Jayalalitha friend sasikala biography of mahatma

Politics in the South is no different from that of the North. The personality cult dominates in both. People go mad over the leaders they prefer, and even go to the extent of self-immolating themselves in frenzy. The government has banned the practice but it has failed to stop it.

V.K. Sasikala in Tamil Nadu has become such a figure having been a close aide of former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. Today, she is the general secretary of the AIADMK and the party has elected her as the leader of its legislature wing. The outgoing chief minister O. Panneerselvam was asked to put in his resignation. He was not even present when the decision was taken.

But the sudden turn of events in Tamil Nadu has sent everyone into a tizzy. Panneerselvam, the close confidant of the deceased chief minister, has come out strongly against Sasikala, accusing her of trying to usurp power. The swearing-in ceremony, which was to be held on Tuesday, seems to have been put off for the moment as the governor, apparently at the instance of Union Home Ministry, is dragging his feet.

Even otherwise, this is not the opportune moment for a change of guard in the state as verdict over the disproportionate case against Sasikala and her mentor Jayalalithaa is awaited. The apex court has already indicated that a judgment will be delivered within a week. Whether she wins or loses, her stock is already waning.

As for Sasikala, she has been a long-standing friend of the former chief minister and by virtue of being close to Jayalalithaa, she wielded enormous power. But she was never nominated by her as successor. Sasikala's claim to fame can be attributed to her proximity with Jayalalithaa. There were allegedly occasions when even the former chief minister was annoyed with her friend and chose to keep her away.

Considered part of the Mannargudi mafia, Sasikala rubbed people on the wrong side, which had on occasions embarrassed Jayalal

The Tamil people nurture their cultural nationalism and neither voted for the Congress in the post-Kamaraj phase since 1967 nor did more recently allow the BJP to gain a toe hold in the state. Charismatic leadership and cult following characterises Tamil Nadu politics which has partially deteriorated to dynastic politics. Otherwise the legendary Madhavan Ganeshan Ramachandran’s (MGR) wife Janaki lasted only 28 days as CM, but his soul partner Jayalalithaa was a six-term chief minister. Now the late Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar has yet to inherit her paternal aunt’s political office. The absence of a clear line of succession is another feature of Dravidian politics over the last 50 years.

Read: AIADMK crisis: Setback for Sasikala as education minister Pandiarajan, 2 MPs join Panneerselvam camp

The late Jayalalithaa nominally appointed O Paneerselvam (OPS) in her absence to manage the government and administration -- but not the AIADMK. He could never inherit her charisma nor possess her mass appeal that largely evolved through her proximity to MGR. The nonagenarian DMK stalwart M Karunanidhi has appointed his son Stalin working president of the DMK which is not the same as a cult leader. Only Karunanidhi stakes claim to be the DMK’s cult leader. Similarly, Bal Thackeray was a cult leader who left the nuts and bolts of administration and pa

VK Sasikala’s ascent to the chief ministership of Tamil Nadu has added a strong Tamil flavour to the confused dirge for democracy we have been subjected to over the last few years, on account of events national and international.

When the electoral coin-toss – or indeed, subsequent political machinations as with Sasikala, a close aide of the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa – does not result in one set’s favour, excoriations of social decay and extant democratic systems routinely follow.

Why is the rise of Chinamma, as the chief minister-designate is known, so singularly egregious that champions of democracy have developed digestive disorders?

Not the only one

There have been holders of public office with fewer years of formal education than Saskilala, of whose qualifications little is known. She is also is not the first, and one can fairly assume, will not be the last unelected occupant of a ministerial chair. The fact that she is the second defendant in the same graft cases where four-term chief minister, Jayalithaa, was the first makes Sasikala’s credentials as crooked, or compelling as her friend’s, who was widely popular as a leader, to the extent of being deified.

In India, it has not been uncommon for neophytes – those with absolutely no legislative or public life experience – to overnight find themselves at the top of the executive tree. The outcome has not uniformly been catastrophic. If behind-the-scenes proximity to puissant men and women of politics (the equivalent of political and administrative apprenticeship by observation) is a yardstick, Sasikala has had a more than 30-year association with Jayalalithaa the politician.

When Sonia Gandhi took over as the Congress president in 1998 and in effect became the leader of the Opposition, she had no political experience, but had been a Nehru-Gandhi bahu for 30 years.

Providential parent

Now that the heat generated by Fire has cooled down and the Shiv Sena's antics have backfired on them, it is time to take stock of the film. Had I said one critical word about it while the controversy was raging, I might have been damned forever as a Hindu fundamentalist. Now that I have already passed my agnipariksha by defending, in public, the right of Deepa Mehta to screen such a film in India without threat of violence from the lunatic guardians of Hindu morality, I want to take the debate beyond the issue of censorship.

If I had seen Deepa Mehta's Fire without first being subjected to the whole barrage of propaganda hype surrounding it, I would have simply dismissed it as a naive and boring film about two unhappy housewives compelled to seek emotional and sexual satisfaction from each other because their husbands provide none. The film depicts the growing friendship and eventual sexual intimacy between Radha and Sita, married to two brothers who are living in a joint family. The laboured attempt to exploit the lesbian aspects of the Radha-Sita relationship to the neglect of other aspects of their lives is both immature and schematic, indicating that the director lacks an understanding of family life and emotional bonds in India.

Most amazing of all, even the sex scenes between the two women were dull and insipid. It was almost like watching two Egyptian mummies presented in a series of tableaux. It does indeed require special genius to transform lovemaking into such a lifeless act and yet sell the film as a hot, sensuous and radical statement on women's sexuality. One of my aunts made a rather perceptive comment after having yawned all the way through it: "Normally film directors add sex for titillation. In this film, the sex scenes are amazingly boring. Perhaps that's why the director had to add controversial scenes from the Ramayan in order to provoke the audience into taking notice of her film." Many of those who have seen the film shared my se