Sri Lankan officials were shocked TRS Baalu, badly stained earlier on corruption charges as a Union Minister in Delhi, was seen trying to push for the juicy Sri Lanka-Tuticorin Ferry business to him and his son in a delegation whose sole aim should have been to mend fences with the Rajapakses. President Rajapakse’s advisors on his Tamilnadu strategy have woefully faltered in their assessments. Jayalalitha, therefore, is a far bitter adversary after her widely predicted victory.
by I.S. Senguttuvan
(May 16, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Once again the “advisors” of President Mahinda Rajapakse have fallen far too short by their boss. They did not come out with the required savvy to predict a Jayalalitha Jayaram victory. Forget the landslide – that also baffled most well-informed analysts in Tamilnadu and the restn of India. Both Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi too conceded they did not expect this kind of result.
The Indian media gave indications months ago ageing Karunanidhi’s(87) final innings in April/May 2001 was going to be his last nasty debacle. The internet clout in India – several hundred millions of them to be exact - that forms a formidable force. Certainly much more lethal than the combined printed and electronic media that flooded users with photographs of the entire Karunanidhi and Maran clan, in their smiles, expensive jewellery and finery in several weddings of the 2nd and 3rd generations. The long list of expensive real estate surreptitiously acquired in recent times by Karunanidhi was exposed via the internet. The squabbling among the progeny of the thrice married Karunanidhi did not work in his favour either. The extended clan made many tongues in all sections of society in the State wag as to how Karunanidhi, unable to pay what was a paltry rent only a few decades ago, acquired so much of “unaccountable and uncountable wealth” from his known sources of income. The Karunanidhi clan took the masses for granted and failed to see the simmering cauldron of below- the-surface public resentment that eventually grew into a giant inferno to burn the ruling clique out. The collective message of the people here is clearly they had enough. A major worry was the decline of law and order. In many areas crooked politicians and cops were in unholy alliance. In the poorer neighbourhood of Thiruvanmayur in Chennai a common thief of the area snatched the gold chain (value Rs.30,000) of a woman cooking in her humble hut. When her husband reported to the Police late in the evening the cop asked “why was your wife wearing such an expensive chain in the day?” He did nothing to take in the alleged thief. The husband suspects the thief, connected to the local political-goonda, had shared part of the loot with the cop. Sounds familiar,eh? The rising Cost of Living continues without serious engagement. Rice, Milk, Wheat and Oorid, Chillies, Onions, Sugar, Vegetables. Fruits have risen invariably from 15-35% from 2006 levels. Regular power cuts (Chennai city alone suffers a daily minimum power cut of an hour) angers the people and inflicts damage to commerce and industry. Water – and notably drinking water – continues to be in short supply and that too in suspect quality. All those grandiose claims of converting sea-water to a water-short Chennai city remains a pipe dream.
The term “Kodeeswaran” (billionire) until recently is rarely used because these was hardly this breed a few years ago. It was only “Lakshathipathi” then. But now even Kodweeswaran is an under-estimate. A mere 10% of the shares held by one of Karunandihi’s wives in Sun TV was estimated in terms of billions. The news and events sorrounding the sensational 2G Spectrum scam in the past few months engaged keen public attention – in the wider Tamil media as well. It gathered momentum when a Karunanidhi favourite - made a Union Minister A. Raja is now in remand jail. The fate of MKs daughter Kanimoli hangs in the balance. The widely held belief is when the Case, up for hearing on May 25, the demure, partially-deaf Kaninoli may hit the slammer too. Inflation and the expansion of the economy played their part as well in the proliferation of Kodeeswarans in the Karunanidhi extended family. As the events in Tunisia, Egypt and the rest of the Arab world proved recently in various forms of the Jasmine Revolution private looting of people’s resources by public figures can no longer be indulged in secret and in the dark. The mitigatory factor Karunanidhi helped the State reach higher levels of the Development Index holds little water. Most people in the know seems to believe the talented and resourceful state reached higher levels of economic growth consonant with India’s own general growth. The crude answer is the achievements on the economic front were not because of the Karunanidhi’s - but inspite of them. The cumulative disillusionment of the people of Chennai and the State of Tamilnadu has shown the door to Karunanidhi – and, arguably, for his clan at least for sometime now. MKs son and the Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, trailing behind AIDMKs Saidai Duraisamy eventually declared winner by 2,819 votes at Kolathur is in dispute. Horse-play from high sources both in the city and Delhi was not totally absent here. There was a record 19 recounts alone here. One of the few instances of violence reported was at this counting station.
