Machiavelli’s Amma

harimau #3

Jayalalitha is a high school dropout. But she speaks better English than 99% of today`s college graduates. Not to mention she is a little sharper than most of us.

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Ref dost-mittar #17

[A minor point. If I remember, she did not have a smooth succession after MGR`s death but had to fight it out with her suaten, the real wife of MGR, Janaki Devi.]

Nobody is quite sure whether Janaki was the real wife of MGR or just the long-term live-in. It is equally unclear whether Janaki was the third or the fourth ``wife`` of MGR. A friend once remarked to a taxi-driver in Chennai about the high and opulent life-style of the Chief Minister. The taxi-driver`s reply was, ``Let MGR live like a king; after all, we have elected him``. To which my friend replied, ``It is not that he lives like a king; rather, he lives like a sultan!`` I am sure that the irony was lost on the taxi-driver, asli-Masanamuthu that he was.

It is well-known that MGR slept with all of his leading ``ladies`` (if that term can be employed at all to describe film actresses). Jayalalitha was the last of his conquests but she was the one to inherit the party from him.

I landed in Bombay the day MGR died. So I had to wait out the displays of grief by asli-Masanamuthus of Tamil Nadu which consisted of immolating themselves, breaking up and selling for scrap a statue of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion (the Pentagon probably got the idea for breaking Saddam`s statue from this incident), and generally taking themselves out of the gene pool by travelling on the roofs of electric trains. The Kallan variety of Masanamuthus merely looted the stores on Mount Road and helped themselves to the goods on display.

The height of entertainment was to be had after MGR`s death. The jockeying for power between Jayalalitha and Annai Janaki Thai (literally, ``Mother Janaki Mother``, probably an overflow of the so-called ``Mother sentiment`` common to Tamil movies that inspired the Masanamuthus to refer to Janaki in this manner) was being detailed in the vernacular press. I rushed out daily to buy every single morning and evening Tamil newspaper and savored the writing and speaking style of various political characters that was being reported. I still remember the daily ``Dinakaran`` saying that the ``Kuppans and Suppans`` of Tamil Nadu actually believed that MGR`s wealth would be distributed among them as his will said. The controversy over the will was resolved days later when MGR`s lawyer -- a brahmin, who else? -- reported that MGR appeared in his dream and instructed him to use MGR`s estate to start a school for the deaf-and-dumb and for educational purposes. It is not clear whether the lawyer actually filed an affidavit to this effect in the probate court; however, all parties, including the officials responsible for collecting the estate tax, accepted this as evidence of MGR`s intentions and the only thing missing in this cinematic ending to the controversy was the sky-writing of the word ``Shubham`` (``Shubh`` to you Hindi-wallahs) or the politico-linguistically more-correct ``Vanakkam`` (``greetings``).

The meeting of the Legislative Assembly was tumultuous and Annai Janaki Thai`s government lost a no-confidence vote less that 30 days after being sworn in. In between, you had the spectacle of MLAs being bid up by the Janaki and Jayalalitha faction, with one honest MLA mourning the fact that he had sold himself early in the game for Rs. 5 lakhs while the current rate had reached Rs. 15 lakhs. MLAs belonging to the Jayalalitha faction disappeared from the scene altogether to prevent them from being enticed away by the Janaki faction; they showed up in time for the no-confidence vote, having been kept locked up in a factory in Virudhunagar or in a hotel in Bangalore. The lack of TV meant that the news reporting lacked visual punch but all one had to do was to recall various MGR movies to know that Good would triumph over Evil as it indeed did when Janaki`s government fell and new elections were called.


Ref asli-Masanamuthu #13

[#10 jang
Please keep rumors like this to yourself or else you will have to bear responsibility for any heart attacks you may cause Sri Harimau Iyer.]

How come you didn`t suffer a cardiac arrest when all of Tamil Nadu, despite 70 years of anti-brahmin propaganda, was offered the choice of Jayalaitha (an Iyengar brahmin) or Janaki (the b@stard daughter of Rajagopala Iyer, brother of the more famous Papanasam Sivan) as their leader, and that too by a Dravidian party?

