Was Jayalalithaa murdered? Shakespeare in Tamil Nadu

Typically, in William Shakespeare’s cult tragedies – Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Othello – the first two acts intensify the climate of backstabbing and intrigue. The air is thick with pungent betrayals, naked ambitions and coronations gone wrong, or ghosts cutting in to let the audience in on a closely guarded secret. There’s always the spectre of a royal death hanging in the air. There are apparitions and sorcery that foretell ominous futures.

With Sasikala’s “ascension” as the chief of the AIADMK legislature party and O Panneerselvam resigning for a record third time to make way for a woman leader, the CM-designate of Tamil Nadu at the moment resembles a Shakespearean protagonist who is both the perpetrator and the victim of extreme intrigue.

Someone who has been better known as the former and late chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s “close aide” and personal friend, confidante and soul sister, the face of the octopus-like “Mannargudi Mafia”, with their tentacular hold on the bureaucracy and business nexus of Tamil Nadu, Sasikala’s emergence from Jaya’s shadow has been too quick and smooth, until other forces at work caught up with her.

As this correspondent had written earlier, the “last photograph” of Jayalalithaa, on the day of her state funeral, flanked by PM Narendra Modi consoling an inconsolable OPS as Sasikala looked on, picturesquely sad like a brand-new widow, foretold a future of churn. That churn – with Tamil Nadu caught in the centrifuge of the Centre having hoped to tighten its grip on this crucial southern state via malleable OPS as state CM – is happening now.

From the stamping of Jaya’s body at Rajaji Hall with her own indelible ink of “love” that was also television-friendly, to standing out in a nebulously uncertain equation with New Delhi, Sasikala has been as cautious as a tigress waiting in ambush.

First, the picture of the AIADMK MLAs en bloc bending over backwards to greet the Chinnamma and “requesting” her to lead the party as she dispassionately looks on, only to accept a few days later and be christened the party general secretary. Then her election as the chief of AIADMK legislature party and eventually OPS’ resignation to make way for Chinnamma as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.

In between, a press conference gone terribly wrong with doctors at the Apollo hospital, where Jayalalithaa breathed last, “clarifying” that there was “no foul play”, after Sasikala was elected on Sunday last. Or, the inglorious exits of powerful bureaucrats like former chief secretary Rama Mohana Rao and state adviser Sheela Balakrishnan, who had maintained an iron grip on state affairs ever since Jaya was hospitalised.

And finally, a Tamil Nadu of young and rebellious, social media savvy men and women, newly energised post Jallikattu victory, who are leaving no stone unturned to let their extreme discomfort over Sasikala leading their state, stepping into Jaya’s shoes, known.

Unlike the Marina Beach agitation, the anger and resentment over Sasikala’s coup d’état is still gathering a critical mass, as there are those who are hoping hard that the ascension wouldn’t ultimately happen, or that the Supreme Court would act as the party spoiler for the false queen of wheeling-dealing, the prima donna of the Mannargudi Mafia, and that riding the hashtags would yield results as it did during the Jallikattu uprising.

It’s a fraught situation and as in a Shakespearean tragedy, there’s no one unspoilt and untouched by deception. The proscenium that is Poes Garden now, or AIADMK headquarters barely ten minutes from the long-standing chief minister’s residence, is noxious with both anticipation and fear.

While there’s one clear centre of attention, there are too many forces at work and sympathies and allegiances are divided depending on one’s relation to the state, the political parties in the battlefield and to that of New Delhi, the seat of central power that has been eyeing Tamil Nadu and its 50 parliamentary seats in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha combined, hoping to remote-control the super state of the south via a malleable and ductile chief minister, whose prime quality would be obedience.

It is through this lens that the stand of Tamil Nadu governor Vidyasagar Rao, who decided to “not give a date” for the swearing-in ceremony of an elected head of a state Assembly and discuss in Mumbai instead the things-to-do with Union home minister Rajnath Singh and attend another Union minister’s son’s wedding, must be seen. With the BJP making a last ditch attempt to have its hold on Tamil Nadu through a reluctant and recalcitrant governor – how many times have we seen this little script playing out? – the goings have just gone tough for Sasikala.

Only this time, the BJP-led Centre can hide behind a solid legal sense: wait till the SC hearing on the disproportionate assets case is done. Wait till the verdict is out. Only Sasikala can’t wait. Like Banquo’s ghost, as in Macbeth, or the three witches who gave the anti-hero the wrong dream, blinding him, the SC verdict might exactly be the albatross weighing Sasikala down, felling her from her newly assumed pedestal.

Moreover, another double-edged gamble which might work in the Centre’s favour is that unlike in the Jallikattu case, wherein a rank distrust of the “North Indianised, Hindi-supremacist, bovine Supreme Court” was also a deep disgust with the Centre, this time the popular distrust is also targeted at Sasikala herself. Precisely why there are hoardings all over the walls in Chennai, but hardly any supporter of Chinnamma in sight to add to the supposedly historic moment in Tamil politics.

Unlike the spontaneous outpouring of powerful emotions that Jayalalithaa naturally commanded, what Sasikala extracts from ordinary Tamilians is a lack of trust. Long known as the shadowy figure behind many of the late CM’s corrupt entanglements, her emergence from the shadows is a nightmarish situation, something the Chennai youth is unable to come to terms with. Hence, rapper Sofia Ashraf storms Poes Garden at midnight and sings a song of protest, and like the Shakespearean gravedigger, a la Hamlet, holds out the skull, as it were, portending doom.

At what crossroads is Tamil Nadu at the moment.

It is difficult to imagine what would happen if the swearing-in ceremony of Sasikala – an utterly “corrupt” but legislatively chosen CM-designate – gets postponed until the Supreme Court verdict is out. The week of waiting could see the uprising that is currently limited to social media spill over to the streets of Chennai, once again throwing the city out of gear. The city hasn’t had a breather ever since Jayalalithaa entered Apollo hospital sometime in September last year. 

Yet, without a CM proper, would the BJP-led Centre make overtures for greater political control? Already DMK’s MK Stalin is in talks with PM Modi, and it’s likely that there might be an arrangement to ensure that Chennai erupts in anger once again. The spontaneity might be cloaking a subterfuge that would have all the signature of the Modi-led Centre typically overreaching and imposing an orchestrated emergency, as we have seen in umpteen instances.

And then, there’s the bigger question: Does Sasikala deserve a chance? Does she deserve our sympathy? Will the people of Tamil Nadu accept her, as elected they have not her. Is corruption – bureaucratic, governmental – somehow pardonable a crime when compared to the incoming tide of a BJP-version of hyper-communalised politics?

What would happen to the anti-Brahminical, Periyar ideology and the anti-caste legislative bent of the chiefly Dravidian parties? What would happen to Tamil Nadu’s quintessential welfare economy, Amma’s singular legacy? What would happen if saffronisation turns from a mere threat – as is the case now – to a ghoulish reality of everyday Tamil politics?

The splintered fabric of Tamil Nadu is the price that its people are paying for Jayalalithaa’s death. That death – prolonged and painful, spectacularised and dramatised for consumption on TV and social media – was both a mourning and blowing of the proverbial conch shell that signified war.

But who’s fighting whom, is a question nobody quite knows the answer to.

Also read: Inside story of how Sasikala became CM of Tamil Nadu

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