Emphasising the need of unity in the Party for prevailing over and defeat the designs of the opponents of the movement, DMK President and Chief Minister Kalaignar has recently cautioned Party functionaries and cadre of the danger of Brahminical forces (embodied by Jayalalitha) returning to power in the state, and posed to them the pertinent question, “What will happen if a party that fosters Brahminism and buries the ideals of the Dravidian movement assumes office?”
Questioning the Aryan lady’s credentials as a ‘leader of a Dravidian party’, he has wondered, “As one who celebrates Vijayadasami every year and performing yagnas and poojas before embarking on any venture, does she have the moral right to use Arignar Anna’s name as part of her party’s name?” In keeping with his stature, the octogenarian leader did not directly name Jayalalitha and her irrational practices, assiduously and zealously imitated by her minions threatening to take Tamil Nadu back to medieval age, negating everything for which the Dravidian movement and Self Respect movement stood for.
Though some of the obnoxious and ridiculous practices of the ADMK cadre started evolving during the days of MGR itself, they reached despicable proportions with the advent of Jayalalitha. Irrespective of age and position, ADMK functionaries prostrate before her and even the office of the Speakers of the State Assembly were not spared. The megalomaniac is perversely inclined to issue such photographs for publication in dailies, especially when her deserters rejoin her party. When she was the Chief Minister, even top officials were made to stand in obedience and the vehicle, in which she travelled was received over red carpet or deck of flowers at functions. Her party functionaries used to prostrate on the streets in front of her vehicle.
To please their ‘Amma’, party functionaries vied with each other in performing special poojas and yagnas on her birthdays. As a case in point, the President of a state owned transport corporation workers union affiliated to the ADMK, used to prepare and publish the annual report of the union which contained nothing but photographs and details of the poojas and offerings he had made at different temples all over the country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari in celebration of her birthday. ADMK men and women perform all sorts of rituals, offerings and rites in temples like pulling golden chariot, thousands of women carrying milk pots (paalkudams) on their heads and going to temples in processions, eating rice mixed with sand (mansoaru), women wearing neem leaves around their waists and chests and dancing etc.,
Come Sabarimala season, ADMK men put up the avtar of ‘samys’ wearing black or blue or saffron cloths, sporting beads around their necks and sandalwood paste on their foreheads. Very very rarely could one find a rationalist in ADMK, leave alone atheists. But still they have the audacity to call it a Dravidian party and name after Anna.
Jayalalitha’s avowed stand against minorities is well on record. When Andhra Pradesh government sought to introduce reservation for Muslims, she vehemently opposed the move stating that the Constitution did not provide for reservation based on religion. During her previous regime, she moved against conversions and coerced the minority communities. On the question of building a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodya, she asked if a temple for Ram could not be constructed in India where else could it be and spoke in the National Integration Council meeting in favour of shilanyas and kar seva at Ayodhya land. She is a close friend of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accused of leading a pogrom in which 2500 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra violence, and attended his swearing-in ceremonies and also hosted a sumptuous lunch for him at her residence when he visited Chennai. That she had no moral compunction in baring herself as a Hindu chauvinist even while claiming to lead a ‘Dravidian’ party.
Jayalalitha is a staunch believer in astrology. She does not take any decision without consulting his astrologer from Kerala, Panickar and goes by his advices and counsels. Even the selection of ADMK candidates for contesting elections are decided by astrologers on studying the horoscopes (Jathakams) of select aspirants.
Thus in every respect Jayalalitha stands opposed to Dravidian ideals and in the unlikely event of her return to power will only ring death knell for Dravidian ideals with memories of Thanthai Periyar and Arignar Anna consigned to history and Tamil Nadu turning into a haven for communal and casteist forces and steeped in superstitions.
