Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi's poem Kanimozhi Kanimozhi Kanimozhi her ambitious mother Rajathi Ammal

Since Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi took three bullets from Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948, many have gone on Satyagraha. Most of them were shams.

Only a few of them, like Irom Sharmila who is on an 11-year fast against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 in Manipur, show conviction. For the others, it has been so much a political pastime that the average Indian has come to see the Gandhian form of protest as a comic stunt.

Now, an Army truck driver of the 1960s is changing all that. Type ‘A’ on Google search and the system throws up the name Anna Hazare, with more than a million results that correlate with the name. Twitter, Facebook and petition sites are replete with the name. If you think that is but a ‘virtual’ support, go to Jantar Mantar, Delhi, where crowds swell around the 72-year-old crusader on a Satyagraha, sending shivers down the spines of politicians.

And the spineless, who said Hazare was being instigated by some vested interests, are crawling. "Politicians who come to the Satyagraha pandal are being taught how to be modest," said a friend fasting with Hazare, referring to the Uma Bharti incident. Politicians Bharti and Om Prakash Chautala, who apparently tried to take political mileage by paying a visit to Hazare were booed and sent back by the people.

Hazare later apologised to Bharti, saying any politician was welcome to join the fight against corruption, but they can’t find a place on the dais as it was a people’s movement, not be politicised.

The statement, like the man, is an honest one. The spontaneity of public support to his demand for the Jan Lokpal Bill is a testament to that. It’s that fine quality of honesty that turned Kisan Bapat Baburao Hazare into Anna Hazare. It is that simple virtue so scarce in today’s society which propelled the school dropout from Ahmednagar, to a shramdaan pioneer of Ralegan Siddhi, the champion of the right to information and now the crusader for a law to curb corruption.

It is that integrity that sets him apart from the rest who have tried Satyagraha as a drama for political stakes. Chennaiites saw two such one-act plays in 2009 when the war in Lanka was peaking. On March 9, AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa sat on a fast near the MA Chidambaram cricket stadium demanding immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka. The same evening, she accepted a glass of fruit juice from no less that Tamil Nadu’s own tiger clone Vaiko to end the fast as air strikes continued to flatten Tamil settlements in the island nation.

Not to be outdone in the tamasha, DMK leader M Karunanidhi went on a ‘surprise fast’ on April 27, when the Eelam Tigers were virtually decimated, raising the same demand. Arriving at dawn, Karunanidhi’s set-makers put in place a cot, two air-coolers and other paraphernalia. The city woke up to the news of the chief minister on a fast. Those who woke up late, however, missed the show, as it got over soon after noon. "Sri Lanka has put an end to hostilities," Karunanidhi proclaimed after the six-hour fast.

Surviving such entertainments, Satyagraha has shown its power through Anna Hazare. Hazare started his fast on Tuesday and the very next day Pawar "dissociated" himself from the group of ministers on corruption.

On Thursday, the Prime Minister agreed to set up a panel with civil society representatives to draft the Lokpal Bill. When a people’s movement gains momentum, history has taught us, rulers can’t just mock and grin. If they do, there could be other forms of protest, some quite contrarian to the Gandhian method, but quite complementary for the cause.

After all, Independence was not a glucose drip the British offered as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi went on a Satyagraha. There was much blood in the streets. There were Tantya Topes, Chandra Sekhar Azads and Bhagat Singhs who laid down their lives for the Indian Freedom Struggle when the British were grappling with a non-violent fakir who shook the Empire by just going on a fast.


After throwing out the British, India is beginning to battle collectively to root out corruption. If the new age Bapu is insulted, the rulers may well see a few Bhagat Singhs.


All politicians have friends and foes; Kanimozhi has friends and relatives.

Being named a co-conspirator in the 2G spectrum case, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi's poet daughter finds her political career a mangled metaphor.

But for her ambitious mother Rajathi Ammal and benevolent father, Kani, as she is called in family circles, never had many well-wishers within the Karunanidhi clan. She has found many of her relatives difficult, some diabolic. Her indictment will sure make her cousins and half-siblings step up the silent campaign within and outside the family, isolating her further.

Outside the family, in the DMK circles, Kanimozhi had enjoyed the support of a majority of MPs and state ministers for two reasons. One, she is the favourite daughter of their favourite leader; two, to hate her cousin Dayanidhi Maran, who cared more for his pinstripes than the DMK lieutenants' epaulettes, their support for Kanimozhi was imperative. Among them were ministers Arcot Veerasamy, Durai Murugan, KN Nehru, MRK Paneerselvam, I Periyasamy, Thangam Thennarasu and A Poongothai. Now that crowd has deserted her.

