Amma is the most valuable and visible brand in Tamil Nadu. Not only in politics, but in trade too, Amma sells.
Powerful, yet unpretentious, Amma products have come about in a range of bare essentials. Its formidable presence has worried Jayalalithaa's opponents and many businessmen.
The flagship of brand Amma is a low-priced canteen, Amma Unavagam. Launched on Jayalalithaa's 65th birthday, February 24, 2013, when food prices were rocketing, it sold an idli for just a rupee, sambar rice for five rupees and curd rice for three rupees to around two lakhs people.
Amma canteens are run by women self-help groups, with financial backing of municipal corporations. It soon caught the attention of the world. Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and Karnataka and Gujarat wanted to replicate similar subsidised food programmes. A team from Egypt visited Chennai to adopt the scheme in their land. Buoyed by the acclaim she received the world over, Jayalalithaa started more canteens. There are 654 Amma canteens in the state.
More brand launches
'Amma mineral water' for the thirsty travellers soon followed. Amma salt and Amma tea are also sold at low rates.
Amma cement was launched for construction and renovation of houses. Four to eight grams of gold for mangal sutra for brides and a box of baby kits for mothers were offered. Help for farmers came in the form of Amma seeds and Amma weekly markets.
A grievance redress forum called Amma Thittam has settled not less than 50 lakh petitions. Amma call centres handle around 15,000 calls a day. Anyone can register a complaint with the government by dialling the toll-free number 1100. The complaint is fed into a computer and sent to the department concerned for action. A micro loan scheme offered help for people who lost business in 2015 Chennai floods.
Jayalalithaa announced Amma theatres for entertainment at cheaper cost. She recently announced 500 Amma gyms and 500 Amma parks in rural areas for the physical and mental well-being of young people. The latest addition is Amma marriage halls in 11 places in the state.
Now a range of products and services from medicine to marriage hall, and every social welfare scheme of the state, is being branded Amma. Selling at subsided prices, they have created a welfare state image for Tamil Nadu.
She had earlier gifted women with mixers, grinders and fans. Since September 2011, laptops, cycles and school bags have been given to students free of cost.
Economist Amartya Sen has praised the state’s innovation and efficient delivery of public services in his co-authored book 'An Uncertain Glory - India and its contradictions.'
The schemes were instant successes as Jayalalithaa could identify the basic requirements of the poor and launch them without bureaucratic red tape.
Though there is criticism that such schemes are designed for vote bank politics, they have helped crores of people. Amma canteens saved people during the times of high inflation. Some of the chain restaurants, too, have started selling at competitive prices.
However, unable to withstand competition from government sponsored Amma products, many small businesses like pushcart eateries closed down. The allegation is that government welfare schemes have been branded as Amma.
On all products and services, one thing conspicuous was her photograph. Criticism arose during the floods in Chennai last year that her party workers allowed relief materials from various agencies to be distributed only after sticking her photograph on every kit.
Populist schemes
A freebie culture runs deep in Tamil Nadu politics. DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi came to power in 2006 on offering free TV sets and rice at one rupee per kilo. After that in every election, political parties in the state competed to offer maximum freebies in their election manifestos.
Generous doles had its toll on the state economy. Tamil Nadu's debt has risen sharply in recent years. The state debt is expected to touch Rs 2,11,483 crore in 2015-16.
From actor to Amma
Branding of political leaders is not a new concept in Dravidian politics. Tamil people passionately use monikers to talk about their leaders—Karunanidhi is Kalaignar, his son Stalin is Thalapthi and past leaders C. N. Annadurai was fondly called Anna meaning brother, and M. G. Ramachandran was MGR.
Actor Jayalalithaa, branded as Puratchi Thalaivi (meaning revolutionary leader), was reborn as ‘Amma’. The re-branding has been a slow transformation that did not follow any established principles of management. She simply evolved into the stature of a benevolent mother for the people of her state. During the Chennai floods, she comforted the people in a prerecorded soft motherly voice, “I have no personal life and no relatives. My family are the people of Tamil Nadu.”
Perhaps she might have felt the vacuum of a mother to the people soon after she was sworn in as the chief minister for the time in June 1991. In that year, college students of Chennai took to the streets in protest against a bus fare hike. Partially rolling back the fare hike, Jayalalithaa told the striking students that she was like a mother to them and asked them to focus on their studies. Not long later, she launched ‘Amma Cradle’ in Salem for mothers who cannot afford to bring up a baby.
The Amma concept took root during her second tenure and she began to be addressed as Amma by her party workers. Her branding as a generous and caring mother too has grown with Amma brands. These happened simultaneously: government welfare programmes being delivered and the building up of a brand Amma.
But to its fiercest critics, brand Amma is a populist vote caching gimmick that makes people addicted to unproductive freebies culture. Can these welfare programmes be continued in the event of her party losing an election?
Paying rich dividends
Brand Amma helped Jayalalithaa overcome the incumbency factor in the May 2016 assembly election. She became the first Tamil Nadu chief minister in three decades to win a second consecutive term.
On May 23, 2016, Jayalalithaa was sworn in, for the sixth time, as the chief minister. Her transformation from "actor-CM" to "Amma" is incomparable in Indian politics.