Kalaignar has also said that the concern was not about winning or losing the election but preserving the movement when only the basic tenets be guarded. Electoral victory, though important, was never the only criterion for the DMK, which meticulously implemented the ideals while in power and spiritedly fought for them while in opposition. In fact, when Arignar Anna founded the DMK in 1949 and lakhs of youth all over Tamil Nadu mobilized under his leadership, none of them had any idea of participating in elections and seeking offices. The aspirations and hopes of those youth in the DMK, did not veer around Parliament and Assembly but around the lofty ideals of the Movement like social transformation, safeguarding Tamil language and culture, uplifting the oppressed etc., It was a social movement; only after eight years after inception, in 1957, a true democrat Anna, sought the opinion of, not just the functionaries but all the followers, on contesting elections, through the process of voting at a conference in Tiruchi. Bowing to the overwhelming verdict in favour of participating in elections, the DMK fielded its candidates and won 15 Assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats and two more LS seats where candidates supported the Party in 1957. Hence the DMK is a unique socio-political party in India which had no electoral ambitions when it was founded and flourished, while we see mushrooming of parties which even while starting claim to capture power in the next election and their leader becoming Chief Minister.
Kalaignar has also rightly pointed out that crowds at public meetings alone are no yardstick for the electoral victory of parties. Tamil Nadu politics had seen a number of instances of crowds failing political parties, besides the instances pointed out by Kalaignar. When late S.D.Somasundaram fell out of MGR in early 1980s and floated his own party he organized a rally in Tiruchi which took several hours to cross a point. Misled by the huge turnout and encouraging reports in newspapers, he fielded his party candidates in all the 234 constituencies only to lose deposits in all including for himself. Matinee idol of yesteryears Sivaji Ganesan also faced a similar experience when he started his own party and contested Assembly polls in 1989.
But those which were ‘mobilised’ by the ADMK at ‘enormous cost’ for Jayalalitha’s ‘show of strength’ at her rallies in Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Madurai were not instant and voluntary gatherings of politically-conscious crowds but only ‘hired mobs’. Jayalalitha-owned TV channel Jaya TV, in fact did a yeoman service by its direct telecast of these events. It never showed the disinterested and chaotic mobs in close-up lest their non-involvement in the speech read out mechanically like a school girl without any modulation by her. People were seen disbursing even as she was delivering her prepared speech, possibly because the ‘duration of the hire’ was over. Certain newspapers with vested interests attempt to make a virtue of these gimmicks by Jayalalitha & Co.
It is common knowledge that opponents of ruling parties are always vociferous and noisy while supporters maintain conspicuous silence. It was so during the run up for 1971 elections and the poll result in the 2011 Assembly election will reflect the same verdict people had given
then!
Questioning the Aryan lady’s credentials as a ‘leader of a Dravidian party’, he has wondered, “As one who celebrates Vijayadasami every year and performing yagnas and poojas before embarking on any venture, does she have the moral right to use Arignar Anna’s name as part of her party’s name?” In keeping with his stature, the octogenarian leader did not directly name Jayalalitha and her irrational practices, assiduously and zealously imitated by her minions threatening to take Tamil Nadu back to medieval age, negating everything for which the Dravidian movement and Self Respect movement stood for.
Though some of the obnoxious and ridiculous practices of the ADMK cadre started evolving during the days of MGR itself, they reached despicable proportions with the advent of Jayalalitha. Irrespective of age and position, ADMK functionaries prostrate before her and even the office of the Speakers of the State Assembly were not spared. The megalomaniac is perversely inclined to issue such photographs for publication in dailies, especially when her deserters rejoin her party. When she was the Chief Minister, even top officials were made to stand in obedience and the vehicle, in which she travelled was received over red carpet or deck of flowers at functions. Her party functionaries used to prostrate on the streets in front of her vehicle.
To please their ‘Amma’, party functionaries vied with each other in performing special poojas and yagnas on her birthdays. As a case in point, the President of a state owned transport corporation workers union affiliated to the ADMK, used to prepare and publish the annual report of the union which contained nothing but photographs and details of the poojas and offerings he had made at different temples all over the country from Kashmir to Kanyakumari in celebration of her birthday. ADMK men and women perform all sorts of rituals, offerings and rites in temples like pulling golden chariot, thousands of women carrying milk pots (paalkudams) on their heads and going to temples in processions, eating rice mixed with sand (mansoaru), women wearing neem leaves around their waists and chests and dancing etc.,
Come Sabarimala season, ADMK men put up the avtar of ‘samys’ wearing black or blue or saffron cloths, sporting beads around their necks and sandalwood paste on their foreheads. Very very rarely could one find a rationalist in ADMK, leave alone atheists. But still they have the audacity to call it a Dravidian party and name after Anna.