More disconcerting for the young Rajya Sabha member should be the silence of her father, who had sprung in support of former telecom minister A Raja when the scandal surfaced. Karunanidhi would now find himself flanked more frequently by the Maran brothers. They will be foolish not to use the opportunity to advise Kalaignar (Karunanidhi) on the need to keep Kani away from active politics. And by the way they clawed their way back to the party after Dayanidhi's exit in 2007, we all know they are no fools.

Alagiri, who got the lowest marks in the Dinakaran survey in 2007 that led to the arson in Madurai, is not quite a bosom buddy of Dayanidhi Maran. But the Madurai strongman finds his wealthy cousin with Delhi dreams a safer companion than a half-sister who may be comfortable with the rustic politics Tamil Nadu. After all, she is the common enemy. Selvi, her half-sister married into the Maran family, has made clear her loyalty to the in-laws.

Kanimozhi would now look askance at a stoic M K Stalin. As the heir to Kalaignar's throne, Stalin has trained himself to look unbiased in the family squabble. He has his favourites, but he refuses to openly support or speak against anyone. And whenever he had Karunanidhi's ears, he had managed to keep the Marans happy. Kanimozhi can't expect much from Stalin.

Karunanidhi didn't appear to have expected the bad news on Monday. He was in a jovial mood when he visited the Fort St George library and later fed his pet fish at the new secretariat on Anna Salai before addressing a press conference at 11am. At the conference, two women journalists kept bombarding Karunanidhi with questions on 2G, Kanimozhi and DMK's alliance with the Congress. He gave evasive replies. Finally, when a woman journalist asked him if he would break away from the Congress, Karunanidhi said: "If you want it, tell me… all of you women are heartless." Four hours later, when news came of Kanimozhi's indictment in the 2G spectrum scam, political circles were again discussing Karunanidhi's knack of impregnating sentences with multiple meanings. By heartless women, many wondered, did he mean Sonia Gandhi?


Political bandwagons have screeched to a halt in Tamil Nadu and Kerala which go to the polls on Wednesday. Now for the silent revolution.

Almost immediately after the hullaballoo ended at 5 pm on Monday, the major political parties activated their war rooms. It is here the Machiavellians plot their 24-hour revolution through black money, white lies and grey areas. Their foot soldiers would soon fan out, wielding such weapons of mass deception as wads of currency, glib talk and gallons of chemicals to put makers of the indelible ink to shame and show the middle finger to democracy.

In many parts of the Dravidian land, newspaper readers anxiously open page-three without a glance at page-one. For, tucked away there would be crisp currency note from which the Father of the Nation smiles a tired smile. Some others open their doors before the milkman comes, and find dhotis and saris that had mysteriously materialised overnight. The only signs of the midsummer Santa Claus would be on the borders of the fabric that depict rising suns or a pair of leaves.

The election commission has so far seized Rs 33 crore from people who were ostensibly out to distribute them for votes. Among those arrested for cash distribution was former telecom minister A Raja’s elder brother A Kaliaperumal. Chief minister M Karunanidhi compared the EC’s crackdown to the Emergency; many ‘traders’ went to courts saying the commission was harassing them while they were just transporting money for their livelihood. The courts said such people could get back their money by producing proof that they were being taken on genuine business. None has claimed back his ‘trade’ money yet.

In the neighbouring God’s invented country, currency notes are not so much in abundance. And whatever little they have are put to better use—like investing on election-day operations. Not much has changed since former chief election commissioner TN Seshan famously remarked a couple of decades ago that Communist party members are the best practitioners of Rig Veda. “They rig the polls with such finesse,” he had quipped. Only that nowadays the Congress, too, does it with elan.

Here’s a peep into a typical operation. In Kerala’s palm-fringed backyards of polling stations, beedi-smoking activists hide homoeopathy bottles filled with some chemical concoction under their lungies. A designated rig-vedic voter walks out of the polling booth, wiping his left forefinger on his hair smeared with – what else – coconut oil.  The one in lungi fishes out the homoeopathy bottle and dips the stalk of a breadfruit leaf in the liquid. The voter extends his finger to the comrade who does the honour. The voter is soon transported to another booth, probably in another ward or another constituency, to exercise someone else’s franchise.  It may not be that easy this time, with the election commission introducing voter photographs on electoral rolls, but ‘vedic’ experts say they have done their homework well.

This is one game I don’t wish the best player wins.