Good Bye Amma (J. Jayalalithaa 1948-2016)

Can Sasikala Natarajan and O. Panneerselvam Rein in Factionalism and Rival Ambitions in the AIADMK?

- Amarnath K. Menon

Power shifts in Tamil Nadu usually take place around the funerals of the state’s larger-than-life politicians. On December 24, 1987, it was J. Jayalalithaa, then 38, the AIADMK’s propaganda secretary, who stood, in a white sari in Chennai’s Rajaji Hall by the body of her mentor, former chief minister M.G. Ramachandran. Pushed off the bier by MGR’s wife’s family and prevented from attending his funeral at the Marina Beach, a humiliated Jayalalithaa had vowed to return. She did so, first by snatching the party away from his widow Janaki Ramachandran and then straddling Tamil Nadu’s collective imagination, colossus like, for nearly three decades. On December 5, 2016, her body lay in state in the same hall, flanked by her closest aide, protege, confidante and caregiver Sasikala Natarajan, 59, who stood silently in a black sari. Sasikala’s family members ringed the coffin, evidently a sign of things to come in the post-Amma years, even as the late CM’s companion performed the final pre-burial rites.

A new moniker had been minted long before Amma checked into the Apollo hospital on September 22—party workers reverentially refer to Sasikala as ‘chinnamma’ (aunty). Power has been transferred from the authoritarian Amma to her shadow Chinnamma in penny packets— Sasikala gave out the party tickets for the April 2016 assembly elections. As Jayalalithaa’s life ebbed away on her hospital bed, the transition was completed. Legislators were called in individually to give their written assent for choosing Ottakkara Panneerselvam, 65, as the new leader of the legislature party and later, the chief minister. This was required under the Constitution to avoid a political vacuum and ensure a smooth succession. It also cemented a new duopoly, of Sasikala Natarajan and Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, which will run the state until the assembly elections in 2021.