Bundle of Contradictions, and Egoistic Opportunism!

Politics as a career in essentially taken up by people out of convictions and ideologies. But there are exceptions for whom it is coincidental and for the convenience of the self. The present Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and ADMK supremo Jayalalitha belongs to the second category. Her advent into politics and rise to lead power in the state were coincidental and she uses both for her personal convenience. So the contradictory stands she had been taking all along on almost every issue, in the absence of any convictions or ideologies were only to serve her personal convenience of the time.

After her avowed ‘political mentor’ MGR, whose rise in politics and to state power were essentially due to film stardom, became the Chief Minister of TN and had to face ideologically driven virulent opposition of the DMK, he believed that only filmy glamour could counter the opposition. With the rest of his film heroines politely refusing to oblige him in the political venture, the choice fell on his one time heroine with whom he had been keeping a distance for over a decade, Jayalalitha. But soon he realized that she was making foxy use of the positions he had given and issued a directive to his followers not to have any contact with her, which he did not at all rescind till his death.

Hence Jayalalitha was aggrieved with MGR, whatever may be her pretentions in public. She wrote letters to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in her own handwriting and sent through her confidant then Salem Kannan, in which she had complained that MGR was envious of her growth in the party and popularity among people. She had said that he was dysfunctional following his ailment and treatment in the USA and could not discharge duty as Chief Minister and requested the PM to appoint her as the Chief Minister.

Even as the first NDA government at the Centre led by Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee in 1998-99 was facing the tunes of turbulence created by her, the English weekly ‘Outlook’ published a cover story in its issue dated May 4, 1998 under the heading ‘The Life and Times of Jayalalitha’ written by Ajith Pillai and A.S. Panneerselvam which vividly brought out her egotism and contradictions. The article states:

MISJUDGED, misled, misinterpreted, misunderstood and mismanaged. All this, say her friends, has rendered J. Jayalalitha highly unpredictable, as the BJP found out to its dismay. Personal considerations motivate political actions. Good and bad are differentiated by a mind ridden with angst rooted in a troubled past. Even success does not seem to have healed her victim syndrome.

Indeed, neither her allies nor her foes can explain why Jayalalitha projects herself as a victim even when she is cracking the whip.

Says Valampuri John, former MP: "She is a bundle of contradictions. There is a deep-rooted attitudinal problem which can be traced to her past. She perceives all men in her life—her father, MGR, her one-time live-in friend Shoban Babu—as people who failed her. Therefore she seems to have developed a deep distrust of almost everyone." John, who helped Jayalalitha in her formative political years and published a semi-autobiographical novel and two books of essays, stands discarded. He too has joined the ranks of those who once helped the AIADMK chief.

The disenchantment with practically everyone she was close to is reflected in her autobiography published in the Tamil weekly Kumudam in 1978. Her father is presented as a "squanderer and a gentleman of leisure", a man "who could not handle anything properly". MGR is a person who she said she would rather "treat as an equal rather than a superstar". A ‘betrayal’ by a school friend too left a deep impression. Jayalalitha had played postman for this friend who was in love with a neighbour. But "when the girl’s mother discovered what was going on, my friend played Brutus and painted me as a daughter of an actress and a girl of loose morals."

This overwhelming sense of being ‘used’ seems to have influenced the worldview of the otherwise precocious and sensitive girl who dreamed of "becoming a millionaire and a lawyer", collected pictures of Rock Hudson and had a crush on cricketers Nari Contractor and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi.

"I used to go for matches with binoculars just to look at Pataudi and Pataudi alone," she croons. Her dream world collapsed when her mother Sandhya—also an actress known to MGR—revealed that a "financial crisis in the family" meant that ‘Jay’ would have to give up studies and start acting. Recalls Jayalalitha: "It was a rude shock to me. My argument with Amma was that it was she who punished me for putting on make-up and told me to stay off cinema who was now pushing me into acting."

