Chennai: The Rani Seethai hall, marking one side of the famous Gemini corner here, overflowed with people on Tuesday evening. It was no high profile book release; the only resonance was the replay of a stirring Tamil speech by late C N Annadurai, DMK’s founder-leader and the party’s first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, popularly known as ‘Anna’ to millions.
As one of Anna’s early political finds and now founder-chancellor of the global VIT University, Vellore, G. Viswanathan’s modest political memoir on Anna was released by his one-time colleague and now MDMK general secretary, Mr Vaiko, with the veteran Parliamentarian and constitutional expert Era Chezhian presiding, one aspect clearly stood out: the uphill task Annadurai’s followers face today in upholding the secular and cosmopolitan legacy left by the great leader.
The memoir titled, Anna Arumai Anna by GV, briefly but austerely covering the vital, turning-point events that filled the tumultuous life of CNA as the author and former DMK MP witnessed them from the inside, comes as an unwitting reminder that politics is not just winning elections, but also nurturing a healthy, open society.
At a time when the ‘legacy of the Dravidian Movement’ is being questioned by a range of forces from the political far-right, Hindutva to extreme-Left, Vaiko quickly placed GV’s book release in its political setting when he said, “Indru Dravida Iyakkam Ella Munaigalilum Thaaka Padukirathu (‘The Dravidian Movement is under assault from all directions’).
But what the critics are missing, as Vaiko put it, is the ‘enduring contribution’ of an amazing political leader like Annadurai-, hailing from a humble background in Kancheepuram — in enlarging Periyar’s legacy of social justice, a rational and secular humanism without hurting anybody’s religious sentiments, and development of the Tamil language, all made richer by Anna’s qualities of “simplicity, honesty and political civility” in public life.
By raising “this question as a follower of Anna”, Vaiko hoped, more so among a large group of cynical youth, that GV’s memoir would help push those values, though Anna’s “political creations” are in different camps now, and GV’s own self-description as a “former politician” who now values his role as educationist more.
Clearly, for GV, these reminiscences, in simple readable style, are as much personal as they mirror events of a bygone era that culminated in DMK coming to power in the State in 1967 under Anna’s leadership, the Assembly poll then being described by the author as a ‘political tsunami’. But Anna’s ascent was abruptly cut short. Marie Corelli’s The Master Christian, was the last book Anna read when he was down with cancer, reminded Vaiko to drive home the socio-political dilemmas he grappled with even shortly before his death in February 1969.
The political spice and flavor of that entire period is one aspect – as GV lucidly unwinds them, perhaps then the youngest to become an MP in 1967 at just 26. Anna had chosen him as candidate for Vandavasi, a decision the leader apparently made even two years earlier when Viswanathan had ‘deeply impressed’ him with his speech at a DMK meeting in Gudiyatham in Vellore district in 1965.
From Anna gifting to the political lexicon of the day his still-quoted one-liner, ‘the jasmine in the other’s garden smells as sweet’- when he amid protests from local Congressmen had come to Vellore to unveil Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in the 1950s’, Anna’s friendship with leaders across the spectrum that demolished arcane walls of ‘political untouchability’, honing along with Rajaji a grand opposition alliance that brought even the Communists and the pro-right Swatantra party and Muslim League together, to being the first political leader to boldly introduce a band of relatively young, talented faces- all the 25 DMK MPs’ who got elected to the Lok Sabha in 1967 headed by Prof K Anbazhagan-, GV has mapped a long way interestingly without having to be field chatty. “Tamil Nadu needs to return to that culture of political civility,” stressed GV in his acceptance speech after the first copy was received by former Health minister H.V. Hande. Despite one or two problem areas in the book, as former Congress leader in the State Assembly S.R. Balasubramoniyan pointed out at the launch, GV graciously remembers all his college friends and political ‘Gurus’, most of whom including former Congress MP, M. Krishnasamy, CPI leader D. Pandian, former minister V.V. Swaminathan and SRB, were also present on the dais. The only felt deficit was the absence of Prof K. Anbazhagan, as the winter gets too cold for his health at 94.
Download the all new Deccan Chronicle app for Android and iOS to stay up-to-date with latest headlines and news stories in politics, entertainment, sports, technology, business and much more from India and around the world.