I recognize that you take offense at my referring to you as Masanamuthu. Would you prefer Kuppan or Suppan, as was used by the DMK organ ``Dinakaran``.

PS to all Chowkies: Those of you who think that I make up names like Masanamuthu ought to read ``The Hindu``. Two days back, it was reported that the Tahsildar of Nanguneri tahsil in Tamil Nadu was run over by a truck illegally mining sand from a riverbed which he was trying to prevent. Among those arrested was one P. Masanamuthu. Honest!

Hello again...

Samankhan - thanks for clearing that up.

Soysauce - you got me! I think it`s paranoia fostered on the editing table...

Urstruly - I`m sure some of it is due to the Hindu/Muslim tag but personally I feel it is because Farzana is a better writer/reaches a wider audience and is therefore a lot more provocative.

Nikki7777 - I`m still in the dark as to why you dislike quite half of your species for faults shared by the whole, but as far as JJ goes, you`re right she has accomplished a lot. But what you dismiss as ``a few hi-jinks`` are deadly serious matters that affect their day-to-day living to millions of Tamils. It is not only JJ, however, I am skeptical of the political class in general. But a few like JJ manage to amuse me even as they sicken me. ... And btw, while it`s true that Madras has seen more than its fair share of immigrants, you err in the size of the Presidency. The MP was bordered by the three princely states of Travancore, Mysore and Hyderabad.

Dost-mittar - Ah, the first person to notice that tiny detail! Here`s the thing: the first draft ran into a cool 2000 words and space constraints led to the deletion of those minor points that make it all so interesting. Sorry. Btw, whatever happened to JD? Last I heard (several years ago) she was still casting inefectual evil eyes at JJ.

Jang - :) Lol.

Layman - Thank you. As for the Kanchi seer, whatever my opinions (or anybody else`s for that matter) the fact remains that he would never have been prosecuted had JJ not been P.O`d at him thanks to that very judicial system you remark upon. As far as my last para is concerned - you mis

Layman - As far as the last para is concerned, the point is that JJ is a ``lambi race ka ghoda`` and JJ juggernaut is here to stay.

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Amrita,
I liked your article except for the last paragraph.
I think it is inaccurate to call her a non-Tamil. Agreed she hails from Karnataka but her mother tongue is Tamil and her folks must have moved from TN to Karnataka some generations ago. If a Tamil moves to Bombay or Delhi or the US, does he/she cease to be Tamil?
While it does require some courage to arrest a major religious figure, the case against the Kanchi seer is strong. Going by the allegations coming out of the woodwork, there seems to be a pattern of murders from the mid 80s that the Kanchi seer is accused of masterminding. The evidence in the recent case of Shankararaman`s murder was so compelling that Jayalalitha was under pressure from the opposition to arrest the Kanchi seer. Karunanidhi had threatened to protest and the Tamil magazine Nakkeeran was writing for a long time on this issue.
The Indian justice system is quite inefficient, and a lot of politicians get away with corruption and murder. This does not excuse the Kanchi seer from his misdeeds (if he has committed any).

Coming back to your last para, it is true that Jaya has got the power for now, but she is in a very weak position politically. Her party got thrashed in the recent general elections, winning zero seats in TN and the outlook is bleak for the next state elections. By allying closely with the BJP, she had put off sections of the electorate (who strangely were not put off by the DMK allying with the BJP for over four years). I guess arresting the Kanchi seer will help her win back some of the support, but her victory in the next state elections is far from confirmed.

soya,

we non madrasis think highly of her. i mean, compared to lalu .. the net seems to be full of other stories about her. there are so many, perhaps its time to write the 19-th purana (jaya purana). you madrasis seem very strange to outsiders, with your nose-high-in-the-air brahmins, and all the other dmk types prabhudeva followers. also i realized that in madras province, the title equivalent to ji is ``saar (sir)``. i learn it while buying railway train tickets..if you address the ticket-clerk as saar, he finds the right seats and says seri, seri.

anyways here is one story from jaya-purana.