Jayalalitha’s avowed stand against minorities is well on record. When Andhra Pradesh government sought to introduce reservation for Muslims, she vehemently opposed the move stating that the Constitution did not provide for reservation based on religion. During her previous regime, she moved against conversions and coerced the minority communities. On the question of building a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodya, she asked if a temple for Ram could not be constructed in India where else could it be and spoke in the National Integration Council meeting in favour of shilanyas and kar seva at Ayodhya land. She is a close friend of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accused of leading a pogrom in which 2500 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra violence, and attended his swearing-in ceremonies and also hosted a sumptuous lunch for him at her residence when he visited Chennai. That she had no moral compunction in baring herself as a Hindu chauvinist even while claiming to lead a ‘Dravidian’ party.
Jayalalitha is a staunch believer in astrology. She does not take any decision without consulting his astrologer from Kerala, Panickar and goes by his advices and counsels. Even the selection of ADMK candidates for contesting elections are decided by astrologers on studying the horoscopes (Jathakams) of select aspirants.
Thus in every respect Jayalalitha stands opposed to Dravidian ideals and in the unlikely event of her return to power will only ring death knell for Dravidian ideals with memories of Thanthai Periyar and Arignar Anna consigned to history and Tamil Nadu turning into a haven for communal and casteist forces and steeped in superstitions.
Kalaignar has also said that the concern was not about winning or losing the election but preserving the movement when only the basic tenets be guarded. Electoral victory, though important, was never the only criterion for the DMK, which meticulously implemented the ideals while in power and spiritedly fought for them while in opposition. In fact, when Arignar Anna founded the DMK in 1949 and lakhs of youth all over Tamil Nadu mobilized under his leadership, none of them had any idea of participating in elections and seeking offices. The aspirations and hopes of those youth in the DMK, did not veer around Parliament and Assembly but around the lofty ideals of the Movement like social transformation, safeguarding Tamil language and culture, uplifting the oppressed etc., It was a social movement; only after eight years after inception, in 1957, a true democrat Anna, sought the opinion of, not just the functionaries but all the followers, on contesting elections, through the process of voting at a conference in Tiruchi. Bowing to the overwhelming verdict in favour of participating in elections, the DMK fielded its candidates and won 15 Assembly seats and two Lok Sabha seats and two more LS seats where candidates supported the Party in 1957. Hence the DMK is a unique socio-political party in India which had no electoral ambitions when it was founded and flourished, while we see mushrooming of parties which even while starting claim to capture power in the next election and their leader becoming Chief Minister.
Kalaignar has also rightly pointed out that crowds at public meetings alone are no yardstick for the electoral victory of parties. Tamil Nadu politics had seen a number of instances of crowds failing political parties, besides the instances pointed out by Kalaignar. When late S.D.Somasundaram fell out of MGR in early 1980s and floated his own party he organized a rally in Tiruchi which took several hours to cross a point. Misled by the huge turnout and encouraging reports in newspapers, he fielded his party candidates in all the 234 constituencies only to lose deposits in all including for himself. Matinee idol of yesteryears Sivaji Ganesan also faced a similar experience when he started his own party and contested Assembly polls in 1989.
But those which were ‘mobilised’ by the ADMK at ‘enormous cost’ for Jayalalitha’s ‘show of strength’ at her rallies in Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Madurai were not instant and voluntary gatherings of politically-conscious crowds but only ‘hired mobs’. Jayalalitha-owned TV channel Jaya TV, in fact did a yeoman service by its direct telecast of these events. It never showed the disinterested and chaotic mobs in close-up lest their non-involvement in the speech read out mechanically like a school girl without any modulation by her. People were seen disbursing even as she was delivering her prepared speech, possibly because the ‘duration of the hire’ was over. Certain newspapers with vested interests attempt to make a virtue of these gimmicks by Jayalalitha & Co.
It is common knowledge that opponents of ruling parties are always vociferous and noisy while supporters maintain conspicuous silence. It was so during the run up for 1971 elections and the poll result in the 2011 Assembly election will reflect the same verdict people had given
then!
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