Jayalalithaa: A warrior queen with welfare heart who won many a war

CHENNAI: Leading a rump AIADMK after MGR's death, Jayalalithaa had lost the 1989 assembly election. Down and apparently wanting to opt out, she wrote a letter to the assembly Speaker saying she was resigning as MLA. She didn't send the letter, but, mysteriously enough, it made its way to the Speaker who said he was accepting the resignation. Enraged by this, Jayalalithaa dug in her heels and swept the polls in 1991. This was not the only time she chose to fight back and win when her opponents sought to corner her.

Tragedies and setbacks were never a stranger to Jayalalithaa. She lost her father early and her mother just when she was stepping into adulthood. She could never settle into never settle into the domestic, married life she year ned for. When her film world mentor MGR brought her into politics, the bigwigs with in the party threw a fit. Some of them rebelled openly . But, for her, life was as much about coming out on top in the big bad world of movies as it was about staving off challenges in the murky, male-dominated world of politics.

Jayalalithaa's political graph was an improbable one. Though born and raised in a Brahmin family, she seized the initiative in a party of the Dravidian movement known for its antipathy to Brahmins. From film star and political novice to fierce protector and mother-figure for the people, she reinvented herself often. For Tamil women - her mass base - she showed what a woman can do in a man's world. They identified with her personal story, her seemingly indomitable spirit.

Critics chafed at Jayalalithaa's take-no prisoners approach. Remember when her growing demands brought down the Vajpayee government in 1998. Even in Cauvery her last policy battle - she chose to fight it out in courts till the end rather than negotiate.

Allegations of corruption dogged her for nearly 20 years. The cases against her were often watertight and judges found them compelling. She was convicted four times, yet managed to shake loose legal shackles and come back to power. Jayalalithaa's earliest training ground may have moulded her political ideas.

Her mentor MGR had given her a key role in putting together the landmark noon-meal scheme that has been lauded for its audacity as well as for achieving key social goals like boosting school enrolment and cutting down dropout levels. Taking welfare politics to heart - the subsidised Amma canteens were only a recent example - she expanded it to freebies that reinforced her stern but caring mother image.


Jayalalithaa inherited MGR's AIADMK, whose rank and file comprised the lowest rungs of Tamil society , and presided over it as its unquestioned leader. Under her, novices who demonstrated their loyalty found themselves catapulted into the big league; they also faced the axe when they crossed the line. They queued up to fall at her feet, irrespective of age, and she seemed to tower over them.


When parties everywhere seemed to prefer coalitions, she boldly went alone and won. In the 2014 Lok Sabha poll marked by the national Modi wave, the AIADMK scored nearly 45% of the votes, on its own, and won 37 of the 39 seats in the state. This year in Tamil Nadu, for the first time in more than 30 years, the AIADMK bucked the trend of regime change.

Just as it reached its apogee in terms of mass base, AIADMK finds itself in trouble. With Jayalalithaa at the helm, there was little room for any other leader with mass appeal in the party .Without her, the party stares at a political vacuum.