New Delhi: File picture of DMK chief M Karunanidhi who passed away on Tuesday, Aug 7, 2018, after a prolonged illness, at a Chennai hospital where he was admitted for some days. He was 94. (PTI Photo) (STORY TAR34, TAR35, LND35, KYD35) (PTI8_7_2018_000252B) *** Local Caption *** Chennai: When M Karunanidhi was in his early teens, he and his friend decided to swim across the Kamalalayam tank in the Thiagarajaswamy Temple in his native Tiruvarur. Half way through, his friend was tired and suggested to Karunanidhi that they should swim back. But the young Karunanidhi turned down the suggestion saying, “We have come half-way. We just need to cross the remaining half distance to reach the other end, instead of returning to where we started.”
This perseverance to attain goals and overcome adversity would come to define the thrice-married Karunanidhi’s survival instincts for the rest of his illustrious life that saw him successfully don multiple avatars such as film screenplay writer, drama artiste, journalist, Tamil litterateur, rationalist and politician.
Few leaders in India or even in the world have remained relevant across four generations. When Karunanidhi, who began his political career as a 14-year-old smitten by the Dravidian Movement, first entered the Tamil Nadu Assembly in 1957 at the age of 33, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister in the country. In the decades that followed, Karunanidhi outlived his contemporaries to remain a central player not just in Tamil Nadu but also nationally sewing up alliances with the likes of Indira Gandhi, V P Singh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sonia Gandhi.
He was the architect of the National Front, the United Front and the United Progressive Alliance besides being a partner in the second National Democratic Alliance government. Born in Thirukuvalai, a nondescript village in the present day Nagapattinam district, to a family of nagaswaram (a musical instrument) artistes, Karunanidhi refused to follow the family tradition and take to playing the instrument because he placed his self-pride above everything else. “In those days, those belonging to the community of nagaswaram players were not allowed to wear the angavastram (a shawl) around their neck and instead were required to tie it around their waist as a symbol of accepting the supremacy of the dominant community. This was unacceptable to me and I refused to become a nagaswaram player,” he would recall often.
As a school boy, Karunanidhi produced a hand-written magazine propagating the ideas of self-respect and anti-Brahminism as he had come under the influence of Justice Party leaders and social reformer Periyar E V Ramasamy, who later formed the Dravidar Kazhagam. He worked in Periyar’s magazines and went on to launch the Murasoli, which is among the longest surviving mouthpieces of a political party and is currently in its platinum jubilee year. His letters to the cadres under the title ‘Udanpirappu Kaditham’ (Letter to siblings) was among the longest running communication between a leader and his party men.
Through his powerful screenplay and dialogues, he awakened the masses and introduced them to rationalist thoughts using cinema as a medium. It was his fiery dialogues in Parasakthi that launched one of India’s finest actors Sivaji Ganesan in 1952. When the Dravidar Munnetra Kazhagam was formed by C N Annadurai in 1949 as an offshoot of the Dravidar Kazhagam, Karunanidhi joined its ranks and was among its first MLAs. There was no looking back for Karunanidhi who since went on win in each of the 13 Assembly elections he contested, a feat unparalleled anywhere in the country.
Though Karunanidhi was not among the five founding leaders of the DMK, through deft political moves he managed to become the Chief Minister after Annadurai’s death in 1969 outsmarting V R Nedunchezhiyan, who was number two in the Cabinet. He created the post of ‘President’ in the DMK the same year and occupied it till the end entering the 50th year only on July 27, thereby achieving another unrivalled political feat of heading a political party for nearly half-a-century.
He was instrumental in Chief Ministers of states acquiring the right to hoist the national flag on Independence Day. As a strong votary of State autonomy, he forged ties with regional leaders to drive home the point that politics of federalism is the way forward in India. If Dravidian parties have come to dominate Tamil Nadu’s political landscape giving little room for national parties the credit would again go to Karunanidhi, who seizing a weak moment in Indira Gandhi’s life following her famous rift with Kamaraj, got her Congress (R) to declare that it won’t contest the Assembly elections in 1971. The costly mistake led to the Congress playing second fiddle to the Dravidian parties till date.
However, it was during the Emergency that Karunanidhi’s stature rose nationally. Soon after Indira Gandhi opposed Emergency, Karunanidhi passed a resolution opposing it – the first state to do so in the country. He made it clear that the draconian laws of Emergency would not be used in Tamil Nadu. Rebels like George Fernandes found safe refuge in Tamil Nadu under his rule. An angry Indira Gandhi got his government dismissed and his son M K Stalin was among those jailed under the Maintenance of Internal Securities Act (MISA). He found an ingenious way to overcome press censorship by communicating to his party cadres through Murasoli about the leaders who were arrested. Instead of naming the arrested leaders, he simply named all leaders who turned up to pay homage at Anna memorial on his death anniversary.
Later, he allied with the same Indira Gandhi welcoming her with the slogan – ‘Nehru’s daughter come, give a stable government’. He rewrote the same slogan in 2004 inviting Sonia Gandhi to lead the UPA saying ‘Indira Gandhi’s daughter-in-law come, give a stable government’. Despite his Dravidian rationalist moorings he found no trouble in joining the BJP-led NDA in 1999 after having called the saffron organisation, a party of the wanderers, just a year earlier.
He did make some costly political mistakes like expelling the matinee idol M G Ramachandran (MGR) from the DMK in 1972, which eventually led to the DMK being out of power for 13 years – from 1976 to 1989. Yet he was a master of keeping the DMK alive and relevant even while out of power and could never be written off till the end. Even when Vaiko was expelled from the party and the nine DMK district secretaries walked away with him, Karunanidhi managed to keep the cadres intact and promote his own son M K Stalin and other family members in the organisation and government.
His DMK government was dismissed twice – once during Emergency and again in 1991 but Karunanidhi took everything in his stride and converted challenges into opportunities to become serve as Chief Minister for five terms. Karunanidhi was also instrumental in Jayalalithaa’s continuance in politics. She had all but set her mind on quitting politics, when Karunanidhi through the police intelligence wing released her old resignation letter that led her to change her plans and emerge as his arch rival.
An early riser and yoga practitioner, Karunanidhi, until he was confined to a wheelchair in 2009 following spinal surgery, would go for regular walks with his pet dogs. Even between 2009 and late 2016, his mind remained as agile as that of a teenager and his political thought process would often be about what next and not about the past. In December 2016, he was hospitalised following a drug allergy and undergone a tracheostomy procedure. Thereafter, for much of the past 18 months he has largely remained unaware of his surroundings but it was his will power that helped him pull along. His strongest critic and journalist Cho Ramaswamy once paid tributes to Karunanidhi describing him as a “Man who gave rest to rest”. That was how he worked and never tired of politics. Now he shall rest in peace finally.
Kalaignar vazhga
The DMK’s rising sun M Karunanidhi finally set at 6.10 pm on Tuesday with the 94-year-old veteran of numerous political battles losing his final battle to nature after a 11-day hospitalisation. The state government has declared a holiday on Wednesday and announced a week-long mourning. The death of the five-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who headed the DMK as president for nearly 50 years and was affectionately called Kalaignar (artiste), saw thousands of his followers breaking down with loud cries of ‘Kalaignar vazhga…’(Long live Karunanidhi).