THE GREAT INDIAN CIRCUS
Humpty, Dumpty have a great fall
Never has a slap in the face been so loud and pronounced. The people of Tamilnadu, with one decisive sweep of their hand have not only demolished the formidable facade put up by the DMK and TMC, but have also spat on the face of the pranksters, sorry pollsters by making clowns out of them, besides, of course relegating the voice of Arunachalam to oblivion.
To say that AIADMK supremo Jayalalitha has humbled her betenoirs and beaten them at their own game would be an understatement. This is an emphatic victory for a bold and shrewd political strategy on her part, which included rallying under her umbrella all the anti-DMK forces, consolidating the ground swell of support in her favour and effectively driving home the misdeeds of the DMK government to the masses. The attempts now by a section of the ‘loaded’ media to rob her of the credit for the victory by claiming that this was a vote for a national party and the State Assembly elections would be different, are nothing but mean and vain bids to hide the mud on their moustaches. Jayalalitha has clearly and squarely knocked her opponents down at the hustings and the people have cheered her all the way to triumph, as her front’s massive sweep would bear out.
And now to the obituary. The DMK is a party which is long dead. There could be little doubt that it is the most hated outfit in the State. Yet the party managed to amble to centrestage twice owing to a fractured opposition once (1989) and an alliance that reaped it more gains than it deserved the next time (1996). The vote for the DMK has never been a positive vote that emanated from a love for the party; on the contrary, it has always been the case of an unsuspecting underdog getting catapulted to power owing to the mistakes of its opponent. Reason why the people of the State have never hesitated to reinstate the AIADMK at the earliest opportunities made available to them. Also the reason why the DMK has never been able to perpetuate its farcical supremacy for more than two years, by which time the facade melts down to reveal the skeletons and ugliness inside.
For the self-appointed sole leader of the Tamil race, it is indeed an ignominy that his rhetoric that enlivens film buffs and partymen has miserably failed to arouse the people’s faith. Evidently, the voters had decided to beat hollow Karunanidhi’s tall claims about a clean government, a secular society and above all a secure and peaceful atmosphere in the State. They have chosen to negate, through a silent revolution, pages and volumes of flowery abuses hurled by the Thaanai Thalaivan at his sworn enemy. But all along it has been only the hollowness and utter hypocrisy of his averments that had been on view. The emperor thought he was fully robed. The people however knew he was…
It would have been most unfortunate and distressing had these pioneers of pillage and patent holders of scientific corruption been allowed to continue their sermons on the ills of sleaze. It would have been a tragedy had these abetters of the LTTE, who paved the way for terrorism to play havoc with even national interests, under the guise of ethnic and linguistic affinity been given a sanction for all their unholy past as exposed by Jain. It would have been even more disastrous, as the State has now come to realise, had these torchbearers of the Al-Umma brand of secularism been allowed to carry on their version of non-communal politics that rendered the State and its populace sitting ducks to the wily designs of fundamentalist maniacs, who thrived owing to the ruling party’s Nelson’s eye. That the people have unanimously decided to avert such catastrophe is a pointer to what is brewing in the State’s political cauldron and which is certain to manifest itself even more markedly when the Assembly elections dawn.
The rout of the TMC and its degenerations from a giant to just a rump would go down in the State’s political history as the biggest bubble gone bust. The inseparable duo of Thaanai Thalaivan and Thanmana Thalaivan, have been clearly exposed as mere ‘political soap bubbles trying to wreak vengeance in a vacuum’ with no perceivable positive agenda of their own. The TMC owed its origin and existence to its one-point programme of baiting Jayalalitha and its foolhardy belief that it could sustain itself on that count alone has now landed it in an abyss. The TMC’s failure to capitalise on the jackpot of 1996 and its conscious decision to stay in the inglorious company of the DMK speak volumes of the party leadership’s palpable lack of courage and foresight.
And when Sonia took the plunge, the party still had a chance to salvage its pride and identity and reaffirm its sworn loyalty to its leader’s legacy, but for some strange reason it preferred to cling to its dubious companion, who stood indicted for being responsible for the death of that very leader. Add to this betrayal of their leader’s memory, the complacency that marked its electoral campaign and the utter contempt and haughtiness with which it treated its allies, would be clear as crystal that the TMC has none but itself to blame for the mother of all debacles. The party now finds itself inextricably entwined to the DMK, having been a willing partner to all of the latter’s sins and there is no way it can now seek to distance itself from its ally having already sacrificed its honour and credibility. Their refrain should now be ‘united we fall and together we sink’. And it is time the dhotis are sent to the cleaners.
We wonder where our Nero, sorry hero, has gone fiddling flaw, even as his friends are burning in agony and shame. Probably the word is yet to reach the cool climes of Nepal or the buzzing HK. But we are sure he would soon realise that it is not the rooster’s crowing that ushers in the dawn.
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