LEADER ARTICLE
Return of the Mummy: Blame it on Math, not Madness

That J Jayalalithaa’s fury operates in a matrix outside logic and reason was revealed when she launched a violent midnight offensive against her bitter opponent and DMK elder M Karunanidhi.
That the rage can take perverse forms became apparent when, through the medium of the Tamil Nadu assembly, she ordered the arrest of the editors of The Hindu.
The severity of the crackdown has expectedly unleashed an anti-Jaya wave: One can see the outrage in the deluge of newspaper articles and letters to the editor, and the rush of statements made by political parties. Alongside, one can also sense revulsion for the people of Tamil Nadu: What sort of people are these that vote an obnoxious tyrant like her? What herd mentality is it that works against all rationality, that overlooks copious past evidence of venality and high-handedness?
Alas, the truth isn’t quite so simple. There’d be hope, if the Tamils were so stupidly emotional: Jaya could be thrown out again. For irrational exuberance, as the market has shown once too often, is almost always short-lived. The J phenomenon, on the other hand, owes its spectacular re-birth to opportunistic allies who banded together knowing every little detail of her ‘venality’, ‘high-handedness’ and other miscellaneous sins. And as long as political parties remain susceptible to quick and rewarding deal-making, there can be no ruling out another grand Jaya-victory mounted on another grand alliance.
Consider the following facts: A pre- election opinion poll done by this paper for the 2001 TN elections showed considerable popular appreciation for the DMK government. As many as 47 per cent of the people surveyed said they were happy with the Karunanidhi government as against 43 per cent who said they were unhappy. Thirty-eight per cent said they were better off than before and an equal proportion said they were worse off. Jaya herself was only marginally ahead of Karunanidhi in the popularity stakes. It can be nobody’s case that together these constitute a sweeping voter sentiment in favour of Jayalalithaa.
Yet, the same poll also predicted a rousing return for the AIADMK and an ignominious rout for the DMK. Why? Because whereas Jaya had shrewdly sewn up a winning alliance, her opponent Karunanidhi had wilfully damaged his chances by throwing out crucial members of his coalition. Two expulsions, in particular, proved costly: That of S Ramadoss’s PMK (Pattali Makkal Katchi) and Vaiko’s MDMK (Marumalarchi DMK). The first headed for the AIADMK while the second fought alone. Jaya also ensnared the TMC (Tamil Maanila Cong-ress), a key former ally of the DMK. The AIADMK’s victory was not people-driven but authored by Jaya, who looked at the results of the 1999 Lok Sabha elections and did some elementary math.
In 1999, Karunanidhi not only dumped Dravidian ideology to team up with the BJP, he also put together a coalition with the MDMK, PMK and TRC (Tamizhga Rajiv Congress) that got him 47 per cent of the vote. The returns were impressive. The BJP won four out of six seats it contested, the DMK 12 out of 19, the PMK five out of seven and the MDMK four out of five. Had Karunanidhi retained these allies in 2001 he would have beaten the Jaya bandwagon by two percentage points. Had he wooed back the TMC, his alliance would have touched 54 per cent, beating Jaya by 16 percentage points. More significantly, he would have beaten Jaya squarely even without the BJP.
In the event, all the wooing was done by the lady. She charmed everyone, the Congress, the TMC — which, ironically, was born in opposition to her — the PMK and the left parties. Karunanidhi stitched up an alliance too — but one so effete, most of its constituents brought in less than one per cent vote each. Result: Fifty per cent vote for the AIADMK alliance against 38.7 per cent for the DMK alliance. The AIADMK’s own score of 31.4 per cent was only half a per cent less than the DMK’s 30.9 per cent. Yet, in popular imagination this tiny difference took on the proportions of a tidal wave.
As political scientist Yogendra Yadav was to comment later, “Jayalalithaa won not because of her popularity but because of the unbeatable alliance she cobbled together. In a sense she had won the election even before the campaign began.� Indeed, Yadav’s post-poll analysis of the 2001 election, done for Frontline magazine, bore out the TOI’s findings on popular support for the Karunanidhi government. In the 1996 election — the one that gave a massive heave-ho to Jaya — 60 per cent voters had said they were “not satisfied at all� with the AIADMK government. By contrast, in 2001, 42 per cent endorsed the Karuna-nidhi government as against 37 per cent for an AIADMK government. Not just this. More people thought Karunanidhi would make a better chief minister than Jaya.
In reality, 2001 was a waveless election that Jayalalithaa astutely manipulated to her advantage. But having achieved her goal, she reverted to her hallmark imperiousness, throwing off the crutches that were her allies. But in a curious way, her future is now in the hands of the same people she so casually abandoned. Indeed, today, as she stands in isolation, her betrayed former friends — the now united Congress-TMC, the left parties, the PMK — could do one of two things: Swear never to touch the AIADMK and at the same time shore up Karunanidhi so that the DMK can eventually move away from the BJP. Or swallow their pride and return to the lady’s camp, so history can repeat itself all over again.