ANNA

R Kannan

Description

On 6 March 1967; fifty-eight-year-old Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai became chief minister of Madras state; when his party; the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK); swept to power for the first time. Marking the pinnacle of his public life; it reflected his popularity among ordinary people who revered him as Anna; or elder brother. This rich biography illuminates his many lives as a charismatic leader of modern India; as a stalwart of the Dravidian movement; as the founder of the DMK; as spokesman for the South besides documenting his abilities as an acclaimed orator and litt rateur in Tamil and English; and as a stage actor. Born into a weaving caste family in Kanchipuram; Anna was exposed to the non-Brahmin politics of the Justice Party during his college years and this interest led him to become a prot g of the radical thinker Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in 1935. Anna promoted his mentor s ideas of Self-Respect and Tamil identity but not his atheism. Like him; he attacked Brahminism and Aryan values as the cause of Tamil political and cultural decadence and opposed the imposition of Hindi as the official language. In 1962 Anna took his independent Dravida Nadu demand to the Rajya Sabha; threatening the nation s unity. Importantly; he used public speaking; journalism; theatre; cinema and agit-prop to broaden the base of the party; which drew renowned film actors into its fold; a bond that endures to this day. The book does not shy away from the controversies that surrounded the Dravidian movement and candidly examines Anna s complex relationship with Periyar. It records Anna s move to form the DMK in 1949; his split with Sampath in 1961 over the party s strategy and course; and his disillusionment with the corruption and power politics he witnessed as chief minister. Kannan draws on Anna s considerable body of writing; the memoirs of other leaders and authors in Tamil; including critics like the poet Kannadasan; Jayakanthan and P. Ramamurti; apart from secondary sources. Featuring luminaries like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj; Kalaignar Karunanidhi and MGR; among many others; Anna offers a warm and rounded portrait of a man who showed the way for the democratic expression of regional aspirations within a united India.

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 09 février 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184753134
• Langue: English

Extrait

On 6 March 1967, fifty-eight-year-old Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai became chief minister of Madras state, when his party, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), swept to power for the first time. Marking the pinnacle of his public life, it reflected his popularity among ordinary people who revered him as Anna, or elder brother. This rich biography illuminates his many lives—as a charismatic leader of modern India, as a stalwart of the Dravidian movement, as the founder of the DMK, as spokesman for the South—besides documenting his abilities as an acclaimed orator and littérateur in Tamil and English, and as a stage actor.
Born into a weaving caste family in Kanchipuram, Anna was exposed to the non-Brahmin politics of the Justice Party during his college years and this interest led him to become a protégé of the radical thinker Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in 1935. Anna promoted his mentor’s ideas of Self-Respect and Tamil identity but not his atheism. Like him, he attacked Brahminism and ‘Aryan’ values as the cause of Tamil political and cultural decadence and opposed the imposition of Hindi as the official language. In 1962 Anna took his independent Dravida Nadu demand to the Rajya Sabha, threatening the nation’s unity. Importantly, he used public speaking, journalism, theatre, cinema and agit-prop to broaden the base of the party, which drew renowned film actors into its fold, a bond that endures to this day.
The book does not shy away from the controversies that surrounded the Dravidian movement and candidly examines Anna’s complex relationship with Periyar. It records Anna’s move to form the DMK in 1949, his split with Sampath in 1961 over the party’s strategy and course, and his disillusionment with the corruption and power politics he witnessed as chief minister.
Kannan draws on Anna’s considerable body of writing, the memoirs of other leaders and authors in Tamil, including critics like the poet Kannadasan, Jayakanthan and P. Ramamurti, apart from secondary sources. Featuring luminaries like Rajagopalachari and Kamaraj, Kalaignar Karunanidhi and MGR, among many others, Anna offers a warm and rounded portrait of a man who showed the way for the democratic expression of regional aspirations within a united India.

