Jayalalithaa: Welfare vs Power
My distant uncle has a collection of 1003 Ganeshas in his house. Statues, pictures, little ones made of clay, larger ones made of glass, some carved in wood, others staring out of calendars. He also holds, if I remember correctly, the Limca record for having the most number of 5 rupee coins. They’re kept in buckets in his storeroom. A lot of the people like collecting things. My brother used to collect bottle caps, dead moths and even stones. A friend collects toothpicks. Of course, some things are easier to collect if you’re rich. Shoes for example, or sarees.
Jayalalithaa collected those. The Imelda Marcos of India that she was, she apparently owned a 10,500 sarees and 750 pairs of shoes. In 1995, she organised a wedding for her foster son Sudhakaran and well… you can see what Ravi Pillai and the Reddy’s were inspired by.
Assuming you’ve half-recovered from the boxer shorts and cleopatra pose in my previous post, here’s another picture to send you back under. You see those belts there, around their waists, those are 1.5kgs of solid gold each. Studded with diamonds that too. Disgusting no?
BJP member Subramanian Swamy thought so too and in 1996, filed a petition about it which eventually led to a probe against Jayalalithaa. This petition resulted in what is known today as the Disproportionate Assets case and 18 years later in 2014, she was finally arrested and forced to resign. Though initially sentenced to four years, Jayalalithaa was acquitted in 2015 and voted back into power.
Another case filed against her (also by Subramanian Swamy) was the TANSI land acquisition case. TANSI stands for Tamil Nadu Small Industries corporation, which is a government agency that Jayalalithaa and Sasikala tried to buy land from through two companies they controlled. The courts convicted her to two years and she was barred from the 2001 elections, but later acquitted of all charges. Quick fact, the governor of Tamil Nadu at the time was Justice Fathima Beevi (retired in 1992) who was the first female judge to be appointed by the Supreme Court.
Back to Jayalalithaa, that’s not all.
Apart from misusing office herself, Jayalalithaa during her tenure also encouraged (or conveniently turned a blind eye to) corruption elsewhere. Namely, the mining sector, which in 1992 (just a year into Jayalalithaa’s first tenure) was opened up to private players like P.R.Palanachami who heads PRP Granites. These PRP guys (who, by the way, belong to the Thevar community) are even crazier. Not just corrupt and running major illegal mining projects, but also allegedly involved in human sacrifice. Yes you read it right. In September 2015, the very month Jayalalithaa was convicted, six bodies were unearthed in one of PRP’s quarries. There’s a court case pending here too.
In 2008, an RTI activist named S.Murgesan from Melur, filed a petition seeking a probe against PRP Granites and in 2012, the well known IAS officer U.Sagayam conducted raids on their quarries and submitted reports to the state Industries Department. He was transferred within four days.
Have you ever watched a good-cop movie? The ones in which there’s this good cop guy who believes in the law, sticks to his value system and puts his foot down in a world full of bribe taking, dirty officials? You know how they’re always repeatedly transferred out of the jurisdiction they work in? U.Sagayam’s is a real life example for you. He’s been transferred some 20 times in his career.
And this happened during Jayalalithaa’s tenure. Jayalalithaa, who has also filed 213 criminal defamation cases in her time. In August 2016, the Supreme Court got so fed up that they condemned her for using defamation as a political tool to “throttle dissent”. Largely targeting her political opponents, she filed 28 cases against DMDK member Vijayakanth alone. Tamil newspapers Vikatan and Nakheeran, were also targeted, the latter once in 2012 for having published an article which suggested that Jayalalithaa ate beef. You remember how AIB’s Tanmay Bhatt was charged with defamation for the snapchat video of civil war between Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar? Similarly, in 2013, Jayalalithaa slapped a charge against the comedian Cyrus Broacha for his satire of her and Sasikala. This was despite the fact that he had also made fun of a number of her political opponents on the show as well.
Transfers and defamation suits, two tell-tale signs of zero tolerance for political dissent. Dictatorship much?
I was reading up about Castro’s regime some time back and all the debate about him being a man for the people versus a ruthless dictator got me thinking. Why is it that those who actually advocate socialist schemes and implement welfare policies end up being the ones with hardly any regard for human rights and freedom of speech or opinion? Perhaps they think that because they do ‘so many good things’, there’s no need for people to question them? Or perhaps it all traces back to Communisms tendency to focus less on political equality than economic equality.
That said, here’s a look at Jayalalithaa’s economic policies and the 18 welfare schemes she introduced over her fragmented 15 years in power. Note that since welfare has been the focus of nearly all Dravidian parties, the changes in Tamil Nadu’s social development cannot entirely be credited to Jayalalithaa alone.
Post-independence, Tamil Nadu was in a bad state. In the 1970’s nearly half it’s population was under the already ridiculously low poverty line, caste segregation was rampant, mortality rates high and up until the early 1990’s female foeticide was widespread.
Today, indexes show that Tamil Nadu has some of the lowest Infant and Maternal mortality rates, the lowest Crimes against Women, Children and Scheduled Castes rates, the highest fertility rates, and a GDP rank just second to Maharashtra. In fact, in 2013, Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze (in their book ‘An Uncertain Glory’) even said that Tamil Nadu, with one of the best public services and policies in India, could be an example for the entire nation to follow.
It’s embarrassing to admit but one of the first times I came across the word ration was in this song in the movie Kaakamuttai which goes “Ada Ration Card Athil Engal Naai per Serthiduvom” (bro, on our ration card we’ll add our dog’s name also). Officially, the whole ration card system is called the Public Distribution System and Tamil Nadu in particular has it implemented really well. Subsidised rice is a major thing.
Now, alongside the PDS, Jayalalithaa handed out her ‘Freebies’: Amma canteen, Amma kudineer, Amma mobiles, Amma grinder, mixie, fan, Amma seeds, Amma cement, Amma salt, Amma laptops, Amma service centre (for things like trade licenses, birth certificates, building permissions etc), Amma call centre and even Amma theatre. You get the picture (literally, it’s pasted on every item). If you think about it, of course this is basically bribing people to vote for you, like “here take TV now give vote”. But the thing is, for a large part of the population these subsidies make a big difference. In economics class last year we tried living on 60 bucks for a whole day and this was without even including rent, fees, medical expense, savings, etc. Just food. It was like joining college and suddenly realising that your favourite restaurant is a complete ripoff. Put’s things in perspective if nothing else.
Also, somehow it feels like anyway none of the parties are actually going to do much “for the people” once they’re voted into power, so might as well take what you can from them before they’re elected.
Apart from these, some of the important schemes Jayalalithaa put in place was the Cradle Baby scheme and medical health related services. Health check-up were provided at one fifth the cost charged at private hospitals, health insurance schemes were improved and fair price pharmacies were set up. I came across this one scheme under medical health services called Amma Baby Kits that I found really adorable. Basically every woman who gives birth in a government hospital gets Rs.1000 worth of baby products like baby soap, bath soap, nail cutters, mosquito nets, sanitisers etc, and the best part is that they don’t forget to include a soap box. Actually Jayalalithaa’s signature dark green saree is not too far from that Medimix soap colour no?
On that note, I will conclude. While researching for this piece, I came across many articles that addressed the caste politics around Jayalalithaa. This is something I haven’t talked about at all here, mostly because I don’t think I understand it well enough, but it’s certainly something to look into. Here are a few extra links if you would like to read more about her and Tamil Nadu politics.
