On The Loose: Rites, Not Wrong

AIADMK (O Panneerselvam faction) leaders campaign in RK Nagar with a replica of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s mortal remains for the by-poll in Chennai on Thursday. PTI Photo

A nail-biting election should reveal some fresh insights on human nature, if only to change the conversation from pressing issues like a tepid monsoon and dangerous nationalism. In this capacity one can always count on issues in Tamil Nadu politics that range from the sublime to the bizarre. In an unprecedentedly crazy move aimed at tugging at the heartstrings of voters, rival factions of the AIADMK have created a replica of J Jayalalithaa’s dead body, draped it in the tricolor and are campaigning with it in Chennai. The dummy has two bulbs lighting up the head while the face is inexplicably swathed in white. Stray grey hair are neatly parted in the middle. The effect is, to say the least, horrifying. In an interview to India Today TV, AIADMK and OPS loyalist KC Palanisamy had the sense to look contrite about the desperate measures his party had succumbed to, for sympathy votes in the ongoing bypolls: “Mr Dinakaran used Amma’s voice through a mimicry artist for votes and that created confusion among people that Amma is living. We needed to clarify to the voter that Amma is no more,” explained Palanisamy.

For any conservative thinking citizen, one would imagine there is something eerily unsettling about a dummy replica of a revered leader being paraded around in a faux coffin for votes. For the rest, it’s morbidly hilarious, reminiscent of an apocalypse story set in an alternate universe where a mute electorate falls for whatever nonsense is fed to them. One can only wonder if this weird stunt won’t go down with citizens as a desecration of Amma’s image, and violently backfire. The concept is macabre and the dead, it is universally agreed, must be left in peace. Unless it’s a Stephen King story where the idea is to fulfill the readers’ desire for random acts of deranged creepiness. In fact, the faux coffin reminded me of an old Roald Dahl story where a lady embalmed all her pets and put them in a show cabinet. However, counting on the dead to make it in the present fits only some preternatural episode of a Ram Gopal Varma horror film — where the guy who came up with the idea of using a dead person will sadistically be finished off by cannibalism or an axe.

Till even 20 years ago in India, death was an intimate family affair. There was a lower life expectancy, and hospitals with ICU facilities that allowed one to linger on endlessly didn’t exist. A good death was passing on surrounded by the right spiritual counsel and family members. Since then, our encounters of the final kind have changed and have become more distant. Hence, we find it particularly squeamish that we can bypass the rules of etiquette so completely for somebody who is recently deceased. This could have something to do with the fact that broadly, the devout Hindu believes in the rebirth and reincarnation of souls. If you have lived an ideal life and have good karma then you will attain moksha (freedom from birth). But if you have lived a life full of sins you have to be born again. If you die unnaturally, your soul will roam as a ghost. That doesn’t augur very well for Amma, who has ruthlessly been summoned from the otherworld to prop up her political colleagues via WhatsApp audio files.

In political game playing, invoking the legacies of the party’s legends is an accepted practice. Leaders from the Congress quote Nehru, BSP supremo Mayawati still relies on Kanshi Ram’s goodwill. It is lawful to use sleights and stratagems to attain the wished end, said Cervantes in Don Quixote. However, one must consider the prospect, that the party that is AIADMK doesn’t take it a step further to make the claim that like the lord before, Amma has been resurrected.

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