So the 16-year-old, instead of going to Stella Maris College, went to the sets of director C.V. Sridhar’s film Vennira Aadai (Widow’s Robe). An ironic title for a woman who never married, although she confesses she never understood "the word platonic" and believed that "either there is a romantic relationship between two people or they are just friends". A loner, Jayalalitha seems to have harboured a distrust for others rather early in life. "The experiences I have been through, the suffering and pain have taught me an important lesson: in life there is one person you must rely on—yourself."

Her former friends have all been abandoned. Cho Ramaswamy, editor of Tughlaq who she fondly describes in her autobiography as a ‘valuable’ friend, was recently admonished publicly and asked "not to describe himself as a friend". Salem Kannan, two-time AIADMK MP who virtually created a political base for her in the party, is now persona non grata. Ministers in MGR’s cabinet and former Jaya loyalists S. Thirunavakkarsu and K.K.S.S.R Ramachandran have been eased out of the party. Says Kannan: "After all that I have done for her, I am deeply hurt at the manner in which she dumped me when I advised her to keep Sasikala and her family at a distance."

Kannan and Valampuri John were privy to her blow-hot-blow-cold relationship with MGR. According to John, MGR was ‘suspicious’ of Jayalalitha and monitored her every move. He realised that she was a very independent woman "who acted on her own volition". Indeed, when MGR opted for a new heroine in 1970, an irate Jaya found a new friend in Telugu star Shoban Babu. It was only in 1981 that the relationship was revived, leading to her induction into politics a year later. Recollects Kannan: "A minister in MGR’s cabinet invited Jayalalitha to present a dance-drama at Madurai. MGR was so impressed by her performance that they became friends again."

Though the friendship was revived, MGR kept a close tab on his Ammu. Notes John: "This played on her mind. She felt she was a trapped woman being observed under a microscope. But she also seemed to have enjoyed all the attention." Interestingly, among those asked to spy on her by MGR was Sasikala who then ran a video parlour. Later, she became one of her closest advisers. Notes Kannan: "Very few people know this. But copies of the letters she wrote to me on her political moves made their way to MGR. I am convinced that this was given to him by Sasikala."

MGR had reasons to be suspicious. In late 1984 when he was hospitalised in the US following a stroke, Jayalalitha, a Rajya Sabha MP since 1983, was convinced that she should take over the reins. She approached the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, and governor S.L. Khurana to appoint her chief minister since she felt that MGR’s health would not permit him to discharge his duties. Her moves were widely reported. Kannan who acted as her courier confirms her efforts to get to the top slot. So does John. Thirunavakkarsu. And R.M. Veerappan.

Stung by her moves, MGR stripped her of the deputy leadership of the parliamentary party. In an interview to Savvy magazine, she articulated her anger against the decision: "MGR has been a great influence in my life, I don’t deny that. But now I am my own person. I have evolved. Hereafter, I am responsible only for myself. Never again will anybody influence me to such an extent that all my thoughts and actions and statements are influenced and made in a particular way just because someone else wants it that way."

 In this "I will launch myself" mode, a parallel outfit called the Jayalalitha Peravai (conference) was formed in 1986, courtesy Kannan. Though Jayalalitha has denied any hand in its formation, Kannan told Outlook that it was with her full knowledge. The formation of the Peravai upset MGR no end. She was asked to stop functioning as the propaganda secretary of the AIADMK, a post specially created for her in 1983, and Kannan was expelled from the party. "When I met MGR he was very cryptic in telling me not to support that woman," says Kannan. The rivalry continued and in early 1987 the group opposed to Jayalalitha managed to convince MGR to convene the general council of the party to expel Jayalalitha and her friends. Sensing this, 33 MLAs owing allegiance to Jayalalitha held a meeting and decided to approach Rajiv to prevail upon MGR to stall Jayalalitha’s expulsion. Says Kannan: "This meeting was wrongly reported by the state intelligence as a move to float a rival party. A bitter and sad MGR could not stomach his protege breaking away. The sacking of Jayalalitha was struck off the general council’s agenda and Madam was invited to speak at a public rally that evening." This was the turning point in her career.

