The images that greeted a television watcher on May 11 when former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa was exonerated of any wrongdoing and holding of disproportionate assets by the Karnataka High Court was one to behold. Raucous sloganeering, festive cheers, dancing, expressive religiosity was on show at Poes Garden, the residence of the AIADMK leader, as she was pronounced “not guilty”.
The first reaction of mediapersons at the venue to the frenzied atmosphere outside Poes Garden on that day was one of awe. For how is it that the AIADMK matriarch — for want of a better word — could draw so much adulation, loyalty and even fear from her supporters, who would not even get a glimpse of their supreme leader on the day of her “redemption”? What explains the staunchest belief of her party people — who owe nothing less than complete obeisance to her — that the High Court would rectify what the trial court had got “wrong”? What explains their belief that the court cases were merely water off the teflon-coated duck’s back? What explains scores of people committing suicide when something unfortunate happens to their Amma?
Mass leader
These questions need to be pondered over by the political watcher and commentator for a meaningful answer. Ms. Jayalalithaa is not your garden variety mass leader, the one who is identifed by the “laity” as one of their own (think Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, for example). Nor is she a mass leader who participated in struggles over major issues, shoulder to shoulder with others on the street — the sprouting ground for organic mass leaders everywhere else — like the forever agit-prop specialist and now West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. And while she shared the silver screen and later the public stage with her political mentor, M.G. Ramachandran, her rise to popularity has not followed his story. MGR, who continues to evoke adulation as a legendary charismatic figure among millions of supporters in Tamil Nadu, was a product of the propagandist and the most highly political phase of the Dravidian movement. He charted his own journey when he became too big for the undivided DMK. As Chief Minister, his reliance on select schemes of benevolence and welfarism added to his popularity. In contrast, his “successor” in the AIADMK does not quite have the same appeal, but has skilfully nurtured the image of a matriarch among her followers, and has remained the fountainhead of a patronage dispensing machine. This machine is now one of the most efficient in Indian politics, paralleled perhaps in its origins and structure by the Telugu Desam Party and rivalled only by the AIADMK’s distant cousin and arch-enemy, the DMK, which took to creating its own machine as a response.
The 919-page High Court judgment in the disproportionate assets case reads like a laundry list of assets and liabilities, and is a document that is best left to chartered accountants to pore over. Ironically, despite setting out to be a proper statement of accounts to decide on the “proportionality or the lack” of the assets, the judgment seems to suffer from a careless arithmetic error in a key assessment. While some suggest that the impart of the judgement would remain despite this error (adjusted by other asset values that are recognised but not tabulated), the final word on the matter is yet to be said and the onus could fall on the Supreme Court. But among the many court cases that Ms. Jayalalithaa has fought over the years, this was the one that was supposed to evoke the sharpest indictment of her first tenure as Chief Minister.
Those with longer memories in Tamil Nadu will remember the images of ostentation and grandeur that followed the wedding of Ms. Jayalalithaa’s former “foster son”, which set the stage for the case in the first place. It might not be out of place to suggest that this display played a vital role in the coming back of the DMK to power in 1996. It is another matter that the AIADMK has shown a lot of resilience since then to return to power, led by its supremo who also had to spend time in jail for other cases. Court cases, periods of being in opposition and even being without alliance partners — an important basis for getting to power in the State — have not diminished the party or its leader's popularity, as evidenced recently. In fact, it is perhaps even more enhanced than before. How can this be explained?
