Karunanidhi: Scratches On My Mind Firm Five Years In
Chennai
Saeed Naqvi
Muthuvel
Karunanidhi’s passing away has brought back disparate images of my five
unlikely years in Chennai as regional editor of the Indian Express. I use the
term “Unlikely”, because someone born in Mustafabad, raised in the Urdu
ambience of Lucknow would generally be expected to expire from culture shock in
the four storeyed office in which every forehead was decorated with vertical,
horizontal even circular designs. It was a riot of vermillion, ashen and turmeric.
The sight stoked my curiosity but it did not repel me.
Karunanidhi,
an atheist like his gurus, E.K. Ramaswamy Periyar and C.A. Annadorai, had an
amusing take on “namams”. So long as Brahmins were busy with the shape of
Namams on the forehead of the temple elephants, the Dravida movement had
nothing to worry about. In his gruff, theatrical voice what he had drawn my
attention to was a 200 year old litigation on what should be the shape of the
namam on the forehead of the elephant at Kanchipuram (Devarajaswamy) temple.
One set of Ayyangars (Vaisnavites) called Vadagalai insisted on the U design.
But the Thengalai sect would invite the elephant to walk over them unless it was
a Y. If the lower court permitted one design, the opposite side would throw a
ginger fit. The case zig zagged from one court to the next, but it was not
resolved. Eventually the matter went to the Privy Council.
If both the
sides were defying court orders, why were they or their office bearers not sent
to jail? As De Gaulle told the cabinet considering sedition charges against
Jean Paul Sartre for supporting freedom fighters in Algeria – “No” boomed De
Gaulle, “you don’t send Voltaire to jail.”
Likewise, all
the judges including the ones on the Madras High Court bench hearing the case
in 1976, refrained from punishing religious ardour. How can anyone complain
against the UP police for showering rose petals on the rioting kawarias.
“Aastha” is “aastha” after all.
For
Karunanidhi all of this would be amusing. The things he felt strongly about he
proceeded to take up as themes around which he wove his transformational
politics. The way Karnanidhi burst upon the political scene in 1953 required political
imagination. He pulled together several ideas that were dear to him and which
moved the people to their core. The slogans were: my land is sacred to me and
no one will appropriate it; my language will not be supplanted by another; capitalists
from the north should be resisted if they come with hegemonic intent.
Karnanidhi put
his finger on the pulse. When industrialist Ramakrishna Dalmia set up his
cement factory, he sought to change the name of the town ito Dalmianagar.
Students led by Karunanidhi came out in large numbers. The town reverted to its
original name. Kallakudi. Brian Friel wrote Translations, a powerful play on a
similar situation in Ireland in the 19th century.
This agitation
set the scene for the much bigger agitation in 1965 against the imposition of
Hindi. Two year later, the DMK came to power and soon abolished the three
language formula – Tamil and English would suffice.
It was only
proper that he should have found a resting place beside his mentor “Anna”.
Relations
between Karunanidhi and M.G. Ramachandran were strained since “Anna’s” death in
1969. Karunanidhi’s much greater organizational control was being undermined by
MGR’s cinematic glamour.
I never got to
know either well: my inability with Tamil stood in the way. But with journalists
MGR was both inaccessible and vindictive, if crossed. Meeting him, however, was
both, a gastronomical treat and psychedelic show. The interior of his residence
was a series of criss crossing, cavernous passages until you came to what in
racing terms is called the “straight”, a 30 feet dimly lit narrow hall, at the
end of which, like a deity, sat MGR, with his trademark cap and dark glasses.
He gestured that I sit on the sofa beside him. Suddenly a trolley materialized which
heralded the beginning of elaborate hospitality, an endless procession of
delicacies which served a twin purpose: they titillated the palate and
discouraged conversation.
For me, raised
on different aesthetics, MGR remained an enigma. And yet, by every yardstick,
he had shot into the charismatic stratosphere by projecting an inexplicable
persona. Jayalalitha performed the impossible: she amplified charisma which had
already reached the nethar regions.
We have seen
the mess the AIADMK, the two charismatic leaders mindlessly left behind. DMK,
however, has always more real in its politics. Not only was Karunanidhi more
intellectually agile, he had his feet firmly on the ground. The cadres are in
place. The next line of leadership, (Stalin for instance) have been in the
drill for quite some time. But the transition may be problematic.
The
MGR-Jayalalitha charisma had obscured the Dravida movement’s earlier anti
Hindi, anti north, anti Brahmin edge. In the absence of Karunanidhi’s hardnosed
pragmatism, the second line of leadership may fall back on more radical
regionalism indeed, parochialism, to score points over each other.
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