Tolerance paves the way, Jaya

Unlike Laloo Prasad Yadav, who is also a mass leader, she is a good administrator too. Those who have dealt with her reveal that she can grasp complex issues, like the WTO, in a way few chief ministers can. She is known to be decisive and intolerant of inefficiency. The results are there for all to see: Tamil Nadu’s industrial scene looks promising, Chennai is fast developing into the country’s automobile capital, and rainwater harvesting on a war footing has helped eased the city’s chronic water problem. She has proved she can take unpopular decisions like hiking power tariffs, increasing bus fares, and handling a difficult government employees’ strike.

She is, in fact, the only mass leader in Tamil Nadu today — Karunanidhi is ageing and the Congress is in disarray. Unlike the DMK, which is a cadre-based party, the AIADMK combines the charisma of its leader with an efficient machinery right down to the booth level, manned by enthusiastic party workers. As a legislator, few can get the better of Jayalalithaa in the assembly. She has facts and figures at her finger tips and can elaborate upon the functioning of every ministry.

On the other hand, her style is so autocratic that her colleagues are petrified of her. Such is the “loyalty” she expects from them, that her ministers line up to receive her at the entrance of Fort St George the moment she arrives. She is extremely intolerant of criticism. Indeed, she had wanted to send out the message in her handling of the Hindu, that if this could happen to such a powerful newspaper group, it could happen to anyone. The way the police got into the act the moment the privilege report was tabled in the assembly, even entering

Hindu Executive

Editor Malini Parthasarathy’s bedroom and rifling through her clothes and diaries, sent shock waves through the country, and brought back memories of the Emergency. In fact, this treatment meted out to the press goes against the new and insidious trend of political parties and leaders attempting to win over media personnel through a combination of charm and blandishments. The ham-handed attack on the Hindu, in contrast, only served to unite the media and remind people that it is an institution that is alive and kicking.

Jayalalithaa is no fool. She may have calculated that with the sidelining of Malini Parthasarathy and N. Ravi, the Hindu establishment would be muted in its response. But if this was, indeed, Jayalalithaa’s line of reasoning, she was wide of the mark. The Hindu family closed ranks and fought back. Finally, it was she who had to back down and declare that her government would abide by the Supreme Court’s verdict. In other words, she accepted the judiciary’s right to question the TN speaker’s decision.

It is not as if the latest incident has won her political friends. The distance between her and the BJP has grown. The PM is unhappy with the way she had boycotted him when he came to Chennai to attend the 125th anniversary function of the Hindu. The day after his return he told his senior colleagues to set right the BJP’s strained relations with the DMK. And now the ‘chintan baithak’ of the Tamil Nadu BJP has reportedly come to the same conclusion.

Jayalalithaa may respond by claiming that she does not need anyone and can fight elections on her own. The AIADMK leaders also claim that she does not need the media to win. That may be true — her voters may not be readers of the Hindu. But given the respect accorded to the traditional role of the press, it is unlikely that her recent stance has shored up her chances of emerging as a national leader in a country as diverse as India.

All politicians have big egos, but those aspiring for national leadership have to swallow them. This is something Jayalalithaa finds very difficult to do. Of course, given the imperatives of coalition politics, Jayalalithaa may yet emerge as a player at the national level. But her success in the long run would hinge crucially on her ability to play by the rules of the game.