Ashamed To Be A Tamilan

Dec 10, 2004

Ashamed To Be A Tamilan

By Prakash M Swamy

For the first time in my life, I am ashamed to be from the state of Tamil Nadu and a media person having trained and worked in the city of Madras, now called Chennai. I have always felt that I am a proud citizen of Tamil Nadu, land of great saints and savants, freedom fighters and scholars. The state is now going to dogs, literally.

As a journalist, I have covered many a political event and interacted closely with politicians of various hue in my career spanning over 25 years in three major publications, including matinee idol-turned politician and founder of AIADMK M G Ramachandran, Congress leader G.K. Moopanar, DMK chief Muthuvel Karunanidhi and BJP leaders such as Jana Krishnamurthy and L. Ganesan. I had interacted with the true nationalist Kamaraj as a student leader and was awe-struck with his simplicity and honesty. As the lead investigator of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination scoop, I had interacted several times with Sonia Gandhi at the Raj Bhavan and was struck at her openness and cordiality.

As a political correspondent, I had been privy to the birth of AIADMK, vertical split of the DMK leading to the formation of MDMK, the breaking of the monolith Congress Party and the merger of smaller parties. Even those politicians pose as though they are hostile to the media in public, share a lot of information in private and exude warmness. I had witnessed a sort of love-hate relationship between the media and the politicians in the state constantly. I had gathered immense material for my research article on “25 years of Dravidian misrule in Tamil Nadu ‘for India Today and had an opportunity to discuss with politician of every hue, off the record to read their minds.

Having said this, I hasten to add that I had failed to comprehend and gauge a politician throughout my career. The person is none other than femme fatale -- Chief Minister Jayalalithaa.

We both assumed charge almost at the same time – she as chief minister and I, as bureau chief of India Today in Chennai in 1991. She is the most enigmatic politician I had ever seen in my career. Laloo had to hang his head in shame before her antics. Her latest move to detain the most revered Sankaracharya in a foisted up case speaks volumes of her state and stability of mind. Friends today and foes tomorrow has been her mantra be it Sankaracharya, Vajpayee, Sonia Gandhi, Subramanian Swamy or Dr Ramadoss. From an understudy of MGR in politics and his popular heroine in movies and companion in life, she has come a long way in politics.

My first major article on her began on a stormy note. She leveled molestation charge against the then state governor and a seasoned politician Dr M. Chenna Reddy in early 1990s and sending shock waves across the nation. From then, there is no turning back for her. Thinking retrospectively, I am happy that she did not file case against the Acharya on a charge of possessing marijuana that would have prevented him from any further appeal. The BJP government was helpless in seeking the release of one its alliance partner MDMK leader Vaiko when she threw him in the jail for anti-national activities under POTA. She jailed her adopted son V.N. Sudhakaran in prison on a charge of possessing dope when he fell out of her on money matters. She did not stop with that. She followed the same tactics and filed marijuana case against the son-in-law of the then Judge of the Madras High Court Justice A.R. Lakshm anan as he refused to “bail her “out in many of the criminal cases that came up for hearing before his bench. He is now a senior member of the nation’s apex court Bench.

It was during her regime that an attorney who vigorously pursued all her shady deals including the now infamous Tansi land scam was nearly killed. Now a member of parliament of the DMK and a leading attorney R. Shanmugasundaram was brutally attacked by dangerous weapons in 48 places in his body and was lying in hospital bed for six months. This is the body politic of the state.

You want to see another face of the same politician? Acid was thrown on the face of a senior IAS officer V. Chandralekha who refused to yield to government’s pressure in the disinvestment of Southern Petro Chemicals in Chennai. The beautiful woman’s face was disfigured and the kiss-of-death compelled her to enter into politics against Jayalalithaa.

Coming to the Sankaracharya’s case, there could be no doubt that law should take its own course if he was found guilty. But the shape of things suggest that the government had acted in haste without any evidence to settle scores and now indulging in smear campaign to defame the senior seer. The police are literally carrying a manhunt and drags people who were not even remotely connected with the case. I wonder whether someone would come out with a statement in the following weeks that Kanchi Acharya had raped her and gave her a child or deserted her.

People in glass houses should refrain from throwing stones and persons with questionable morality should not indulge in damaging an institution. The media that was bashed up by the same Jayalalithaa is now backing her to the hilt closing its eyes to the reality. The media in Tamil Nadu has assumed the role of a policeman, public prosecutor, jury, judge, jailor and hangman using its 0.5 mm ballpoint pen as the powerful potent weapon little realizing that it would bounce back on them at the most inappropriate time. New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists had named Tamil Nadu as the battleground for genuine media persons wanting to practice investigative journalism. God Save Tamil Nadu and its wonderful people