The only political capital of Jayalalitha, obviously, is the saying ‘Public memory is short’. She takes the people of Tamil Nadu for granted, assuming that they would have completely forgotten the notoriety, atrocities and betrayals of her regime just four year back, and has the audacity to issue daily statements on ward/ panchayat-level civic problems assuming that the State was a ‘paradise of pleasure’ during her rule, in the recent period till 2006. Hence it is not a surprise that she is under the impression that people may not remember the disgraceful event that she conducted 16 years ago in 1995 during her nefarious tenure between1991-96. With the ‘divine blessings’ of Jayalalitha, the Eighth World Tamil Conference was conducted in Thanjavur in 1995, showering praise on its patroness.
That such a person has the temerity to issue a statement dubbing the World Classical Tamil Conference to be held at Coimbatore this week as a ‘selfish meet’, is because of her supreme confidence that the docile media in the State will not recall the unpleasant events of the past. However, barring one daily, which is serving as her mouth-piece, the others had ignored the statement altogether. Because, the media as well as people of Tamil Nadu, are well aware of the extensive and meticulous arrangements being made for the conference involving all sections concerned to make it a people’s event. Who will take Jayalalitha’s charge that ‘people’s tax money was being wasted when basic amenities were lacking’ in Coimbatore, when they know for themselves that a lot of infrastructural developmental works had been undertaken at a cost of over Rs.300 crore. While Chief Minister Kalaignar sanctioned Rs.50 crore for expansion of the Coimbatore Government Medical College Hospital on the occasion of the conference on June 10, she issued a hasty statement two days later calling for demonstration by her party demanding additional buildings in the hospital and decrying the meet.
Kalaignar is so keen on making the event non-partisan and all-inclusive that in an epistle to his party cadre he pulled up the over-enthusiastic local functionaries for putting up billboards and cutouts giving a Party colour to the conference and directed them to replace such hoardings and wall paintings with those depicting Tamil history, culture and savants.
By her thoughtless action, Jayalalitha has forced people to revisit the black chapter ( the Eighth world Tamil Conference hosted by her in 1995) that sullied the image and reputation of Tamil Nadu, coming after the grand manner in which Arignar Anna conducted the Second conference in Chennai in 1968 and her own mentor MGR organized the fifth at Madurai in 1982. Never had the Tamil past appeared so tardy and inauthentic as it did then – claimed by a party and leader who had done and said nothing to thus effortlessly appropriate it. Unlike her predecessors in office – here one must reluctantly include MGR – Jayalalitha had no affiliation, to speak of, with the Dravidian movement. Her attempts to own history and embody it in her person are symptomatic of her essential non-relation to this history. She lacked that power of utterance which came so easily to Anna and Kalaignar, both of whom utilized the word ‘Tamil’ to constitute a viable community and polity. Neither can Jayalalitha hope to capture and possess that aura which still surrounds MGR. She had to, therefore, necessarily resort to cardboard and tinsel to invent the past, create a present and carve out a constituency. It was not accidental at Thanjavur she forced history to confront its own past achievements in stone and metal with creations in cardboard and synthetic paint. Arches (one of them compared her with the Vaishnavite saint Andal), cut-outs, posters, floats and billboards were assembled in all their tinsel glory to announce the triumph of the kitsch version of Tamil history. Jayalalitha and her ministers were present at the blessed hour when history marched past in a haze of silver foil and technicolour. Her benign gaze and approval imparted to this roll-call of the dead and buried a certain ‘truth’. During the conference this sanctified truth hovered over seminar halls, mocking the vainglory of scholars who had gathered in vast members to debate, deliberate and establish their fine points of view.
Questions of history, historical truth and objectivity were resolved in the most hysterical fashion at the conference. That spirit of enquiry and curiosity which seeks to make sense of the past and that urge to connect and narrate events and scholars’ will to knowledge, were put to test, as a host of persons, including the Chief Guest the then Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao, sought to tirelessly reiterate well known myths and eulogise ‘Her Highness’. In a speech that could easily rival a 10th school history textbook’s claims to erudition and knowledge, Narasimha Rao, famed for his learning and his talents as a polyglot, demonstrated an ordeal, worth suffering in order to strike a fresh deal with Jayalalitha’s ADMK and evolve a new electoral strategy that ignored irritants like the then TNCC President late G.K.Moopanar’s protest against Rao’s participation in the conference.