Yet another lesson Sri Lanka can draw from the Tamilnadu election results is the relative degree of calm that prevailed during the elections and after the vote counting – although the incumbents were wiped out. The firm stand taken by the Election Commissioner and his officials as well as the neutrality of the Police is given credit to this fine work.
In the Madurai area itself – the stronghold of Karunanidhi’s tough-guy son K. Alagiri the Police kept a close watch on him and his more violence inclined supporters earlier held for arson, murder and other charges. But there too impunity was the order of the day since Karunanidhi, the father, controlled a few lackeys in the Police force. Despite the DMK debacle the Police ensured Alagiri and his men did not indulge in wide-scale violence.
While President Rajapakse used his personal influence and the network of his Tamil friends both in Sri Lanka and Tamilnadu (men like N. Ram of the “Hindu”) to narrow differences between him and CM Karunanidhi, he appears to have failed in ignoring Jaylalitha and the AIDMK altogether in the past few years. His Cabinet colleague Arumugam Thondaman also needs to answer for this for the man visits Chennai almost every month to visit his wife and children and is believed to have been entrusted the due rask by the Rajapakse regime. Vadivel Krishnamurthy, the new Deputy High Commissioner, has done well in putting out the smaller fires like the attack on the Maha Bodhi Centre in Chennai, keeping protestors on the fishermen’s issue at bay. But interacting with the imperialist and arrogant Jayalalitha is major league stuff beyond the young SL-DHC. Rajapakse should have taken a cue from old JRJ, who used his personal influence and that of his brother Harry with the A.C. Muttiah and Adayar House family connections to effectively build bridges with a slighted Indira Gandhi in the mid-1980s. Rajapakse’s weakness seems to be trying to build dams after the floods have caused havoc.
It was a good move by the Rajapakses to agree to the visit of an All Party MP group from Tamilnadu to Sri Lanka in mid-1989 but the fault was it had no representative from Jayalalitha’s AIDMK. It is said this is because she did not want to send a team to be part of a delegation that was not going with the main intention to improve relations between Rajapakse’s GoSL and Karunanidhi’s Tamilnadu government but one that was going to do business for the relatives of the leaders of the delegation. Sri Lankan officials were shocked TRS Baalu, badly stained earlier on corruption charges as a Union Minister in Delhi, was seen trying to push for the juicy Sri Lanka-Tuticorin Ferry business to him and his son in a delegation whose sole aim should have been to mend fences with the Rajapakses. President Rajapakse’s advisors on his Tamilnadu strategy have woefully faltered in their assessments. Jayalalitha, therefore, is a far bitter adversary after her widely predicted victory. One has only to read between the lines to read her going to the extent of asking Delhi to use its influence to have “Rajapakse hauled up internationally as a mass HR murderer and War Criminal” Advisors close to the Lankan President will only do their chief a disfavour unless they make amends with the mercurial Jayalalitha soon.
Whether one likes it or not in ruling Colombo circles; the jittery and frenzied Sinhala supremacist quarters and an anti-Indian Lankan media - a friendly Tamilnadu government is sine quo non for any Sri Lankan government. While the goodwill of New Delhi is certainly useful, no less important is the social and political warmth Sri Lanka should enjoy with the Tamilnadu government and key actors in its socio-political structures and people. Fortunately, despite the enormous and long allegedly State-inspired injury to their cousins across the Straits, the Tamilnadu government and its nearly seventy-million people generally hold little against the Sinhalese. The Sri Lankan factor hardly mattered in the recent hustings. Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardena, Lasith Malinga, TM Dilshan have all millions of fans in the State of Tamilnadu as well – across the racial and emotional divide. There is room for Mahinda Rajapakse to get into this enviable company – and this can be done. It is time for Rajapakse to be Obamasique and ask his team to work on the belief “Yes. We can” It requires professionalism to get this done. It can be done. Sooner the better for all Sri Lankans.
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