According to Jayalalitha’s inner circle, it was her success in managing MGR, often described as the wiliest of CMs, that convinced her she could manipulate all categories of politicians. Her pressure tactics with the BJP, they aver, are only a manifestation of this. Her former friend Thirunavakkarsu notes: "She has a history of using people and then discarding them." According to him, she has no permanent friends. This perhaps explains why she has tied up with her one-time arch rival Subramanian Swamy. Adds Thirunavakkarsu: "You cannot view her actions through traditional logic. She is a very impulsive person who manufactures situations to push her own personal agenda."

To a great degree, MGR is responsible for her achieving instant VIP status in the party. It was he who gave orders to partymen that they should stand up to show their respect to her. It was he who advised her to shun the media. When she came to power in 1991, she took all this to an extreme limit. She kept even her ministers at a distance. It was widely believed that it was Sasikala Natarajan who ran the government.

But the final word comes from Cho: "It is her habit to make unfavourable remarks against her allies. She did it to Narasimha Rao. But this is the first time that she is trying to humiliate a PM. She is in a desperate hurry. Perhaps the cases against her could be solved only when the state government is changed. What she fails to understand is that the mandate is as much the BJP’s as the AIADMK’s."

Political wisdom dictates that Jayalalitha should be more diplomatic. But Jayalalitha functions on the principle, what Jaya wants Jaya shall get. Given her past, it doesn’t seem that preposterous, but for the Vajpayee government it spells continued turbulence.”

As this article predicted as early as May 4 immediately after the first NDA government at the Centre was formed, the Vajpayee government was under the spell on continuing turbulence till at last it was brought down by Jayalalitha after 13 months in May 1999, at the end of which a vexed Vajpayee declared that the biggest blunder committed by him in his public life was aligning with Jayalalitha and vouched that he would not commit the blunder again in his lifetime.

It was during this period that the Cauvery River Authority (CRA) with the Prime Minister as Chairman and the Chief Ministers of contending states of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry was set up as per the directive of the Supreme Court. The two point covert programme on which Jayalalitha extended her party’s support to the NDA government was: Dismissal of the DMK government in Tamil Nadu and withdrawal of corruption cases against her, which were not obliged by the ‘right man in the wrong party’ Vajpayee, as disclosed by him after the fall of the government. Hence she was blindly opposing every move of the government at the Centre and so too the CRA, which Kalaignar has exposed in his epistle (See page no………………………….……………) And even the arguments advanced by her against the CRA in her statement, but for the epithet ‘toothless wonder; were not her own but copied verbatim from an article by former Union Minister Mani Shankar Iyer that was published on the same day in the ‘Indian Express’ daily.

From the year 1989 to 2009, Jayalalitha by performing shameless somersaults was coming to a full-circle on the issue of Lankan Tamils and Tamil Eelam in general and the LTTE and Prabhakaran in particular. Bereft of any consistency in principles or ideology, the only motivating force in her public life is opposing Kalaignar on whatever he says or does and attempting one-upmanship over him, all of which ultimately end in fiasco.

In this context of the LTTE and Prabhakaran, while Kalaignar, since 1981, had all along been urging the various Tamil militant groups to unite and avoid fratricidal fights, MGR during his rule, patronized and pampered only the LTTE as against other groups. He instigated Prabhakaran to boycott TESO conference at Madurai on May 4, 1986 organised by Kalaignar, in which national leaders like A.B.Vajpayee and George Fernandes participated and also not to accept the fund mobilized by Kalaignar for all Lankan Tamil militant groups. But for the policy of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to actively support the cause of Tamil Eelam and training given and arms supplied to these groups, MGR would not have had the courage to extend support to them. MGR announced in the State Assembly on April 27, 1987, that he would give Rs.4 crore to the LTTE, and paid it the same day.

