Everest has fallen in Tamil Nadu: Son MK Stalin in firm control

Chennai: Driving down the crowded roads of Moolakadai in north Chennai flooded with the 'proletariat' on Sunday, I found posters, aplenty, stuck on the ancient walls and put up on bamboo banners of modest sizes, stating in mournful poetry: 'Tamilnaattil Imayam Sainthathu'. Translated, it means, the Everest has fallen in Tamil Nadu.

From the very ordinary people, such as those who had scraped up their purses to print those posters in Moolakadai to mourn their Kalaignar's demise, to the 'upper-crest' and the elite who jostled with the thousands of his fans and DMK cadres to pay their last respects at the Rajaji Hall and later at the Marina burial site, the pain of losing a wise granddad at home, a leader who nurtured the party through trying times these past five decades, a teacher who taught the deepest nuances of Dravidam seasoned with pluralism, an administrator who gave his State some of the stoutest symbols of development and its people their nourishing welfare, was deep and loud.

The tears that flooded the faces then were real brine, not just of the members of the family but the multitudes gathered. It's difficult to refrain from recalling the flood of glycerin that was in pathetic display before the TV cameras at the same venue back on December 6, 2016, when the body of AIADMK Amma, surrounded by her Mannargudi 'family', was kept for public veneration. The social media has been quite engaged over this comparison these past few days, which is only expected.

The social media has also been recording how celebrities are spending silent moments of grief and dropping flowers before quietly leaving the Marina burial site of the DMK chief. It had been an ugly, and certainly avoidable, battle that the family and the party had to wage in the High Court to wangle that place beside the resting place of his political mentor Anna. The explanation given by the government that it was not possible to concede the request for the site, made personally by Karunanidhi's son and DMK working president M. K. Stalin, because there were already cases before the court opposing memorials at Marina, did not go well with the Court, neither has it with the public.

A woman who had braved the crowds and come to share the grief on the day of the burial (August 8) was reported in the media screaming out her anguish at the torture that the First Family and the party had gone through the previous night -after the shock of the death itself. 

“If you can have a massive memorial built at huge cost for someone convicted of corruption just there, why not for this grand old man who had done so much for the poor? Close to where our Anna rests?” she screamed pointing towards Jayalalithaa’s site close to the MGR memorial of sparkling marble.

Even in the midst of all this pain, the DMK must celebrate its cadres’ discipline in refraining from violence and hooliganism when the patriarch died and when the party waged a nightlong battle for his burial site beside Anna at Marina. Cadres indulging in arson and other serious violence whenever something goes wrong with their leaders, has been the bane of TN politics for quite some time now — the most gruesome of the many incidents was the torching of the agriculture college bus by the AIADMK men killing three girls (Feb 2000) — but luckily, Stalin's appeal for peace and order prevailed on his thondars.

When a political giant like Karunanidhi departs, succession stories are inevitable and former Union Minister M. K. Alagiri has ensured that the media has its fresh fill of fodder when he went to his father's memorial at Marina to “make an appeal about the state of affairs in the party” and declaring to the reporters he would announce future plans in a couple of days. He also launched a broadside against Stalin, saying he was scared of readmitting him into the DMK because he was scared he (Alagiri) would emerge as a powerful leader and a threat. 

News has been trickling from within the family and also party sources that Stalin is “very firm” in not yielding an inch to his elder brother. “He has consolidated his hold on the DMK's southern district units, which were once Alagiri's control zone, and he is no mood to loosen that grip and thereby allow the party to once again sink into the chaos of faction feuds”, said a DMK senior, requesting anonymity. 

And he added, “The very fact that Alagiri went to Marina and tried to repeat the OPS's drama shows he is desperate and wants to take to the public forum his battle against Stalin after failing to get the family's support”.

DMK's south Chennai secretary J. Anbazhagan, MLA, did not mince words, telling the media, “It's only you, TV channels and the other media, who are making a big issue about this Alagiri statement. We do not give any credence to someone who had been banished from the party by thalaivar (Karunanidhi) himself”.

The DMK is holding a meeting of its executive committee at the Anna Arivalayam on Tuesday. The official version is that the meeting has a single-point agenda: pass the condolence resolution for Kalaignar. Some say the succession issue and Alagiri too might figure at the meet. That's very unlikely.