Jayalalithaa Hell hath no fury

Source: www.vigilonline.com

If it weren’t for the fact that we are dealing with a perverse woman hell-bent on destroying a high religious institution, I could have smirked that events related to the Kanchi mutt are unfolding unerringly along scripted lines
(http://www.vigilonline.com/news/plain_speak/ps_view.asp?plainSpeakId=72). First the woman arrests Pujya Kanchi Acharya, then she gets her minions to plant stories in the media about Pujya Acharya and thin women and fat, young women and bald, and when she realizes that people are laughing at her desperation she arrests the manager of the mutt, then she arrests Pujya Bala Periava’s brother, then she gets the unsavoury SP of Kancheepuram to issue periodic summons to devotees and bhaktas of the mutt and finally she gets her menials once again to plant stories in the media about the impending take-over of the mutt itself.

So far, Jayalaithaa was playing the role as crafted in the script that she wrote for the mutt - herself as Nemesis and Pujya Acharya as villain. The courts in Tamil Nadu including the Madras High Court were willing dramatis personae of this script. Besides acting in tandem with each other in adjourning bail hearings, extending judicial or police custody with a view to keeping Pujya Acharyas in jail for as long as was legally possible without grounds, the Madras High Court while refusing the bail petition of Pujya Acharya for the second time on 8th December 2004, virtually declared the Acharya to be guilty of crimes punishable by death or life imprisonment. This does little to affirm the faith of Hindus in the state judiciary.

But, and it is a significant but, there happened a twist in the tale and the unfolding drama that had turned into a heart-wrenching tragedy for devotees and supporters of the mutt was now fast turning into a melodrama, not to say spoof to the lady’s consternation. Our lady was confronted by three judges of the Supreme Court who refused to go along with her script. They decided to ad lib and the lady’s plot went awry. The script came unstuck at the seams and the story danced along running out of the lady’s control. Pujya Acharya was granted bail by the Supreme Court and he is back in the Kalavai mutt, his Guru sthanam, doing what Jayalalithaa feared the most, attracting the rich and the famous and the powerful, attracting devotees in huge numbers, towards himself. All roads it would seem, lead to Kalavai. Pujya Acharya was reinstated as the idol in the script, now being crafted by the Supreme Court which also dismissed Jayalalithaa’s curative petition not to have her disproportionate assets case heard in Bangalore. The lady has been banished to the corner with the dunce cap on her head. The Supreme Court has now appropriated Jayalalithaa’s coveted role of Nemesis in the drama and I could chortle with glee.

But Jayalalithaa doesn’t like wearing the dunce cap it seems nor does she like being made to sit in the corner. So soon after the Supreme Court delivered the judgment granting bail to Pujya Acharya, she stomped her feet, threw a blue fit, did a ‘Surpanakha-with-a-chopped-nose’ act and arrested Pujya Bala Periava promptly in the evening. Then she freezes all 183 bank accounts of the Kanchi mutt so that Pujya Acharya will not have the wherewithal to run the huge establishment which includes the mutt itself, goshalas, homes for the aged, for the destitute, for girl children, the veda patashalas and all other trusts and institutions rendering great service to the needy and the deprived irrespective of their caste or religion. And finally she did what some of us have been waiting for her to do – detain Sundaresa Iyer, the manager of the mutt and Raghu, Pujya Bala Periava’s brother under the Goonda’s Act. Jayalalithaa must understand that nothing that she has done or intended to do so far has taken any of us by surprise. We have always known what her next move would be. It doesn’t call for much intelligence to deconstruct a deranged mind.

We may never know why Jayalalithaa is playing the classic role of the woman scorned. But there seems to be no rhyme or reason to anything that she has done so far. At least not if one were to use normal human conduct as the touchstone. But if we approached the issue as deconstructing a person who is neither rational nor normal then one may perceive the workings of a tortured mind. The arrest and what followed has been a saga of a woman in rage, not ordinary rage but demented rage. Jayalalithaa wanted to inflict maximum damage to the mutt and maximum humiliation to Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swamigal. Hindu sensibilities and Bala Periava’s incarceration are merely collateral damage, a small detour towards her real objective – to break Pujya Acharya’s spirit, discredit him for ever in the Acharya Sabha, de-legitimise him in public life, strip him of the leadership role that he had assumed in all issues concerning Hindu society and which had become politically charged and explosive and finally to force him to abdicate his peetham. These are not desires of an ordinary or a normal human being.

Let me grant that there is probably a very deep conspiracy to lay siege to the Hindus of the country, to entrap them in siege mentality – petrified by fear, feeling hounded, harassed and paralysed in thought and action. Now what may the consequences be of rendering the Hindus hors-de-combat for the polity of this country, its existence as a nation-state, its ethos as a Hindu-majority nation are matters for in-depth study and analysis. But let there be no doubts on this score, Hindus of India, constituting over 80% of the population can be made to feel helpless and impotent only by state power - domestic, foreign or both acting in collusion. Whether Jayalaithaa is acting alone or whether she is funded and backed by foreign forces and governments are still conjectures waiting to be proved. But the reign of terror that she has let loose against the Kanchi mutt, its devotees and supporters is similar to preludes to other wars when cows would be abducted or slaughtered, women carried away or raped and temples destroyed. These are acts intended to humiliate the victims and break their spirit. So who is Jayalalithaa’s target? Pujya Acharya, the Kanchi mutt, high Hindu religious institutions, the Hindus themselves? The answer to that one would depend on whether Jayalalithaa is a demented woman acting alone or acting in collusion with other large forces. And keeping in mind the fact that Pujya Acharya has been in the forefront of important issues concerning the Hindus and which have very grave political implications, it is possible that Jayalalithaa is colluding with very big external forces to render the Hindus impotent.

And that it why I suspect we are dealing with an abnormal mind. It is also a dangerous mind because it knows no restraint and is setting dangerous precedents for future relations between Indian polity and the Hindu community. And that is why ‘Vigil’ is insisting that Jayalalithaa be punished in an exemplary manner to discourage other adventurists in Indian polity from taking similar liberties with Hindu sensibilities. The cynical manner in which the Veerasaiva mutt in Kumbakonam was taken over three days ago by this woman only goes to prove that Jayalalithaa is demonstrating to the Hindu community that she will do anything now to hurt their interests and humiliate them. The take over of this mutt by the HR&CE by brute force was made possible only because constitutionally we have allowed the state the right to administer Hindu temples and Hindu religious institutions which also includes the right to take over any temple or religious institution under the flimsiest of pretexts. Having made an example of the Kanchi mutt Jayalalithaa has emboldened other rascals in Indian polity to demand the take over of the Udipi Sri Krishna temple and also the Udipi Pejawara mutt. I have no doubts that we will henceforth hear shrill demands for taking over this temple or that, this mutt or that, citing financial irregularities, caste conflict, discrimination, or anything at all.

If Hindu intellectuals who have so far played into Jayalalithaa’s hands by holding themselves and other important Hindu organizations aloof from the issue still do not have the intelligence to see the problem in its totality they will forever be held guilty of having let down the Indian civilization. The war for survival of the Hindus in their homeland has barely begun and these individuals are already out of the war. Hindus don’t need other enemies. They are their own worst enemies.

23rd January, 2005.

(Remarks by G.C.Asnani : An outstanding “Actor” or “Actress” should be able to play successfully the opposing roles very quickly. A little while ago, Ms Jayalalitha acted as pro-Hindu by passing Rules against Conversions. Now, she has reversed her role and played very successfully the role of an anti-Hindu. She is a top-class Actress.)