Jayalalitha also selectively supported the LTTE and its leader Prabhakaran in 1989 and 1990 even after the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord. She made several statements in press interviews and at public meetings between 1988 and 1990 backing the LTTE, even in the presence of Rajiv Gandhi. On February 22, 1988, she admitted she had met LTTE representatives in Chennai. In March 21, 1988, she demanded that India immediately halt the military operations against the LTTE and call Prabhakaran for discussions. On the other hand, when an LTTE delegation led by Anton Balasingam wanted to meet Kalaignar in 1990, he told them to come through the proper channel (Government of India) and this was carried by ‘The Indian Express’. Kalaignar, in an interview to the Indian Express on November 16, 1997 said “I had abided by the Centre’s policy (on Sri Lanka) and acted accordingly. The then Prime Ministers Rajiv Gandhi and V.P.Singh in the 1989-1990 period had asked me to hold discussions with the LTTE and others with a view to bring about a compromise and a smooth solution to the Sri Lankan Tamils issue. In fact, Rajiv Gandhi himself praised my stand at election meetings in Tamil Nadu on 6.11.1989.”

Jayalalitha, on the contrary, in her media interviews in 1988, 1989 and 1990, had openly supported the LTTE, as the sole representatives of the Lankan Tamils and demanded military action to intervene in the ethnic problem. She had specifically criticized Kalaignar for ‘doing nothing’ to help the LTTE, as Chief Minister in 1990. Within a few months of the assassination of EPRLF leader Padmanabha and others in Chennai on June 19, 1990, Jayalalitha gave an interview to the Indian Express (October 4, 1990) stating that the LTTE had not indulged in any criminal activity in the last two months that gave room for complaint in the State. To a specific question whether  the DMK government was rendering help to the LTTE, though not to the same extent as MGR did, she had said: “I see no evidence of it!” (All these she said when V.P.Singh was the Prime Minister and the DMK was ruling in the State)

Likewise, Jayalalitha was taking contradictory stands on Lankan Tamils, militants who were fighting against Sinhala armed forces and on the cause of separate Tamil Eelam. Kalaignar has time and again exposed her inconsistent and contradictory stands to suit her political needs of the time.

In an exclusive interview given to the ‘Indian Express’ on 4.10.1990, she said LTTE was the only heroic force fighting against the Sri Lankan army. “In the last two months the LTTE was not involved in any actions in Tamil Nadu to be complained of. Now the LTTE is fighting against the government of a country. This is a heroic act. We should bear in mind that if the LTTE is destroyed the entire Tamil race in Sri Lanka will perish. The victory of LTTE is the victory of Tamils. Instead of doing something helpful to them Chief Minister Karunanidhi is only concerned about saving himself. Prime Minister V.P.Singh does not seem to be worried about Lankan Tamils. In the changed situation the only cure is Tamil people totally supporting the LTTE. Chief Minister Karunanidhi should give all assistance within his powers. The Central government should either find out a peaceful settlement on the basis of India-Lanka Accord as per the provisions therein or 100 percent support LTTE.”

At this point the correspondent of the daily asked her “you still say the LTTE should be supported even after they rejected the peace accord for which she said, “The LTTE have committed mistakes in the past. But if we do not support the LTTE, it will cause destruction of Tamil race in Sri Lanka. We should see that from that angle.”

Jayalalitha spoke on the same line in a public meeting participated by Rajiv Gandhi. “Jayalalitha accused the Centre and State government of not doing anything to save Tamils in Sri Lanka. If the LTTE was defeated in present struggle against Sri Lankan government the entire Tamil race in that island would perish.” (Indian Express, 8.10.1990)

In an interview to the Hindu on 24.9.1990 Jayalalitha had said that she did not think anything wrong if India thought of military action as Indira Gandhi did in Bangladesh issue.

But after the fall of V.P.Singh government in December 1990, she changed her tunes and turned anti-LTTE with the sole purpose of getting the DMK government dismissed by the Centre. She submitted a ‘confidential’ 102-page memorandum to the then Prime Minister Chandrasekhar on December 20, 1990, detailing evidence of ‘Karunanidhi’s links with Prabhakaran gang’, which Chandrasekhar found ‘sufficiently irrefutable’ to dismiss the government on January 30, 1991, in the absence of Governor’s report, which the then Governor Thiru Surjit Singh Barnala refused to sign. In fact, the 102-page memorandum submitted by Jayalalitha was ‘doctored by the Chandrasekhar government to prepare ground for the dismissal of the DMK government. The conspirators were the then Law Minister Dr. Subramanian Swamy and the Minister of State for Home Affairs Subodh Kant Sahay with whom she co-ordinated.

