Tamil doyen with impact across India
A key pole around which the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu flourished, Karunanidhi strode the state’s political stage like a colossus for nearly six decades
When the man in his trademark dark glasses would start a speech in his gravelly voice with the words “En uyirinum melaana anbu udan pirappukkale” (my brethren, who I consider greater than my life) in chaste Tamil, the large crowds that would assemble to hear him would go wild in rapture, cheering him on.
It was a line that Muthuvel Karunanidhi would use at the beginning of every speech — one his Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party workers would never tire of. He would go on to electrify the party cadre with his acerbic wit and the vitriol he would shower on his opponents.
Karunanidhi died on Tuesday at the age of 94 after striding the political stage of Tamil Nadu like a colossus for nearly six decades, personally undefeated in any election he contested, whatever be the fortunes of the DMK. He was elected 13 times to the Tamil Nadu legislature and was chief minister five times.
Given his humble origins, not many would have given him a chance of becoming one key pole around which the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu would go on to flourish.
Tamil language, culture, arts, history and its people’s past achievements drove much of Karunanidhi’s ideology.
In 1944, at the age of 20, he became a movie scriptwriter for Jupiter Pictures. The first movie that hit the screens for which he had written the script was Rajakumari, released in 1947. The leading man in that movie was none other than MG Ramachandran, who would become first a close friend and eventually a political arch foe whom he could never vanquish.
It was the 1952 movie Parasakthi starring another Tamil superstar, Shivaji Ganesan, that signalled the arrival of Karunanidhi as a cultural phenomenon. The powerful dialogues, the underlying theme of a campaign for a Dravidan nation against the backdrop of caste oppression, stirred the Tamil masses. Karunanidhi used the power of his pen to push the ideological line of the DMK — of justice, equality, rational thought, self-respect, Tamil pride and identity as well as anti-brahminism.
Even as his scriptwriting career soared to new heights (eventually he would go-on to write the scripts for 39 movies apart from poems, plays, novels and songs that led to the title of Kalaignar or The Artiste being conferred on him by fans), his interest in and commitment to politics never flagged. When Annadurai left the Dravidar Kazhagam of Periyar to form the DMK, Karunanidhi threw in his lot with Anna.
In 1957, at the age of 33, Karunanidhi entered the Tamil Nadu assembly for the first time from the Kulithalai seat in Trichy.
Within five years, he was deputy leader of the opposition and party treasurer. In 1967, when the DMK came to power, he was public works minister in Anna’s cabinet and after his political mentor died in 1969, he became the CM of the state for the first time, a feat he would go on to achieve four more times.
In 1972, MGR, who had done much to popularise the DMK’S ideology and its electoral symbol of the Rising Sun, left the party after differences with Karunanidhi and launched the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). In 1977, the AIADMK defeated DMK. From then on until the death of MGR a decade later, the DMK was confined to the political wilderness.
It was only after succession pangs split the AIADMK in 1989 after MGR’S demise that Karunanidhi returned to power.
AIADMK, which had recovered under MGR’S protégé and his leading lady in numerous movies, J Jayalalithaa, handed DMK a defeat in the 1991 elections after the Centre had dismissed the state government within two years of coming to power. Subsequently, power alternated between the two parties, till Jayalalithaa broke the jinx just six months before her death in December 2016 by retaining power. Even in the 2016 elections, Karunanidhi won his own Tiruvarur seat easily.
In the latter part of his career, Karunanidhi became ideologically more flexible and did not hesitate to tie up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Atal Bihari Vajpayee and even became a part of the Bjp-led National Democratic Alliance government. While he shared a warm personal rapport with Vajpayee, he did not hesitate to switch sides to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in 2004.
While a few corruption allegations dogged his career apart from charges of nepotism, Karunanidhi until the end retained his connect with the Tamil masses. Until a few years ago, Karunanidhi would write regularly in the party mouthpiece ‘Murasoli’ and when his nephews, who ran Sun TV, fell out of favour with him briefly, Karunanidhi launched ‘Kalaignar TV’ to maintain the connect.
Although he has anointed his youngest son Stalin as his successor, the issue of succession in DMK is not fully settled. His elder son Alagiri, who is seen as the strongman of the party’s southern base, operates out of Madurai.
It remains to be seen whether ‘Thangai Thalapathi’ (Golden Commander), as Stalin is fondly referred to by his followers, would be able to inherit the legacy of his father. July 26 marked the 50th year since Karunanidhi took the reins of the DMK.
With the death of Jayalalithaa in 2016 and now that of Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu has come to the end of an era in its often tempestuous politics.
Filmstars Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan are waiting in the wings to fill the vacuum, and it remains to be seen if Stalin has the ability to ensure that DMK stays relevant.
The DMK’S Sun has set, will the son ensure its rise again?