I got Jayalalithaa bail, she surpassed all politicians in India
Of all the women politicians in India, J Jayalalithaa surpasses them all. My own encounter with her was peripheral. The first as a lawyer, the second as a lobbyist against the WTO.
Sometime in the mid- 1990s, the DMK wanted to make a huge tamasha (ruckus) of the Jayalalithaa trial. A new modernised court had been created with a structure designed to dramatise with Mess gallery.
The absence of a good lawyer in Delhi found me in Chennai demanding bail for her, while M Karunanidhi was savagely gunning for her incarceration.
What he had done was sneaky. Her 13-odd cases were distributed all over Tamil Nadu.
The big bonanza was to get all of them to Chennai so that the spectacle could begin.
Argument
The Acting Chief Justice acceded to Karunanidhi's request to continue all cases in Chennai by an administrative order. Politics disrupts law.
My simple argument was that "transfer" of cases is a judicial process and not a conspiracy between Karunanidhi and the Acting Chief Justice. It worked.
She got bail. Then the case was fought over three years. Eventually we lost, but I spent months on end at the Adiyar Sheraton expanding the case so that it would extend to the end of the Assembly's term.
I had given her "political oxygen" at a time she needed it. The arguments reached a crescendo when I spoke of Karunanidhi's tamasha court as just a case of "regime revenge".
Jayalalithaa sent a message summoning me to Poes Garden. Around the time I was doing NTR's case. He had the grace to talk to me personally.
Jayalalithaa's third-party messages to me were insulting. All it needed was a phone call. She did not make it. I refused the journey to Poes Garden, "to her surprise and chagrin".
She had her spies in court taking notes. She was well-informed about what I was arguing. I do not grudge her imperiousness. My PIL friends teased me for appearing for a tyrant.
One of them kindly agreed that bail was a matter of civil liberty, even for her. Unfortunately, sending a person to jail is a political event designed to humiliate.
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| The thought of Sasikala succeeding her destroys Jayalalithaa's legacy. |
Strangely for these three years, I learnt to respect her clarity, her self-respect, and her re-definition of herself as a mass leader concerned about her people. We eventually lost, but she savoured the political oxygen I got her.
My second interface with Jayalalithaa was when George Fernandes, Mr Keyala and I went to persuade her to oppose the "World Trade Organisation" (WTO) which would open the country to economic pillage and surrender India to global corporations.
The meeting was in the Cabinet room. Food was set out. Officers were in attendance. She presided and, insisting that we eat first while she looked on. Hospitality? Heavens no. Another little political power game. Lalu Prasad in Bihar had his meeting with him in a circuit house bedroom.
In the discussion, she was politically aware of both the opposition and support for WTO. Why should she file in the Supreme Court?
Then I pressed the argument that the agriculture treaty eventually capped agriculture subsidies including 'revenue for gone up to 10 per cent (still a distance away).
Relationship
This, according to her, interfered with her relationship with farmers. The official experts made calculations to present figures. Her voice stepped in emphatically: "No Mr Secretary, these were last year's figures."
She asked me to make an exception and get the materials I needed. From the ministry I examined the figures. Jayalalithaa was right. The subject of subsidy was not scheduled.
She was truly the head of her administration. My two interfaces tell a lot about the lady.
She was of course a cult leader who had strayed into more than temptation.
Lonely by herself, she adopted Sasikala, a wheeler dealer who brought companionship but also the charge of corruption against Jayalalithaa. She destroyed Jayalalithaa's career. Obviously prone to the evil to abuse of power that belonged to the people, Sasikala played on her loneliness.
Jayalalithaa also lost a friend and strategist in Cho Ramaswamy contemporaneously. The thought of Sasikala succeeding her destroys Jayalalithaa's legacy.
Democracy
Jayalalithaa was not another woman political leader who had built a cult around herself. She was not another Nandini Satpathy, Sucheta Kripalani, Shiela Dixit, Vasundhara Raje or Rabri Devi, or even Mayawati.
She was not somebody's appointee. Her place belongs above the dynamic Indira Gandhi.
A politician who had to find her following, created a bond of love with her people, thought through political and administrative decisions, had clarity with compassion and an unerring belief that she belonged to the people whom she loved and who loved her in return.
Her iconic status eclipses the travails of her sad but gigantic figure in politics; she took it as a responsibility and not just a game of thrones.
To govern is one thing, to do so with a sense of justice is quite another.
Democracy and the rule of law are the two axles which drive Indian governance. Our politicians sometimes forget the need to maintain the balance.
Democratic power without the rule of law is tyranny. The rule of law without democracy is meaningless.
Jayalalithaa understood this balance better than most Indian politicians, but she transgressed the law and paid heavily by the process which is in itself a punishment.
Jayalalithaa lies off Marina Beach in a silence of mind and spirit. But she was and will remain one of the greatest contributors to Indian governance.
Goodbye Jayalalithaa.
(Courtesy of Mail Today.)