In the General elections in May 1991, Jayalalitha made political and electoral gain of the brutal assassination of Rajiv Gandhi at Sriperumpudur by an LTTE suicide bomber, accusing the DMK of hobnobbing with the rebels and facilitating a base for them in Tamil Nadu. Swept to power on the sympathy factor following the heinous act, and in total change of track over her past statements on and relationship with the LTTE, she claimed credit for the ban on LTTE by the Centre and extensions of the ban.

She also declared that she had totally driven out LTTE from the soil of Tamil Nadu, took severe action against those who were sympathetic to the ‘terrorist outfit’ and maintained the state as a ‘garden of peace’. Having ascended to power on the blood of Rajiv Gandhi, the ungrateful Jayalalitha instigated a third rate woman platform speaker – ADMK legislator to speak in the Assembly that their ‘Puratchi Thalaivi came to power only by her influence among the people and not by showing the portrait of a corpse lying upside down with only an undergarment in the waist.’ While she had been charging that the DMK was close to the LTTE, the Centre sent a communication to the Jayalalitha government on September 28, 1993, that it had received information that the ‘LTTE had planned to eliminate’ Kalaignar in order to promote V.Gopalsamy (now MDMK leader). The Centre also wanted the ADMK government then to make proper security arrangements for him. The Jaya government wrote to Kalaignar on October 2, 1993, on the report on LTTE threat and suggesting a security arrangement which he accepted.

Jayalalitha having conspired along with Chandrasekhar government for the dismissal of the DMK government in 1991 on the baseless charges of links with the LTTE, is now claiming that Kalaignar government was not dismissed on the Lankan Tamils’ issue but for ‘infringing the sovereignty of India’ (What does this mean?)

Even while she continued to sell her vicious propaganda against Kalaignar in her deposition before the Jain Commission inquiring into the conspiracy angle in Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the spat between her and Subramanian Swamy accusing each other of having prior information of the plot to kill the former Prime Minister, was well known. However certain questions still remain unanswered mysteries. They were, why Jayalalitha or even none of her party functionaries or cadre went to Meenambakkam airport on the fateful day to receive the leader of their alliance and why none accompanied his motorcade to Sriperumpudur? How and why Jayalalitha cancelled her joint campaign with Rajiv Gandhi scheduled at Poonamalle, Sriperumpudur and Krishnagiri even before his arrival at Chennai?

After coming back to power in 2001, Jayalalitha continued with her drive against LTTE supporters in the state. In the year 2002, in an unprecedented move, the Tamil Nadu Assembly urged the Centre to seek immediate extradition of Prabhakaran to stand trial for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. In case the Sri Lankan Government was unable to capture the LTTE chief, the Indian Army should be sent to nab him after taking the Lankan Government’s permission, the Assembly stated in a resolution which was adopted on April 16. Speaking while moving the resolution, Jayalalitha said there should not be any laxity in bringing Prabhakaran to justice in the name of having good diplomatic ties with Sri Lanka.

A few days prior to that, Jayalalitha said that even if the Centre allowed Tiger spokesman Anton Balasingham to come to India for treatment, Tamil Nadu’s doors were closed to him. The people were “greatly shocked” by Prabhakaran’s April 10 news conference at Kilinochchi, the resolution said, rejecting the advocacy of “forget-the-past attitude” with regard to Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. The resolution said that though the Centre has branded the LTTE a terrorist organisation, other pro-LTTE groups like the TNLA and the TNRT posed a threat to the country’s security. Jayalalitha even accused forest brigand Veerappan of being aided and abetted by the LTTE.

When the Congress and the DMK entered into electoral alliance for the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Jayalalitha criticised Tmt. Sonia Gandhi and questioned her ‘loyalty to her husband’. The Congress President snubbed her by her majestic indifference to such sub-standard woman’s babbles.