The best answer to the question of the AIADMK’s resilience is situated in the nature of Tamil Nadu’s political economy — a comprehensive welfare model that is dominated also by a patronage system. For years, a system of patronage politics has been thriving in the State, which has built upon its welfare model so much so that it could be said that the State’s two dominant parties have perfected patronage. Patronage politics is a system which depends upon parties delivering resources and material promised to voters, especially the poor, during elections, instead of being based on a well-rounded welfarist ideology. The effectiveness of this system is in its reach through governmental agencies or party networks and the interpersonal nature of the distribution of goods. The party representative or the party head strives to deliver specific goods — either public goods such as free power or cheaper rice or “club goods” such as laptops or grinders — or services to clients across communities or even raises the hope of clients about delivery, expecting prospective voting in the party’s favour. In Tamil Nadu’s case, the effectiveness of the patronage system is what makes it unique in one respect. Distribution of goods has generally happened, either in the DMK’s or in the AIADMK’s case, in accordance with the promises made prior to elections.
Having said that, the patronage system is not unique to Tamil Nadu; it dominates other States, too. The dominant form of patronage, however, in many States such as Uttar Pradesh or Bihar, is the one which relies on ethnicity. Regional political parties in U.P. or Bihar are identity-based parties, with core caste groups identified both as their immediate beneficiaries and representatives. Tactical alliances with other caste groups and communities are stitched by these parties, but the purse strings of the patronage system are controlled by specific groupings. As many other caste and community groupings feel left out, there are ample spaces for contestation by either national parties or smaller regional groups. This complicates the political system in these States. In Tamil Nadu, the patronage system is dominant and dominated by the two Dravidian parties, with other political forces subordinate to them and sometimes reliant upon them for the retention of their own political bases. The Dravidian parties’ own bases might have, at one point of time, been dominated by the presence of intermediate castes — with the legacy of the Dravidian movement flowing from the Self-Respect movement in the State — but today it is difficult to pin down the parties as being constitutive of specific caste or communities controlling them.
Supremacy of the leader
An effective patronage system is also reliant upon a strong network that ensures delivery of promises. This is best helped when loyalty of the cadre is ensured, which means that the control of party finances is important and therefore centralised. This is perhaps why the structure of both parties is characterised either by the control of one family (the DMK) or one charismatic individual aided by a trustworthy coterie (the AIADMK), respectively. The former has also been helped by a strong organisational structure, nurtured over the years by the first family of M. Karunanidhi at the top, while the AIADMK has had the benefit of utilising the vast array of MGR fan associations in the past, which have formed the backbone of the party. The AIADMK needs to propagate the charisma of the leader to sustain the model, which explains the sycophancy of its other leaders and the massive image building exercises venerating its leader.
It must be said that the DMK adapted itself to the patronage-based system from being an ideology-driven party as a response to the success of the AIADMK model. Today, being parties dependent mostly on patronage and generally devoid of distinguishing principle is the reason why the blight of corruption affects both parties, with senior leaders of both parties alleged to have amassed wealth due to proximity or presence in power. It is also why the charge of malfeasance against Ms. Jayalalithaa has not had so much resonance with her supporters or the general public, as the standard that she is measured against, the opposition, was stuck with similar charges recently.
Differentiation between these parties is made therefore not on the basis of their respective positions on issues or even their degrees of upright governance, but on the efficiency of delivery of promises when in power and the promises they make before coming to power. Yet, such a form of governance driven largely by patronage-based populism has its limits, as it does not address “structural” issues related to the economy. Effective distribution of specific goods is not a substitute for a truer welfare model that seeks to achieve growth through enhancing productive resources in the economy. Tamil Nadu is better off than many other States in India in that respect due to advantages of being a manufacturing hub (aided by the fact that the State has a long mercantile history, ports etc) and an up and coming services sector. But there are always discontents who suffer from the lack of upward mobility or distress due to agrarian issues or social insecurity. That is the reason why there are a number of other political parties striving to occupy the substantive “third” space in Tamil Nadu polity. This space, while it has not expanded, gives hope to political aspirants and also helps the Dravidian party in opposition to consolidate support through alliances and supplant the one in power. This is how the State has alternated between the two Dravidian parties.
All said, the answer to our first question about the reasons for the frenzy for the supremo and the complete trust in her despite the seriousness of charges against the party leadership is therefore simple: it is the structure, stupid.