Lapses of much more serious sort occurred as well. The logo designed for the conference showed a map of the world across which were strewn sundry objects ostensibly symbolic of Tamil history and culture. The map itself was a curious one as it had neatly excised out the island of Sri Lanka from its contents! It was as if the organizers not only desired to rewrite history in Her image – as one long-standing billboard in Madras city then had it, ‘henceforth there will be no history but only Her-story’ – but were determined to re-draw the map of the world if only to gratify her geographical imagination. Sri Lanka and its Tamil population obviously could not figure in this cultural universe where historical and linguistic links and shared concerns had been erased in favour of bounded and ‘pure’ cultural space surrounded by lifeless symbols she coveted – Jayalalitha reigned supreme, proud and alone in her unabashed narcissism.
It was another matter that the Tamil Diaspora consisted largely of Tamils from Sri Lanka whose contributions to Tamil research and study had been extremely significant. When the sovereign wills, the subjects have to make themselves invisible. Or, so happened with most respected and renowned scholars Karthikesu Sivathamby, Rupavathy Sivathamby, Velup PIllai, Shanmugadoss, Manonmani Shanmugadoss and Peter Schalk, they were simply whisked away by the police. The forced and dramatic deportation of these renowned scholars from the conference and subsequently from India was not at all explained. Sivathamby and Velup Pillai, together with their family members, were virtually kept under house arrest in the Madras University Guest House with ‘Q’ branch police keeping the surveillance. It was obvious that none of these men and women nor the other 25 or so Lankan Tamil scholars could have constituted a threat to the security of Jayalalitha or, for that matter, the nation. To penalize them for living and working in an existential context they could not wish away was, of course, to penalize birth. As such the gross injustice done to those men and women could only be described as undiluted political racism.
Jayalalitha government’s antipathy towards Sri Lanka extended to Sinhalese as well, for Sinhala scholars too were left out from the list of invitees. Even those Lankan Tamil scholars who were given preliminary invitation did not receive the final and officially confirmed invitations to the conference. Sri Lankan Minister Thondaman mustered to obtain seven invitations which were shared between scholars from Jaffna, Perediniya and Eastern Universities where Tamil and allied subjects are taught. When they reached Thanjavur, the Organizing Secretary of the conference did not accept the invitations they possessed as valid and after a harried two days during which they literally went without food and shelter they returned to Madras. By then, they had also come to know of Sivathamby’s expulsion and naturally enough feared for their own safety.
Such a total lack of civility and decency on the part of Jayalalitha regime was evident in other instances as well. An invitation was mailed to the then Tamil Nadu Governor Channa Reddy which reached him just a day prior to the conference. Former Chief Minister (then) Kalaignar was sent an invitation which addressed him as an ‘ex-MLA’ (He quipped back with the reply that this was a case of an ex-actress writing to an ex-MLA). The then Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly S.R.Balasubramaniam fared worse. An invitation handed over to him by a traffic police inspector did not even address him by name. Not only these acts constituted a breach of propriety but they expressed a political arrogance that had shown itself to be utterly indifferent to criticism, imprecations and rebukes. The Thanjavur conference would be remembered as much for the habitual practice of a diabolical doublespeak by Jayalalitha & co., as for the ineptitude and lack of professional decorum which characterized it.
At the session on women in Tamil Nadu that was ‘graced’ by Jayalalitha herself, the recurring theme of the various addresses was simply this: that under Jayalalitha’s compassionate rule, women’s lot improved vastly, that she was indeed personally responsible for this glorious achievement. Jayalalitha was duly acknowledged and hailed by almost every speaker, many of whom prostrated themselves before her before commencing their talk. It was gross that Jayalalitha and her worshippers should thus comfort each other with self-serving lies and fortify themselves within a circle of deception.
However, doublespeak was not confined to Jayalalitha’s political camp alone. Consider P.Nedumaran, vociferous supporter of the LTTE and advocate of independent Tamil Eelam – not only was he present at the conference while scores of Tamil scholars and enthusiasts (some of them led by his political allies) were lathi-charged and bundled out of Thanjavur to be thrown into the Central prison in Tiruchi for trying to organize a demonstration to protest against the state government, but he even attempted to defend Jayalalitha on the matter of deportation of scholars by arguing that Centre was to blame!