This year 2009 saw Jayalalitha turning topsy-turvy over the position she had been taking all these years since 1991, and going back to the 1989 stand. On January 17, she told journalists at her party office in Chennai, that the LTTE was using Tamils as human shield in the war against Sri Lankan army.

“The killing of the innocent Tamils can be avoided if the LTTE allows them safe passage,” she said. She argued that the Sri Lankan army’s intention was not to kill the Tamils.  “But the killing of innocents is inevitable in a war. No country is an exception.”  She even took exception to the usage, ‘Eelam Tamils,’ saying it could not be used since there was no separate Eelam. Instead, she preferred the word, ‘Sri Lankan Tamils.’

As for the demand for India’s intervention to ensure a ceasefire, Jayalalitha said there was a limit to how far one country could interfere in the internal affairs of another souvereign country.

She said the fact remained that the LTTE was a terrorist organisation. “Many countries have declared the LTTE a terrorist organisation. It has been banned in India.”  Jayalalitha said the fast observed by Viduthalai Chiruthaikal Katchi (VCK) leader Thol Thirumavalavan, demanding a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, was a drama and reflected the argument that the outfit was the sole representative of Lankan Tamils. Her statements were widely carried in the official website of Sri Lankan Defence ministry.

When Kalaignar penned an elegy condoling the death of LTTE’s political wing leader Tamil Selvan on 4.11.2007, Jayalalitha jumped heaven and earth and accused him of still patronizing the LTTE.

But suddenly on the eve of Lok Sabha elections, when the concern for ending war in Sri Lanka was on the high, Jayalalitha took up the cause with the calculation of reaping electoral gains and ‘vouched’ that she would secure Eelam for Tamils by sending Indian army. Not only the pro-LTTE elements like Nedumaran, Vaiko, Dr. Ramadoss and D.Pandian uncritically and unquestioningly welcomed her somersault, but also the pro-LTTE websites started putting up her statements. Even while she was thundering Tamil Eelam slogan on the stages, when Kalaignar told NDTV on April 16 that he would regret the killing of Prabhakaran in the war but would say it was because of their fratricidal feuds, Jayalalitha spoke to the CNN-IBN TV the very next day at Madurai in the midst of her campaign and asked Tmt. Sonia Gandhi, as ‘widow of Rajiv Gandhi’ to come out against Kalaignar for ‘glorifying’ the killers of her husband. Surprisingly, the pro-LTTE leaders of Tamil Nadu not only aligned with and supported Jayalalitha but never questioned her on such occasions.

As a whole, Jayalalitha did not ever have any consistent stand on Lankan Tamils issue and their fight for self-determination, but it was dictated by political and electoral conveniences and exigencies.  She displayed a set of outlook and attitude whenever she was in power and another when she was not and Kalaignar ruled the state.

Almost in every other issue and about leaders Jayalalitha had been taking contradictory stands according to situations. After blaming Rajiv Gandhi of going to bed early in night unbecoming of a Prime Minister, she aligned with him for the elections in 1989 and 1991. Ridiculing P.V.Narasimha Rao of ‘generation gap’ with her, she sought an alliance with him for 1996 General elections. After faulting senior BJP leader L.K.Advani for ‘selective amnesia’ both had no qualms in meeting recently prior to Presidential elections. She and her minions had derided communist parties on a number of occasions but both conveniently forget when forging alliance. She accused actor-politician Vijayakanth of coming drunk to the Assembly, but for the 2011 Assembly election she was hankering for bringing him to the ADMK alliance. What she said of a senior leader Navalar V.R.Nedunchezhian and how she accommodated him in her party and government is history. The list of her opportunitistic and egoistic contradictions are endless.

It is not that either those who are in her alliance or the so-called enlightened and well-informed media are not aware of her inconsistencies and contradictions; but do not criticize or question her in their antipathy for Kalaignar and the DMK, thereby justifying and still upholding the validity of the views of Thanthai Periyar on casteism, caste-hierarchy and casteist arrogance !