Political Obscenity

The Thesaurus gives a list of words which have same, similar or a related meaning to the adjective ‘obscene’, which includes the words – abominable, bavidy, coarse, corrupt, crude, degenerate, depraved, dirty, disgusting, distasteful, filthy, foul mouthed, immodest, indelicate, impure, indecent, loathsome, nasty, offensive, outrageous, perverted, prurient, repulsive, rude, salacious, scrupulous, shameless, sickly, vile, vulgar etc.

If there is one person in the world whose persona, conduct and utterances perfectly suit for all these epithets, it is none but Jayalalitha! Who else would have so brazenly reel off lies and sheer lies, unfounded charges in the State Assembly and yet get away with, abruptly leaving the House without waiting to hear the response of the Treasury Benches, as she is accustomed to. Still she had the obduracy to claim in a statement later that she ‘was insulted in the House’ and the Minister ‘used undignified language’.

Kalaignar had explained how the Speaker could not be expected to respond to every member coming into or going out of the House during the proceedings. Moreover, respect has to be commanded and to demand it will be considered mean in a civilized society. Right from day one of Jayalalitha’s induction into public life, she had been constantly and consistently showing insolent heedlessness of restraints, as of those imposed by prudence, propriety or convention – in every capacity she had occupied. There are numerous instances of her intrepidity and foolhardiness, (recall her diabolic diatribes against not only Kalaignar, whom she considers as her bête noire, but also against such elderly and respected leaders like, former Governor of Tamil Nadu Dr. Channa Reddy, former Prime Ministers P.V.Narasimha Rao, Rajiv Gandhi and A.B.Vajpayee, L.K.Advani, Sonia Gandhi et al.) that people will just laugh at her accusing others of it. In fact, other than her party organ, no other newspaper publish her intemperate statements in full in order to safeguard the standard and reputation of their dailies.

Unable to reply to point by point rejoinder of Kalaignar to her vilifying speech in the Assembly, if Jayalalitha as usual had the audacity to claim that people got awakened by her address, the section of the servile newspapers indiscriminately published her statement. She claimed in the Assembly that the Right to Information Act was enacted during her regime. But now after Kalaignar giving the dates of introduction of the relative Bill and its adoption during the DMK rule, she had made a somersault and said the ‘1997 legislation did not serve the purpose’ and that after the Central RTI Act 2005, passed by the UPA government, the ADMK regime (only) notified the rules and a Chief Information Commissioner and other officials were appointed. In respect of other two charges that she leveled against the DMK rule, she could not respond to Kalaignar’s counter on her naming projects and schemes after her during the ADMK regime and the Bill to appoint her as chancellor of all universities in the state replacing Governor, which met with its natural death.

As for Kalaignar citing an article written by the Editor of Tamil daily, ‘Makkal Kural’, late T.R.Ramaswamy (TRR) and published on January 1, 1989, which quoted MGR telling him of the evil designs of Jayalalitha and her unreliability, (reproduced in this issue on P.8), after all these 20 years, she had said the write up was part of the efforts to politically finish her off. If only she had denied it during the life time of TRR, truth would have been revealed. But what is it that she has to say on the announcement made by MGR himself under his signature and published in the ADMK’s then official daily ‘Anna’, directing party functionaries and cadre not to have any contact with her. Only after MGR came to know of her conspiracy to overthrow him from the seat of power and to install herself in the Chief Minister’s gaddi by trying to hobnob with the then Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi, he got alerted and went to the extent of sending her three trunk boxes of currency notes and reach a once-for-all settlement with her. (for whatever ‘services’ she had rendered to him so far).

But the lady has no tenacity to disown the letters she wrote to Rajiv Gandhi in her own handwriting and under her signature, published in the same eveninger, complaining that MGR was jealous of her popularity and that he was totally incapacitated physically to discharge duties as Chief Minister and pleading with the then Prime minister to remove MGR from the seat and to install her in that place. The lady who dared to deny her own signatures in the court in TANSI case, could not do so in respect of these letters sent through her loyalist MP Salem Kannan, then.

She complained to Rajiv Gandhi that MGR did not want to give her due importance and include her in the Ministry. She added that MGR was arranging for throwing her out of politics and public life.

Moreover, even while MGR was alive, his speech was published in the official daily ‘Anna’ on 22.1.1985, in which he regretted bringing her to politics saying “It is my mistake to seat Jayalalitha in a position much in excess of her age and capacity. I cannot anymore bear with Jayalalitha using my name in various places without my knowledge.” Can she now deny it as figment of imagination?

Now she claims that after MGR’s demise she had been the General Secretary of the party for more than 22 years ‘with the support of the cadre’, covering up the fact that after MGR the ADMK split into two factions and then merged after three years. But where are those functionaries of MGR days, who manipulated the party records to make her the General Secretary of one faction, those who virtually kidnapped ADMK MLAs to different places of the country to bring down the government led by MGR’s wife Janaki Ramachandran, worked for the reunification of the two factions and prop her up to take the reins of the party. After utilizing their means and potential for her own aggrandizement, she systematically got rid of all those MGR loyalists and filled the rank and file of her outfit with her own henchmen and minions.

During the Assembly elections in January 1989, Tamil Nadu witnessed a four-cornered contest – Congress, DMK and the two factions of ADMK leading the alliances. The same ‘Makkal Kural’ editor TRR campaigned for the Congress-led alliance and wrote articles everyday. On the day prior to polling, he wrote a final article trying to convince his readers to vote for the Congress. If for reasons they did not at all want to vote for the Congress, TRR said they could vote for even the DMK and pleaded not at all to vote for the faction led by Jayalalitha, because she is not a politician but a ‘political obscenity’ (muÁaš mÁ§f«). People in general and political observers in particular know well of his proximity to MGR and was considred as MGR’s confidant. That is why he could so accurately forecast the jeopardy the State would face if she got elevated in the political arena.

Cordial and warm personal equations between leaders of warring political parties and healthy debate in political discourse were at the zenith and hallmarks of political arena in Tamil Nadu, which was an envy of other states. But now they have plummeted to the nadir since the arrival of this woman in the state political arena and have become a national shame. What, in his personal agony an exasperated MGR had said “My acts in sympathy (of bringing Jayalalitha into politics) will spell doom on Tamil Nadu” is indeed the agony of Tamil Nadu now!    

(24-01-10)