An ode to AMMA

It is often said that not all successful people were outstanding in school & not all outstanding students go on to do well in life. However, there are a lucky few who have done both. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is one such person. Though she has never gone to college she was a brilliant student who excelled both in academics & in extracurricular activities while studying at Sacred Hearts girls’ school in Chennai. And her life has been one that most people can only dream about. A glamorous & wildly successful film star in her prime she has the distinction of starring the maximum number of films with her mentor MGR. Her political career is no less outstanding. She has the rare distinction of being the First woman Leader of Opposition in Tamil Nadu Assembly & the first elected woman Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu besides being youngest person to occupy the post. A three time Chief Minister, she has set her eyes for the top job in Delhi. Regardless of whether she becomes the reigning queen or kingmaker in Delhi there is no doubt that she has in her to become a good Prime Minister. Unlike Sonia Gandhi whose surname helped her to gain mileage or Mayawati whose mentor Kanshi Ram was instrumental in shaping her career, Jaya had to fight it out from the beginning. Though MGR her political Godfather helped her to get a Rajya Sabha seat & appointed her as the propaganda Secretary of the party his ill health during his last years made him inaccessible to her. After MGR’s death in 1987 senior leaders in the party expelled her & installed MGR’S widow Janaki Ramachandran as the Chief Minister. This lead to a split in the party into two factions one supporting MGR’s widow & the other favouring Jayalalithha.  Jaya finally emerged as the undisputed leader of AIADMK after the 1989 assembly elections when the two factions merged. As the Leader of Opposition, she was physically assaulted inside the assembly she vowed that she would enter the assembly only as the Chief Minister .The DMK was defeated in the next assembly elections & did not win a single seat in the General elections held in the same year. Though her first term is best remembered for multiple scams & her excesses she did introduce some good schemes like the cradle baby scheme as a response to the killing of the girl child at birth, all women police stations & 30% reservation for women in police jobs. Though she was defeated in the next assembly elections, she even lost her seat she made a stunning comeback in 2001.With time Jayalalithaa has matured, as a politician for the first time there has not been a big scam or controversy in her term. She has even managed to keep the voters in her side with a slew of welfare schemes like  Amma canteen which serves hugely subsidized meals, twenty kilos of rice for each BPL family, free mixie-grinders & fans, bicycles for school kids, full scholarships for students who do well in schools, sari and a taali (mangalsutra) for girls getting married.She has become even more shrewder in her calculations she courted the left by backing their candidates for the Rajya Sabha before showing  the door when she was convinced  about their lack of utility. One politician she resembles is Indira Gandhi both had to fight with senior leaders to gain control of their parties, both made comebacks after losing elections badly & both are manifestly dictatorial. Moreover, like Indira Gandhi whose core constituency was the economically poor Jaya is wooing the downtrodden with an effective PDS system & a slew of other welfare measures. A regional satrap at the top of her form she is hoping to do to DMK what she did to them in 1991 & what it did to her in 2004.But it won’t be a smooth ride for her, BJP has cobbled up a coalition consisting of Vijayakant’s DMDK, PMK & Vaiko’s MDMK which between them won 22% of votes in the last elections. This rainbow coalition could be a spoiler for her Prime Ministerial ambitions. But her political career is marked by contradictions she is woman in the males den of Tamil Nadu politics that too a Brahmin who heads a party which is an offshoot of the anti-Brahmin movement. Whether she finally wears the crown or not she is here to stay.