Print Email to Friend | From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 8, Issue 12, Dated 26 Mar 2011 CURRENT AFFAIRS COVER STORY K Klutch Klan Friendship. Feuds. Betrayal. Mammoth corruption. Karunanidhi started out as the idealist with the silver tongue. This is the breathless story of how his family led him astray. And turned Tamil Nadu into a family estate ROHINI MOHAN reports IN THE summer of 1991, in a crowded political rally in Patna, thousands stirred impatiently as a portly Muthuvel Karunanidhi, in dark glasses, white shirt and dhoti, walked up to the podium. Expecting the chief minister of Tamil Nadu and leader of the Dravidian movement to speak in nothing but chaste Tamil, people settled down to catch a few winks before the good Hindi stuff would begin. Unfazed, Karunanidhi adjusted the mike down to his height, cleared his throat and said in perfect English: "Before I proceed with my speech I would like to introduce myself," he said. "My name is Karunanidhi. I am anti-national... I am a dangerous person to this country." ILLUSTRATIONS: SAURABH DEB The shuffling stopped. Some people laughed nervously. Karunanidhi went on: "Dear brothers and sisters, these are the titles conferred on me by a great patriot... Who is that great patriot? He is none other than Rajiv Gandhi." The rest of the speech was in Tamil, translated into Hindi by Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Rajmohan. Still, the audience listened, stunned. Just a month before, Karunanidhi was accused of supporting the separatist LTTE in Sri Lanka. His government was dismissed and President's Rule imposed, but that didn't stop him from using the situation to pull a public punch. When news of his speech reached TN, people were gobsmacked for another reason. Karunanidhi knew English?! Related Challenger Cometh?

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The first step to being a politician in Tamil Nadu, it is widely acknowledged, is to learn stagecraft — the ability to spin words that shock, rouse, or sweep you off your feet when you least expect it. And Karunanidhi — or Kalaignar (The Talented) as his sobriquet goes — is largely responsible for this. A Tamil film scribe, he learnt the art of argument from the early Dravidian leaders Periyar and C Annadurai. His speeches were witty, provocative and without fail, wellattended. The DMKwas known to sell tickets at his political rallies, which mobilised cadres from across the state for more than 60 years. Now 87, Karunanidhi has not lost a single election in his lifetime. And his success has ensured that fiery rhetoric is a pre-requisite for any Tamil political aspirant, from any party. If you step on stage, you're expected to wow. It was the most tangible test, sometimes more crucial than the elections themselves. Today, however, the most influential leaders in the DMK — Karunanidhi's children — do not pass that test. Sons MK Stalin and MK Azhagiri, daughter Kanimozhi and grandnephew Dayanidhi Maran are all, at best, lukewarm orators. They fumble and drawl, and their lines, even when written by salaried staff, are like a bland meal to an audience accustomed to better. Yet, in the last decade, especially in the current term of the DMK government, members of the first family have graduated from legislators to ministers, party members to party strategists, and most visibly, local politicians to national-level netas. The rules that bind every other politician in TN do not apply to them. It is not a mere matter of privilege, but of the kind of personal and financial takeover of a party and a state that breaks the limits of politics, and becomes simply about absolute control. Today, every time a person in Tamil Nadu switches on his television, reads the paper, buys groceries, purchases land, or watches a film, he has in some way engaged with one of Karunanidhi's relatives. The family is inescapable. And its influence does not even depend on whether or not it is in power. 'My name is Karunanidhi. I am anti-national. I am dangerous for this country.' With those words, the leader had the crowd gripped As the family's stranglehold deepens, its furious infighting has become difficult to conceal. Karunanidhi's daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi says, "The leader always put the party before the family." (She, like all of Karunanidhi's children, refers to