[His positions brought him immense popularity among the lower castes. The streets of Chennai were clogged with supporters bidding a tearful goodbye to the man they called Kalaignar (Tamil for “the artist”) as his body was taken for burial.]
By Maria
Abi-Habib
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Muthuvel
Karunanidhi in 2006, when he was chief minister of Tamil Nadu, after
presenting
a silk shawl to the president of the Indian National Congress party,
Sonia
Gandhi, in New Delhi. Credit Mustafa Quraishi/Associated Press
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New Delhi —
Muthuvel Karunanidhi, who parlayed his vocation as a prolific writer of films
about the downtrodden into a political career that challenged the upper caste’s
hold on Indian politics, died on Aug. 7 in Chennai, India. He was 94.
Doctors
at Kauvery Hospital, where he died, said Mr. Karunanidhi suffered multiple
organ failure after being admitted in late July.
India’s
longest-serving legislator, Mr. Karunanidhi was elected to the state of Tamil
Nadu’s assembly 13 times, serving from 1957 until his death. He was also the
state’s chief minister five times — for a total of 19 years — starting in 1969.
Although
his political career was concentrated in Tamil Nadu, Indian’s southernmost
state, his influence was felt nationwide.
When
India gained independence from Britain in 1947, it was struggling to achieve
coexistence between its Hindu and Muslim populations while establishing central
government control. Mr. Karunanidhi instead championed federalism as the best
way to unify and protect India’s multiple ethnic, linguistic and religious
populations.
An
atheist, he challenged the monopoly that India’s upper castes had on politics
and what he described as the elitism of the country’s founding party, the Indian
National Congress.
He
promoted a caste-based quota system for government jobs and for students in
government schools, as well as subsidies for the poor. His policies were soon
replicated in other states across India.
His
positions brought him immense popularity among the lower castes. The streets of
Chennai were clogged with supporters bidding a tearful goodbye to the man they
called Kalaignar (Tamil for “the artist”) as his body was taken for burial.
President
Ram Nath Kovind of India mourned his passing on Twitter, writing, “Our country
is poorer today.” Flags flew at half-staff on Wednesday, the day after his
death, which was declared a national day of mourning. Tributes poured in from
the country’s leading politicians, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi
“Karunanidhi
played a crucial role in bringing the downtrodden people to the social
mainstream by giving them political space,” said R. Rajagopalan, a Tamil
journalist based in New Delhi.
Mr.
Karunanidhi was born on June 3, 1924, in the village of Thirukkuvalai in Tamil
Nadu. His parents belonged to the Isai Vellalar caste, a community of musicians
who play at temples and social events. The tradition was passed down for
generations within his family, and he was expected to adopt it in India’s
hierarchical society. But he rebelled.
He
became involved in politics at 14, as the country inched toward independence,
when he organized a student movement in his state against the imposition of
Hindi as the national language of India.
The
student movement was a precursor to the larger anti-Hindi protests in Tamil
Nadu that Mr. Karunanidhi went on to lead in 1965. Those protests, which at
times descended into riots, forced the central government to scrap plans to
enforce Hindi nationally. Tamil, Mr. Karunanidhi’s mother tongue, is one of 22
languages officially recognized in India’s constitution.
He
went on to lead the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party in 1969, a movement that
originally wanted independence for Tamil Nadu from India. Under Mr.
Karunanidhi, the party scrapped its separatist demands and embraced a strong
federal system to preserve India’s ethnic and linguistic differences across its
many states, a system that persists today.
From
an early age, Mr. Karunanidhi took part in theater productions, including
writing plays. He later moved into writing for the cinema.
His
policies were a reflection of his screenplays, many of which took as their
subject the uplifting of Tamil Nadu’s most desperate citizens. His first movie,
“Rajakumari,” released when he was 23, tells the story of a love affair between
a princess and a poor young man.
His
scripts, which generally excoriated India’s upper castes while creating heroes
and heroines out of the impoverished and championing secularism, were
considered pioneering.
“After
the entry of Karunanidhi into film, Tamil cinema completely changed,”
Kaviperarasu Vairamuthu, a poet, writer and lyricist, said in an interview. “He
brought Tamil cinema closer to the plight of the poor.”
Mr.
Karunanidihi’s survivors include his wife, Dayalu Ammal, two daughters and four
sons, among them his political heir apparent, M. K. Stalin.
The
power of cinema in Tamil Nadu has led several of the state’s most prominent
actors and screenwriters to pursue political careers. One of Mr. Karunanidhi’s
biggest political rivals in Tamil Nadu was the famous actress Jayalalithaa
Jayaram of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, who died in
2016.
