Graft Charges Against Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu

Chennai, India.  AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa was sentenced to four years in jail on Saturday, Sept 27th on charges of running a 18 year long graft operation that extracted 530 million rupees ($8.7 million) through use of her position as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.[i]

Jayalalithaa Jayaram, who was a well-known Tamil actor before becoming a politician, is among the most popular politicians in Southern India.[ii] Jayaram has built her career supporting heavily populist policies. And due to these stances Jayaram is considered beloved in her province of Tamil Nadu, one of the largest, most influential states in India. Though undeniably popular, Jayaram has hung under a cloud of criminal scrutiny since 2001, when she was denied a seat in Tamil Nadu’s assembly due to being under police investigation. Jayalalithaa, before her sentence, was serving out her third term as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Part of her huge support lies with her fanbase from her former occupation as a movie actress, while her schemes to provide free laptops, grinders, and fans to the population has also endeared her to the poor of Tamil Nadu. The party she is a leader of, AIADMK, is a poor-focused party that was founded by Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran, a legend of the Tamil film industry. MGR cultivated the role that Jayaram would later successfully adopt, that of a popular actor-politician relying on his/her fans and populist policies to amass power. AIADMK has been the most successful party in Tamil Nadu since MGR’s first Chief Ministership, beginning in 1977, and has held the Chief Minister role 25 of the 37 years since then. With Jayalalithaa’s jailing, her right-hand man, O. Panneerselvam, has taken over as the Chief Minister.

Jayalalithaa’s sentence is remarkable because this is the first instance of a Chief Minister, and only the seventh example of a politician to lose her office over criminal charges.[iii] The lack of politicians sentenced for crimes is less because of the lack of corruption in India, which is by most accounts prevalent, and more because of the judiciary’s cautiousness in sentencing popular politicians. The situation has revealed the stalling of the progress of rule of law in India; even in Jayaram’s situation, her supporters have denounced the ruling and clashed with police and political opponents. While a partisan split on the whether Jayalalithaa should have been sentenced should be expected, India’s problem with rule of law is illustrated by not only this split, but a partisan split between those who deny the validity and legitimacy of the ruling and those who applaud the decision solely based on the fact that it will lead to perceived gains by the opposition party. If Tamil Nadu, and the rest of India, is to develop into a fully functional, stable polity, it must be able to apply its law on those who choose to break the rules. Jayalalithaa’s sentencing is a important first step, but one that shows that there is still a long way to go.

A party that will benefit from the Jayalalithaa situation is the current Indian Centre ruling party, the BJP. While AIADMK and BJP previously were on “good terms”, in recent months the relationship has soured due to perceived ignorance of local Tamil Nadu issues as well as BJP ambitions of gaining a share of the AIADMK vote. Already, Subramanian Swamy, a high ranking BJP party member, has already hailed the decision as a “victory for democracy” and looked to the gains that his party could gain in any breakaway AIADMK votes.[iv] What remains to be seen is whether AIADMK voters will stay loyal to the party, even without the powerful symbol of Jayalalithaa in the Chief Minister role. If BJP can successfully exploit Jayaram’s criminal troubles, than it will be able to gain rapidly in Tamil Nadu, and further solidify its position in the Centre.

[i] "Jayalalithaa Moves Karnataka High Court for Bail in Disproportionate Assets Case." Deccan Chronicle. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.

[ii] Kalra, Aditya. "Court Jails Tamil Nadu CM Jayalalithaa in Graft Case." | Reuters. N.p., 27 Sept. 2014. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.

[iii] "Fifth politician to lose post". Sunday Times. 28 September 2014

[iv] "AIADMK, BJP Tussle Heats up as Tamil Nadu Local Body By-polls near." The Indian Express. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2014.