R. Kannan was born in Madras in 1962. A graduate of New College, Madras Law College and the University of Georgia, he has a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He practised law in Madras, and briefly also taught law at Madras Law College and international organizations at the University of Madras, where he was a guest faculty member. He has served in various capacities with the United Nations, including as head of Civil Affairs in Cyprus. Currently, he is a political officer with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Kannan is married and has two children.
‘Thoroughly researched, engagingly written, combining analytical rigour with anecdotal verve, R. Kannan’s life of C.N. Annadurai is a landmark in the annals of contemporary Indian political biography. It brings to life a giant of our age who deserves to be far better known outside his native Tamil Nadu. The impact of Anna’s life and message still endures. Every thinking Indian should be aware of it, and there could be no better source in the English language to understand Anna’s contribution to shaping our India than this fine book.’— Shashi Tharoor
‘Anna: The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai admirably fills an intriguing gap, the absence of a reliable biography of one of the most interesting, attractive, and consequential of modern India’s political leaders, whose legacy is no less than the permanent transformation of Tamil Nadu’s socio-political landscape, the ascendancy of the federal idea, and a whole new democratic language of connecting with the masses. This is a sympathetic work that … uses its sources well and keeps a critical distance from its subject and the movement he led. A special triumph is the fresh life it brings to the fascinating personal and political relationship between Anna and his formidable mentor, the iconoclastic social reformer “Periyar”. This accessible and lucidly written work is an invaluable read on the Dravidian Movement in its dynamic and most democratic phase, before the loss of innocence.’—N. Ram, Editor-in-Chief, The Hindu
Cover photograph courtesy of the Department of Information and Public Relations, Ministry of Information, Government of Tamil Nadu
Author photograph courtesy of Wide Angle K. Ravishankar
ANNA THE LIFE AND TIMES OF C.N. ANNADURAI
R. Kannan
VIKING
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in Viking by Penguin Books India 2010
Copyright © R. Kannan 2010
All photographs except if otherwise mentioned courtesy of the Department of Information and Public Relations, Ministry of Information, Government of Tamil Nadu
While every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain permission, this has not been possible in all cases; any omissions brought to our attention will be remedied in future editions.
All rights reserved
The views and opinions expressed in this e-book are the author’s own and the facts are as reported by him which have been verified to the extent possible, and the publishers are not in any way liable for the same.
ISBN: 978-06-7008-328-2
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-313-4
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
To Usha, Thaenpaavai and Iniyan
CONTENTS
Copyright
Preface
SPRING: MENTOR AND PROTÉGÉ
The Formative Years
‘Sudra’, ‘Dravida’ and ‘Non-Brahmin’
Anna, Justice Party and E.V. Ramasamy ‘Periyar’
The First Anti-Hindi Protest and Dravida Nadu
Burn the Ramayana and Periyapuranam !
Dravida Nadu Weekly and Chandrodayam Play
Salem, 1944: The Son Repays His Debt
Strains of Discord
The Elusive Anointment
Anna Feels Cheated
SUMMER: THE RISE OF THE DMK
The DMK Is Born
Strategizing the Party’s Growth
‘Aryan Illusion’ and Congress Delusion
Parasakthi’ s Kalaignar, MGR and the DMK
Party Poll on Elections—1956: Coming Out of the Closet
‘Yes’ to Elections, ‘No’ to Hindi
1961: Sampath Leaves ‘Mr Annadurai’
Dropping Dravida Nadu
The Anti-Hindi Struggle: Chinnasami the First ‘Martyr’
FALL: THE YEARS IN POWER
(H)Indian or Indian
The Road to Power
Chief Minister Anna
From Madras State to Tamil Nadu
The Glorious End
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
Bibliography
PREFACE
This is not a hagiography. But then, it is difficult not to succumb to C.N. Annadurai’s extraordinary human facets, genius and vision. The Tamils judge a person by the attendance at one’s funeral and beyond the niceties said on the occasion. Anna was judged well, for Tamil families around the world mourned his passing away as a personal bereavement. If he conjured up mammoth crowds while he lived, next only to Nehru, in his death he created a record that remains unbeaten. Unlike Nehru, however, Anna’s beginnings were far from aristocratic. They were rather modest and Anna often prided himself on being a ‘commoner’. Yet, from those humble beginnings, he rose to be loved by his people like none other before or after him. This work is an attempt to explain the ordinary man’s extraordinary journey.
Growing up as I did in the north of Madras, a bastion of Anna’s DMK and in a family with leanings towards the Dravidian movement, the effect of Anna’s death remains etched in my memory. That day, Madras came to a standstill. I was seven years old and could not understand why the city had ground to a halt like never before. As my father, S.K. Rajarathinam, explained the greatness of the leader who was no more, Anna felt like a hero whom I had not been fortunate enough to meet. As I came to know more of Anna, I began thinking about writing a biography of the man who had walked as a colossus among the Tamils. Inexplicably, despite his heavy footprint on the Tamil political landscape, there are not many biographies of Anna, even in his native Tamil.
Anna lends his name to streets, parks, a university, the Chennai international airport and government welfare projects. His statues and busts are ubiquitous in Tamil Nadu. Anna’s image flutters as part of a major Dravidian party’s flag and leaders of the Dravidian parties ritually invoke his name like devout Hindus do with Ganesh. Yet there is a huge gulf between Anna’s icon