Look who8217;s corrupting

It is almost like Bill Clinton sermonising about family values. Jayalalitha -- the politically immobile, culturally autonomous entity wit...

It is almost like Bill Clinton sermonising about family values. Jayalalitha 8212; the politically immobile, culturally autonomous entity within the ruling coalition 8212; is today talking, no, not about gold or garment, but about corruption. At this moment of courage against a social evil, a national suspension of disbelief is called for. Usually, in the Indian political theatre, what makes the sermons so vacuous is the gulf between the sermon and the sermoniser. What a redeeming change. When Jayalalitha talks corruption, well, you know that she is talking with immense credibility.

She knows what she is talking about. For, she has lived in it. When she says 8220;reinstate that bureaucrat8221;, ah well, it speaks a great deal about her definition of bureaucratic freedom: elastic servility in service of the goddess. When banished Bezbaruah rhymes with bribe in her ballad against corruption, you are cordially invited to revisit Jayadom: a political Ruritania where size did matter the size of the cutouts; the size of thewedding, the size of the shoe collection, the size of wealth. So, when Jayalalitha asks her party office manager to write a letter to the Prime Minister8217;s principal secretary about the ethics of governance, it is a national obligation to wake up to the very idea of ethic.

Perhaps it is the idea of Jayalalitha that matters more here. Born out of the great Dravidian kitsch, she has perfected the art of Politics Spectacular. In Jayadom, politics was for your eyes only, and, invariably, it was subordinated to the ruler8217;s feet. She was the magnanimous mother to the foster son. And she was retribution8217;s political equivalent of Godzilla.

Though she hated the fourth estate, she really loved real estate. Though she dreaded to be investigated, she was happy to be the inquisitor. She was the rarest of rebels 8212; truly, the Dravidian dissent8217;s end-of-the-century mutation. But Jayadom was too enormous to last. When it burst, the remains of her raj only magnified the moral of misgovernance, or, overgovernance: when youare bloated with hubris, you are bound to burst. When she came back, she came with a baggage of corruption charges. She joined the BJP coalition with that baggage. The size of that baggage could have only been challenged by some of those earlier cutouts. Ideally, going by the Indian political tradition, a stake in Delhi should have freed her from that inherited burden. It didn8217;t happen. Actually, nothing happened 8212; not even Karunanidhi, not even Cauvery. If foster power cannot make things happen, what else can you do but threaten to break the power? Jayalalitha is doing that 8212; and how!

By bringing the ethics of the erstwhile Jayadom to Delhi. She wants the idea of coalition to be subordinated to the idea of Jayalalitha. Indraprastha has its own morality code, which today is far from being right wing. Add a dash of Dravidian vaudeville to it, and you get the perfect mix of coalition mortality. Jayalalitha8217;s latest epistolary tantrum is not a tribute to the rage against corruption. Rather, it is a displayof courage and conviction by a political Big Mother for whom nothing matters except her own freedom to wreck, to survive, to avenge, to soar over Tamil Nadu as Tamil Nadu8217;s only leader, without the burden of Karunanidhi or corruption. Jayalalitha can afford to do that. Perhaps the poetic sensibility of Vajpayee deserves a better letter. Vajpayee8217;s freedom should match Jayalalitha8217;s.