(Continued from last fortnight)

C.N. Annadurai.

The success of the new party not withstanding, EVR and Anna would collaborate again and again on issues. The first time was in 1950 when the provision for affirmative action in the Constitution of India was challenged in the High Court of Madras. The Court’s judgement favoured the petitioners and this was protested against by EVR who called for a ‘full closure’ on August 14, 1950. Anna supported this call and joined the protest march down Broadway. The Supreme Court upheld the Madras High Court’s judgement, but with Kamaraj, by then a very important player in the Congress, throwing his weight behind Anna and EVR, the first amendment to the Constitution took place in 1951, overturning the Supreme Court’s ruling. It was to be the first of several such social revisions, many of them emanating from Madras where, thanks to EVR, Anna and others, awareness was high.

Next, EVR and Anna joined forces to protest against Rajaji’s kula-kalvi thittam, a scheme that envisaged vocational training based on hereditary caste-based professions. The idea cost Rajaji his job as Chief Minister and Kamaraj, who had opposed it, succeeded him. The appointment of a man of the masses as CM was considered a success of their own protests by the DK and DMK leaders. EVR and Anna would also come together repeatedly in the agitation against the imposition of Hindi in 1957, 1960 and, most famously, 1963. In the last instance, the protest was against Hindi becoming the official language of India. Anna would be arrested for the last time and taken to the Aminjikarai police station on November 16, a day prior to the proposed burning of extracts from the Indian Constitution. The Bhakthavatsalam administration clamped down on the agitationists and several were arrested. This turmoil was also to claim the first death by self-immolation for a cause – that of Chinnasami of Tiruchi, a DMK cadre. Anna and others were to be released in 1964, only to be taken into preventive custody again in 1965, following the outbreak of protests caused by a Central Government circular making it obligatory for government staff above a particular grade to transact business in Hindi. On January, 25, 50,000 students from Madras colleges marched from Napier Park to Fort St George in protest, only to be fired upon with teargas shells by the police. That evening a mammoth meeting was organised on the Marina and a few Hindi books were burnt. The Congress government had alienated the students who, in the subsequent elections, would prostrate themselves before voters asking them not to vote for that party.

The DMK was, in the meanwhile, making steady progress in Madras State, the new entity that emerged after the reorganisation of States in 1955. In 1956, the party decided, after an intra-party poll, that the DMK would henceforth contest elections. It fielded candidates both for the Centre and the State in 1957 and won two seats in the former and 15 in the latter. Anna declared that the party would play the role of a constructive opposition. Madras city became one of its bastions. In 1959 the DMK won a majority in the elections to the Madras Corporation. In 1962, the party improved its tally in the State elections, though the Congress once again formed the government, albeit with a dented majority. Strangely, Anna was defeated in his home town of Kanchipuram. The Dravida Nadu baggage had proved to be an effective tool to campaign against him. He was branded a secessionist by the Congress. But it was to be a blessing in disguise. Anna was elected to the Rajya Sabha. There the nation got to know of him. It was also here that he famously suspended forever the Dravida Nadu demand.

The National Integration Council headed by Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer had recommended the forbidding of secessionist advocacy and this was incorporated into the Constitution following the 16th Amendment. Shortly thereafter came the Chinese aggression and it became a convenient excuse for Anna. He called for the suspension of the Dravida Nadu demand. On October 3, 1962, he addressed a meeting at the Marina and compared his action to the suspension of the Dravida Nadu demand by EVR when World War II was declared.

In 1966, the DMK staged a four-day party conference at Virugambakkam, then a suburb of Madras. It took six hours for the procession to pass through the town and was an indication of the party’s growing strength. Rajaji was present in person to bless everyone. Rs. 11 lakh by way of election funds was handed over to Anna by M. Karunanidhi who was treasurer of the party. It was a record amount for the DMK and indicated that the party had come a long way from its beginnings in Muthialpet. In the 1967 elections, the DMK swept Madras State, winning all 25 Parliamentary seats and 138 of the 173 Assembly seats. Anna became Chief Minister on March 6th, sworn in along with his Cabinet by Governor Ujjal Singh at Rajaji Hall.

Sadly, he was to remain in power for hardly two years. In July 1967, he would face his first administrative challenge when a fire engulfed one of the largest slums of South Madras. Anna called for an all-party meeting and it was decided that no new slums would be allowed to come up in the city. The naivety of the decision was perhaps reflective of the fundamental innocence and idealism of the man at the helm. The first by-election after his coming to power was in the South Madras parliamentary constituency and this was won by the DMK, indicating that, the fire not withstanding, the party’s popularity was intact.

In July 1967, the DMK government passed a resolution renaming Madras State as Tamil Nadu. In January 1968, the Government hosted the Second International Tamil Conference in Madras. A row of statues of those who contributed to Tamil was erected along the Marina. A day prior to this, Anna’s own statue was unveiled on Mount Road by Sir A Ramaswami Mudaliar. On January 3rd, there was a parade comprising floats down the Marina, all of them depicting Tamil history and heritage. Delegates from 40 countries participated in the six-day-long conference. Rather coincidentally, the Government of India amended its Official Languages Act, stating in effect that Hindi would become the official language of the nation only when all non-Hindi speaking states adopted a resolution to that effect. The joy that this would have given Anna was, however, dampened by the succeeding resolution passed by Parliament which aimed at the progressive use of Hindi as the official language. In Madras, disturbances broke out once again, but this time Anna was not for any agitation involving students. He spent five nights talking to them and, finally, convinced them that adopting constitutional means was the best way. The Madras Assembly passed a resolution on January 23, eliminating Hindi from all school curricula.

Politics that had entered the Law College in Anna’s youth became heightened with time and, in March 1968, Anna faced his last administrative challenge in Madras city. There was a clash between the college students and busmen and this spread to the Madras Medical College. Once again Anna was to display great sensitivity in handling the situation.

The book does not mention it, but in 1968 Madras hosted the World Trade Fair. The venue became the city’s fastest growing suburb – Anna Nagar.

In September 1968, Anna was diagnosed with cancer. He flew to the US for treatment and returned on November 6 to Madras to an overwhelming reception. He stayed at Agriculture Minister A. Govindasami’s bungalow, Anbu, specially fitted with an airconditioner as stipulated by his doctors. But his health was steadily deteriorating. On December 2 he participated in the celebrations connected with the renaming of the State.

The question over Anna’s health hung like a cloud over the state through most of December and January. On January 20, 1969 Anna fell unconscious and was admitted to the Adyar Cancer Institute. Ramnath Goenka flew in at his own expense doctors from the US and also funded the surgeries that followed. But it was all to no avail. Anna died on February 3, 1969. The body lay in state for homage by millions of mourners. The greatest funeral procession the world had witnessed, entering into the Guinness Book of Records, unfolded the next day in Madras city as the state tearfully bid farewell to the man it loved. A grand memorial would later come up for him at the Marina, the beachfront where he had mesmerised thousands of his followers in the past with his oratory and erudition.

(Concluded)