Jaya throws her weight around.

``Jayalalitha, her entourage (including her ``COMPANION`` Sashikala, and AIADMK leaders Thambidurai and Muthiah) and her security personnel entered the lift at the Ashoka Hotel to make their way to her allotted rooms on the fifth floor. But despite repeatedly pressing the required button the lift refused to move, while the overhead sign flashed `Overload`. Thambidurai stepped out, and the button was pressed again, but the `Overload` sign continued to flash, while the lift remained stationary. It was only after two of her security personnel stepped out as well, that the lift began ascending. Jayalalitha was so irritated by the episode that she flounced out of the hotel in a huff. ``

#14 by Urstruly

how come ferzana gets wah wahs from you or HP but not amrita?

Amrita:

Very apt title indeed! I think that JJ is ahead of Indira in sheer guts and manipulation. Moreover, unlike Indira, she seems to be also good at governance and TN has progressed a lot under her. She passed anti-conversion bill and befriended RSS when she thought that she had a shot at the premier job in Delhi. If the last election had resulted in a hung parliament, as many expected, she had positioned herself well to be a compromise candidate for the PM`s job. As the unexpected results came, she lost no time in changing her political direction.

A minor point. If I remember, she did not have a smooth succession after MGR`s death but had to fight it out with her suaten, the real wife of MGR, Janaki Devi.

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Why there is such a sharp contrast between the responses when Farzana wrote on this topic as compared to when a Hindu writes on the same topic. On Farzana`s board Hindus were ``chaddi phaar kar uchal rahe thay`` and here they are acting like calm intellectuals. (I am using the word ``Intellectuals`` in the sense that fits hindus). I want to know why.

Another article with too many commas. What`s with these aspiring writers and commas?

#10 jang
Please keep rumors like this to yourself or else you will have to bear responsibility for any heart attacks you may cause Sri Harimau Iyer.

No, false.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this article.

Islamabadikurri – Thank you. I tried and I hope you do!

Nikki777 – bow wow to you too! And what do you have against women anyway? I think they are rather nice and interesting.

Harimau – I live in fear and trembling, I assure you! And as for her knowing more than her ministers, one of the reasons might be the fact that her cabinet is one giant revolving door spitting out ministers before they ever get a hold of their portfolio. The ones that survive are the smart ones who realize that the Enlightened Leader knows best. However, I agree that JJ is a very intelligent person and also one of the gutsiest politicians I’ve ever seen. More remarkably, she has no problems in acknowledging an error of political judgment and rectifying it immediately. But the manner in which she accomplishes all of the above is what truly fascinates me!

Ralph – precisely! : )

Ballukhan & Kaalchakra – I’m pretty much in the same boat as you two but that’s entirely another story.
As for a general audit, I’m a bit mixed up on the issue. On the one hand, I believe that it’s only fair and will certainly nip the Kanchi kind of mess from erupting in the future. Also, it’s a huge taxation source and a country like India really needs all the financial help it can get. On the other hand, in common with most other Indians, I am not sure whether involving the government is such a hot idea. These religious institutions do a lot of good work as well as their more publicized abuses and the government, unfortunately, has a tendency to drown everything in red tape before letting a slim ray of light through – a process guaranteed to kill before it cures. On balance, though, I think it’s time greater financial culpability.

Jang – asking for better organization is not non-Hindu at all. In fact, Adi Shankara did a whole lot of it and he’s a pretty important Hindu personality. If you’re referring to the fact that Hinduism is not an organized religion along the lines of the Abrahamic faiths, then you see that the very absence of the attendant rigidity allows us the freedom to constantly, well, upgrade, our religion, I suppose. As for JJ and her girlfriend, well – they’re no secret but I think you’ve got your wires crossed somewhere. The lady in question is definitely involved in several of JJ’s scandals but they are all political and finance-related cases with nary a closet in sight. I didn’t even know such a scoop existed. Does it?

ballu and kaura

i think what you ask is so non-hindu. you are asking for better organization. that is a non-hindu thought. you are free as a hindu to form whatever mutt or pedigree you want. fund managament of mutts is already under govt (secular) scrutiny, so that is a non-issue (e.g. most larger temples have IAS officers and other public-servants taking care of their trusts and funds). the only way to make hindu community better is by joining an existing mutt or forming a new one. you cannot ``control`` mutts or call them non-hindu.

i hear that JJ has a girl-friend and she is not in the closet. is it true?

