As crowds thronged the Rajaji Hall in Chennai to pay their respects to J Jayalalithaa (1948- 2016), the drama that was her life seemed to continue. Only 68-years-old, she was admitted to the Apollo hospital in Chennai on 22 September, and after months of secrecy surrounding her illness, a cardiac arrest at 11:30 pm on 5 December, 2016, did her in.
Over a career spanning about three decades, the strongest woman politician in south India was blown up as a larger-than-life icon, criticised as an insecure autocrat and held the country in bafflement with her charisma and corruption. Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu five times, heading an assembly she swore she would not enter till it was safe for a woman.
She rose from the position of a celebrity member in the late eighties to the incontestable leader of the AIADMK, one of the two pillars of Dravidian party politics. She was an exacting nemesis of the grand old man of Dravidian politics, M Karunanidhi, in Tamil Nadu, and at the national level, her electoral clout in coalitions and stubborn bargaining has felled governments. Amma, the maternal leader, created a most paternalist government that not only provided before the subject asked, but also ruled with an iron fist.
Also Read: Watch Live: Jayalalithaa’s Mortal Remains Reach Burial Site