This being the dark chapter of the Jayalalitha-organised world Tamil Conference, she must have remained diplomatically guarded on the conduct of the World Classical Tamil Conference and not needlessly provoke bitter memories of the past, and thereby sully her face. But then, foolhardiness is synonymous with Jayalalitha!
(20-06-10)
That such a person has the temerity to issue a statement dubbing the World Classical Tamil Conference to be held at Coimbatore this week as a ‘selfish meet’, is because of her supreme confidence that the docile media in the State will not recall the unpleasant events of the past. However, barring one daily, which is serving as her mouth-piece, the others had ignored the statement altogether. Because, the media as well as people of Tamil Nadu, are well aware of the extensive and meticulous arrangements being made for the conference involving all sections concerned to make it a people’s event. Who will take Jayalalitha’s charge that ‘people’s tax money was being wasted when basic amenities were lacking’ in Coimbatore, when they know for themselves that a lot of infrastructural developmental works had been undertaken at a cost of over Rs.300 crore. While Chief Minister Kalaignar sanctioned Rs.50 crore for expansion of the Coimbatore Government Medical College Hospital on the occasion of the conference on June 10, she issued a hasty statement two days later calling for demonstration by her party demanding additional buildings in the hospital and decrying the meet.
Kalaignar is so keen on making the event non-partisan and all-inclusive that in an epistle to his party cadre he pulled up the over-enthusiastic local functionaries for putting up billboards and cutouts giving a Party colour to the conference and directed them to replace such hoardings and wall paintings with those depicting Tamil history, culture and savants.
By her thoughtless action, Jayalalitha has forced people to revisit the black chapter ( the Eighth world Tamil Conference hosted by her in 1995) that sullied the image and reputation of Tamil Nadu, coming after the grand manner in which Arignar Anna conducted the Second conference in Chennai in 1968 and her own mentor MGR organized the fifth at Madurai in 1982. Never had the Tamil past appeared so tardy and inauthentic as it did then – claimed by a party and leader who had done and said nothing to thus effortlessly appropriate it. Unlike her predecessors in office – here one must reluctantly include MGR – Jayalalitha had no affiliation, to speak of, with the Dravidian movement. Her attempts to own history and embody it in her person are symptomatic of her essential non-relation to this history. She lacked that power of utterance which came so easily to Anna and Kalaignar, both of whom utilized the word ‘Tamil’ to constitute a viable community and polity. Neither can Jayalalitha hope to capture and possess that aura which still surrounds MGR. She had to, therefore, necessarily resort to cardboard and tinsel to invent the past, create a present and carve out a constituency. It was not accidental at Thanjavur she forced history to confront its own past achievements in stone and metal with creations in cardboard and synthetic paint. Arches (one of them compared her with the Vaishnavite saint Andal), cut-outs, posters, floats and billboards were assembled in all their tinsel glory to announce the triumph of the kitsch version of Tamil history. Jayalalitha and her ministers were present at the blessed hour when history marched past in a haze of silver foil and technicolour. Her benign gaze and approval imparted to this roll-call of the dead and buried a certain ‘truth’. During the conference this sanctified truth hovered over seminar halls, mocking the vainglory of scholars who had gathered in vast members to debate, deliberate and establish their fine points of view.
Questions of history, historical truth and objectivity were resolved in the most hysterical fashion at the conference. That spirit of enquiry and curiosity which seeks to make sense of the past and that urge to connect and narrate events and scholars’ will to knowledge, were put to test, as a host of persons, including the Chief Guest the then Prime Minister P.V.Narasimha Rao, sought to tirelessly reiterate well known myths and eulogise ‘Her Highness’. In a speech that could easily rival a 10th school history textbook’s claims to erudition and knowledge, Narasimha Rao, famed for his learning and his talents as a polyglot, demonstrated an ordeal, worth suffering in order to strike a fresh deal with Jayalalitha’s ADMK and evolve a new electoral strategy that ignored irritants like the then TNCC President late G.K.Moopanar’s protest against Rao’s participation in the conference.
