalithaa. She moved to Chennai in the 1950s to live with her mother, who was an actress.
A shy young girl, Jayalalithaa had been a topper at the Bishop Cotton Girl’s High School in Bengaluru and at the Church Park Presentation Convent in Chennai.
Though her family was prosperous when Jayalalithaa was a child, things changed later on. To support the family, her mother took up acting as a profession, and young Jaya also joined her as a 16-year-old. As an unmarried woman, Jayalalithaa for long time was not very close to the families of her brother and other relatives. Meanwhile, she was close to her aide Sasikala and her family (who also got her into trouble on several occasions).
As an actor, her first Kannada movie was a blockbuster, and so was her debut Tamil movie Vennira Aadai (1965). Over the decades, she acted in 140 Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films, besides one Hindi (Izzat) and one English movies (Epistle).
Her pairing opposite M G Ramachandran (MGR), who would later join politics and become a chief minister, was much loved. In fact, it is MGR who is believed to have inspired Jayalalithaa to join politics.
She became a propaganda secretary in the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), but, being a Brahmin in a Dravidian party, she was not accepted by many. She was nurtured as a politician over the years by MGR and later elected to the Rajya Sabha in 1984.
At a time when MGR was ill and receiving medical treatment in the US, the AIADMK had to contest elections to the Lok Sabha elections and the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly in December 1984. Jayalalithaa took up the challenge and spearheaded the AIADMK-Congress alliance in MGR’s absence and secured a massive victory.
After MGR’s death in 1987, AIADMK split into two faction – one each led by Jayalalithaa and MGR’s widow Janaki Ramachandran.
In 1989, the two factions reunited and Jayalalithaa was unanimously elected the general secretary of the party. She contested the Legislative Assembly election and became the first woman leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly. The same year, she again led the AIADMK-Congress alliance to a historic victory in the general elections in Tamil Nadu.
True, there also was vitriolic opposition to Jayalalithaa’s ascendancy in the Tamil politics, especially from M Karunanidhi’s Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK). But she countered all challenges. Once she was attacked by the members of DMK, then the ruling party, in the Assembly and she left the House vowing to return only as the chief minister.
Two years later, in 1991, she became the chief minister of the state. She formed the government in alliance with the Congress, which was riding on the sympathy wave following Rajiv Gandhi's assassination at an election rally near Chennai.
Jalayalithaa again became the chief minister in 1991, 2001, 2002 (by-election), 2011, 2015 (by-election) and 2016.
Unlike the DMK, Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK was briefly part of central governments, too. She withdrew her support to the BJP government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. She criticised the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government’s policy decisions. Basically, she raised her voice against both the Congress and BJP governments and sometimes even took them to court. However, she was seen as a good friend of the current BJP leadership at the Centre, especially with Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister.
Some of Jayalalithaa’s initiatives, such as rain water harvesting, affordable canteens, pharmacies, cradle baby scheme, health care and a host of other schemes, were well appreciated by the leaders at the national level, a few state governments, and also some other countries.
The names of most of the newly launched welfare schemes started with ‘Amma’, reinforcing her ‘brand equity’.
The Jayalalithaa government’s handling of the 2004 tsunami and the following relief work had received praised the world over. However, the 2015 Chennai floods cost her some seats in the state capital in the 2016 Assembly elections.
Jayalalithaa was forced to step down as chief minister twice, being disqualified after getting convicted in pending cases by the court. The last such instance had come in 2014, when she has been in jail for nearly 21 days and away from the chief minister’s chair for nearly eight months, in connection with an 18-year-old disproportionate asset case. During this period, she seldom made public appearances, except during her return from Bengaluru jail to Vedanilayam, her house in Poes Garden, Chennai.
But she never gave up and fought the case at various courts and came back to power after getting acquitted in the case by the Karnataka High Court.
Following an appeal against the Karnataka High Court order acquitting her in the disproportionate asset case, the Supreme Court is expected to pronounce its judgment shortly.
Among the many accolades she won over her lifetime, she was given the Tamil Nadu government’s Kalaimamani Award in 1972, an honorary Doctorate (DLitt) by the University of Madras in 1991, and honorary doctorates from the MGR Medical University, Madurai Kamaraj University and Bharati Dasan University later. In 2004, British House of Lords invited her to accept ‘New Year’s Best Political Lady’ and International Human Rights security committee chose her for ‘Thanga Tharagai’ Award for her services in saving the downtrodden and bringing gender equality in Tamil Nadu and India.
As an administrator, she came up with a ‘Vision 2023’ to make Tamil Nadu number one in terms of socio-economic growth, comparable to international standards.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion data show that from April 2000 to March 2011 the state received foreign direct investment inflows to the tune of $7.3 billion. From April 2011 to December 2015, it went up to $13.94 billion, which at current conversion rate, is equal to Rs 83,766 crore. Between a short period of April 2015 and December 2015, the state had attracted $4.3 billion in FDI.
Even as the sun sets for arguably the state’s brightest political leader, it remains to be seen how AIADMK, a party with no noticeable second rung of leadership, will make Jayalalithaa’s vision come true.