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re: Ballukhan # 7

That is so true. It will be a mistake to chalk this episode to the errors of one religious leader or one politician. We need a dialogue on what is wrong with the way our religion is organized or disorganized, how accountability is established for the power and prestige religious leaders receieve, and then, if religious leaders are innocent, how they are to be protected from the machinations of poweful and ambitious politicians.

``After that debacle, however, he apparently foresaw the end of his influence and was quoted saying, “her arrogance will be her downfall.” Soon thereafter, Amma jettisoned her political albatross, a gobsmacked BJP, in inimitable style – she had the Seer arrested for conspiracy to commit murder. ``

I also thought that this could be the case.......but the facts appear to be even more sordid.......more complaints appear to be in offing against the seer....more evidences are supposed to appear which may reveal not too savoury conduct of the seer.
It is time my hindu bretheren tried to look into the broader issues of the conduct of their spiritual seers in such institutions- so difficult is the spiritual path that even the seers require to be admonished for their smallest misconduct.
It is also important that the hindus look carefully into the possibility of a mandatory yearly financial as well as social audit of these religious institutions by special auditors so as to keep control over the misuse of authority by the top spiritual leaders of the maths. It is high time that people realize that any support to religious leaders in political and temporal matters is bound to create authoritarian centres who believe they can get away even with murder in the name of dharma yuddha or jehad!!

Ref nikki7777 #2

[...A few high jinks aside, she is a literate(college grad), intranet savvy and a keen politician...]

I am sure that Jayalalitha didn`t go to college. She herself has said in an interview that her family`s financial circumstances forced her to star in movies after high school and that it broke her heart that she couldn`t attend college.

However, she is fluent in English, having been educated in an English-medium school; is surprisingly fluent in Tamil despite not being schooled in the Tamil language (unlike Fund-of-Compassion Maran, the grand-nephew of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion); speaks Kannada (her native language) and Telugu with ease; and can hold forth eloquently in Hindi. At the beginning of the year, she was in New Delhi and gave a press conference. At the end of the English session, she invited Hindi newsmen to ask her questions and spoke for another 90 minutes in Hindi.

Nobody doubts that she is bright. She answers questions on the floor of the Legislative Assembly with full command of facts and figures pertaining not only to the portfolios she handles but also the departments administered by various ministers. In fact, she knows the facts better than the minister concerned. She is quick with repartee and even the Opposition concedes that she is an able leader of her party.

Before Asli Masanamuthu does, I want to register my protest at the Elder Son of Mother Tamil-Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion being referred to with casual disdain as ``Karunanidhi``. That the writer of such insolent words bears the suspicious name of ``Amrita`` as opposed to some thing like ``Love Queen`` or ``Senthamizh Selvi`` is proof of an Aryan conspiracy aimed at defeating the progress made under the leadership of Doctor Artist Leader the Fund of Compassion. The Tamils are not going to take this lying down and if Asli Masanamuthu decides to set himself on fire to protest this insult, the fault would lie entirely with the writer and Chowk.

[A figure dearer to a Tamilian’s heart than his politician, is his film star. For example, the fans of one actress (a north-Indian Muslim) built her a temple....]

That raises a fundamental religious question: is a Muslim allowed to wear the kumkum (vermillion powder) offered as `prasad` at the Goddess Khushbambika Temple, (Khushbhoo being the Muslim actress in question)? Can Mullah32 or any other Islamic scholar provide an answer or do I have to write to e-fatwa.com for a decision?

nikki7777

Still, had Machiavelli lived in Amma`s raj, he would have begged for early retirement after being outwitted everyday and locked up a few times. :)

Amrita, this was very interesting. Hope to read more of your articles.

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