Lapses of much more serious sort occurred as well. The logo designed for the conference showed a map of the world across which were strewn sundry objects ostensibly symbolic of Tamil history and culture. The map itself was a curious one as it had neatly excised out the island of Sri Lanka from its contents! It was as if the organizers not only desired to rewrite history in Her image – as one long-standing billboard in Madras city then had it, ‘henceforth there will be no history but only Her-story’ – but were determined to re-draw the map of the world if only to gratify her geographical imagination. Sri Lanka and its Tamil population obviously could not figure in this cultural universe where historical and linguistic links and shared concerns had been erased in favour of bounded and ‘pure’ cultural space surrounded by lifeless symbols she coveted – Jayalalitha reigned supreme, proud and alone in her unabashed narcissism.
It was another matter that the Tamil Diaspora consisted largely of Tamils from Sri Lanka whose contributions to Tamil research and study had been extremely significant. When the sovereign wills, the subjects have to make themselves invisible. Or, so happened with most respected and renowned scholars Karthikesu Sivathamby, Rupavathy Sivathamby, Velup PIllai, Shanmugadoss, Manonmani Shanmugadoss and Peter Schalk, they were simply whisked away by the police. The forced and dramatic deportation of these renowned scholars from the conference and subsequently from India was not at all explained. Sivathamby and Velup Pillai, together with their family members, were virtually kept under house arrest in the Madras University Guest House with ‘Q’ branch police keeping the surveillance. It was obvious that none of these men and women nor the other 25 or so Lankan Tamil scholars could have constituted a threat to the security of Jayalalitha or, for that matter, the nation. To penalize them for living and working in an existential context they could not wish away was, of course, to penalize birth. As such the gross injustice done to those men and women could only be described as undiluted political racism.
Jayalalitha government’s antipathy towards Sri Lanka extended to Sinhalese as well, for Sinhala scholars too were left out from the list of invitees. Even those Lankan Tamil scholars who were given preliminary invitation did not receive the final and officially confirmed invitations to the conference. Sri Lankan Minister Thondaman mustered to obtain seven invitations which were shared between scholars from Jaffna, Perediniya and Eastern Universities where Tamil and allied subjects are taught. When they reached Thanjavur, the Organizing Secretary of the conference did not accept the invitations they possessed as valid and after a harried two days during which they literally went without food and shelter they returned to Madras. By then, they had also come to know of Sivathamby’s expulsion and naturally enough feared for their own safety.
Such a total lack of civility and decency on the part of Jayalalitha regime was evident in other instances as well. An invitation was mailed to the then Tamil Nadu Governor Channa Reddy which reached him just a day prior to the conference. Former Chief Minister (then) Kalaignar was sent an invitation which addressed him as an ‘ex-MLA’ (He quipped back with the reply that this was a case of an ex-actress writing to an ex-MLA). The then Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly S.R.Balasubramaniam fared worse. An invitation handed over to him by a traffic police inspector did not even address him by name. Not only these acts constituted a breach of propriety but they expressed a political arrogance that had shown itself to be utterly indifferent to criticism, imprecations and rebukes. The Thanjavur conference would be remembered as much for the habitual practice of a diabolical doublespeak by Jayalalitha & co., as for the ineptitude and lack of professional decorum which characterized it.
At the session on women in Tamil Nadu that was ‘graced’ by Jayalalitha herself, the recurring theme of the various addresses was simply this: that under Jayalalitha’s compassionate rule, women’s lot improved vastly, that she was indeed personally responsible for this glorious achievement. Jayalalitha was duly acknowledged and hailed by almost every speaker, many of whom prostrated themselves before her before commencing their talk. It was gross that Jayalalitha and her worshippers should thus comfort each other with self-serving lies and fortify themselves within a circle of deception.
However, doublespeak was not confined to Jayalalitha’s political camp alone. Consider P.Nedumaran, vociferous supporter of the LTTE and advocate of independent Tamil Eelam – not only was he present at the conference while scores of Tamil scholars and enthusiasts (some of them led by his political allies) were lathi-charged and bundled out of Thanjavur to be thrown into the Central prison in Tiruchi for trying to organize a demonstration to protest against the state government, but he even attempted to defend Jayalalitha on the matter of deportation of scholars by arguing that Centre was to blame!
This being the dark chapter of the Jayalalitha-organised world Tamil Conference, she must have remained diplomatically guarded on the conduct of the World Classical Tamil Conference and not needlessly provoke bitter memories of the past, and thereby sully her face. But then, foolhardiness is synonymous with Jayalalitha!
(20-06-10)
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