Love him or hate him, for the people of Tamil Nadu, he has been in their hearts and minds for the past eight decades. But for 94-year-old Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who had always celebrated his birthdays with grand publicity and propaganda, this birthday will be different. Saturday’s grand birthday celebrations at the sprawling YMCA grounds on Chennai’s heartline—Mount Road—will be lead by his son and DMK’s working president M.K. Stalin.
The man, who had scripted many a reel and real success in the twilight of his life, has not stepped out to meet his party men in the past six months. The last he wrote to his cadres and the people of the state was a day after Jayalalithaa’s death. It was an obituary.
It has been months since his party cadres heard him say, en uyirinum melana anbu udanpirappugaley (My loving brothers and sisters bigger than my life), as he has been recuperating from illness associated with age. DMK sources close to the family say he is undergoing speech therapy after tracheostomy. Is it curtains down for the DMK patriarch’s political career?
He will not contest another election. He will not lead the party, as he used to for more than six decades. Karunanidhi entered politics while in school after being influenced by EVR Periyar. Karunanidhi, perhaps, has had the longest stint in Indian politics than any other political leader before or after him. Known for its sharpness and swift repartees, Karunanidhi’s rhetoric may not be heard anymore. His rustic voice may not enthrall his party men and the DMK might not see a leader like him ever again. Two qualities—inclusiveness and prioritisation—have taken him and his party forward since the days of Parasakthi in 1952. The movie was a launch pad for DMK, taking it forward among the people. With legendary actor Sivaji Ganesan in the lead role, Parasakthi opened with a monologue that bewailed the plight of Tamils who had to leave their native country because of poverty. The powerful dialogues with clear political overtones penned by Karunanidhi, was his stepping stone as he rise to the top, close to the then DMK leader CN Annadurai. But the man who rose through the ranks to the number two slot and then became the president of the DMK forever, doesn’t do the kind of politicking, like he used to, when he was in his prime.
While rising through the ranks, no other leader in the state would have faced defeat like him. He was out of power for 13 years. In 1991, he was one of the only two MLAs from his party after Rajiv Gandhi’s death. In 2011, his party could not even sit in the opposition. In 2016, too, when he was dreaming of becoming the chief minister for the sixth time, he was routed. But Karunanidhi has always stood up. In fact, he is the only politician who has been elected to the assembly 13 times. He has never lost any election as an individual. “He is a man with acute political sense and who always has interests in multiple things. As Bernard Shaw says, one can have happiness in life if he or she has interests in many things. Despite all his shortcomings, he is the leader from whom every politician could learn a lot,” says senior journalist R. Ramasubramanian. And Karunanidhi, too, apart from politics, has always had interests in literature, cinema and even cricket.
But at the twilight of his life, not just his image but the image of his party too is suffering a major setback. Despite all its overtures and anti-incumbency, the DMK could not bounce back to power in 2016. And Karunanidhi had to pass the baton to his son, with all the family disputes unsolved. If everything goes according to the script on his 94th birthday, his son M.K. Stalin could be the lodestar of the politically instable Tamil Nadu and script yet another victory for the DMK.
With a galaxy of leaders right from Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi and others, Stalin is expected to steal the political thunder during the event at the YMCA grounds. But with the absence of the 94-year-old birthday boy, it remains to be seen if Stalin will chart a new course in the politically instable Tamil Nadu, like his father.
