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MGR passed away on December 24, 1987. At times, the grief of the crowd seemed almost palpable. Hundreds of thousands of weeping mourners lined the 10 km route of the cortege, in some places standing 20 deep. Many had clambered onto billboards or lampposts to bid a final farewell to their dead anna (elder brother). As the funeral procession departed from the stately Rajaji Hall in Madras, a cry rang out: ‘MGR vazhga’ (‘Long live MGR’). Women beat their breasts and sobbed bitterly as their menfolk picked up the refrain: ‘MGR vazhga, MGR vazhga.’ The body of the man they worshipped as a near-god lay on a spotless white sheet, covered by the flag of India. Still attired in his customary white shirt and dhoti, dark glasses and custom-made fur cap, Maruthur Gopalamenon Ramachandran, chief minister of India’s Tamil Nadu State for more than a decade, was making his final journey.
On the pristine white sands of Marina Beach, the movie star-turned-politician who had captured the imagination of millions of Tamils was buried in a sandalwood casket with gold handles. The black marble slab that covered the grave was just a stone’s throw from the resting place of his political mentor, C.N. Annadurai. Although he had been a Hindu, MGR’s body was not cremated. Some say he was buried according to Christian custom because he died of a heart attack on Dec. 24, just a day before Christmas. Others believe it was because Annadurai, a co-religionist, had also been interred. ‘MGR didn’t leave any instructions,’ said M.P. Paramasivam, a long-time aide to the chief minister. ‘We thought it better to do it this way.’
As the smoke curled upward from a small fire of sandalwood and camphor, the crowd went out of control, pushing hard against a police cordon. Teargas canisters spewed fumes around the grave, but had little effect on the surging mob. Finally, worried about the security of assembled dignitaries, including Home Minister Buta Singh, the police levelled their rifles to restore order. At least twelve people died in rioting across the city; dozens more reportedly committed suicide in grief.
The scene had been equally violent the day before, outside the gates of Rajaji Hall, where MGR’s body had lain in state for a full day. At one point, more than 100,000 screaming, hysterical mourners tried to rush through the doors of the building, demanding to see their beloved leader. The numbers grew to an estimated 1.2 million as more wailing mourners joined the queues. Several women pulled at their hair in grief, others tore off stuck-on red dots on their foreheads in a gesture of mourning for a dead husband. ‘Why should I not weep?’ sobbed Mangayarkarasi, 45, ‘MGR was my brother. He was my father. He was my husband.’
There were few dry eyes among the members of MGR’s All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party who squatted on the steps at the foot of the bier. Jayalalitha Jayaram, an MP and propaganda secretary for the AIADMK, sat at his head, occasionally wiping his face gently with the pallav of her sari. The one-time actress, for whom MGR was rumoured to nurse a secret passion, had earlier been turned away from the Ramachandran residence at the insistence of his widow, V.N. Janaki. Inevitably, some humbug was mixed with the genuine grief. Several people seized the opportunity to be filmed next to the body or to issue statements of condolence.
Though MGR had been ailing ever since a massive stroke and a kidney transplant in 1984, the end was nonetheless sudden. On Dec. 23, he had retired to bed early. At about 11 pm, he woke up feeling nauseous but asked for soup. He had just sipped the last drop when he suffered a heart attack. His personal physician managed to revive him for a short while before he collapsed again. Three specialists then tried cardiac massage; one even ignored the sick man’s bad breath to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Finally in desperation they injected medication straight into the heart to kick it back to life. That, too, failed. Recalls one eyewitness: ‘Every time the doctors tried something, the monitor would start picking up signals [of MGR’s heart], but soon they would weaken. About 1:15 am [on Dec. 24] the signals stopped. It took some time for us to believe he was really dead.’
Marudur Gopalamenon Ramachandran, a non-Tamil who ruled Tamil Nadu for 10 years like a medieval potentate until he died on 24 December at the age of 70, was one of the most extraordinary phenomena in modern Indian history. More than 2.5 million people from all over the state turned up in Madras to pay homage to a person whom they had come to regard as a Superman.
The people seemed pulled more by some gravitational force than by any compelling sense of grief. More than 50 people, including a 12 year-old school girl, committed suicide either by self-immolation, hanging or consuming poison. A few died of heart attacks as a pall of gloom enveloped the state on that Christmas Eve when news spread of the death of MGR.
For the 4 million-odd people of the metropolitan city of Madras, it was a terrifying experience. Law and order seemed to have died with MGR, at least until his body, encased in a sandalwood coffin, was lowered into his grave on the Marina Beach, next to that of his mentor, C.N. Annadurai, on Christmas Day. As mourners filed past his body, laid out at Rajaji Hall, which during the British Raj had served as a gubernatorial banquet hall, the situation in the city deteriorated with thugs and vandals ransacking shops, looting whatever they could lay their hands on, and breaking everything that was breakable.
A bronze statue of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader, M. Karunanidhi, on the busy Mount Road barely 200 m from Rajaji Hall, was smashed. There were more instances of drunkenness in Madras on that Christmas Eve than ever before in this 300 year-old city. Liquor shops became the prime target of vandals. Although the situation in New Delhi was much worse when Indira Gandhi was assassinated, at least her funeral was conducted with great dignity and decorum. MGR’s funeral turned into a festival.
MGR came from very humble origins. Born in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1917 (officially at least), he had to quit school after the third form in order to support his family – by taking bit parts in productions by a touring theatrical troupe. A sense of the dramatic was probably inculcated in him early on, as was shown in later years. His efforts brought him to the glamorous world of films where he worked hard to maintain the hero image he had created.
In 1967 MGR entered politics when he was recruited into the DMK by Annadurai. But while he was hailing the latter as his mentor, he was saying the late Kamaraj of the Congress Party was his ultimate leader. This duality found expression in all he had said and done. He proclaimed himself a staunch nationalist even while being the leading player in the Dravidian movement which set in a trend of separatism unmatched until the Sikhs raised their heads for Khalistan. His histrionics and antics on screen swayed an uncritical public.
Having tasted the heady sense of adulation, MGR slowly built up his personal stock while in the DMK. He created the image of an action hero who used his fists more than his tongue. He showed the masses through his films the importance of fighting to help themselves. When he became chief minister of Tamil Nadu, he asked his party men to carry knives for self-protection.
On screen MGR was the typical man of the Tamil Nadu lower classes. He took the parts of rickshaw-puller, taxi driver, fisherman, farmer and so on. And in all these films, the moral character of the hero remained unchanged. Always facing social opposition, he was honest and hardworking. Thus, he invited the masses to identify with him. And when people found the hero overcoming the same social problems they faced in real life, their attachment to MGR became very real and personal.
MGR never championed any cause in his films that could hurt the feelings of any social group or community. He did not, however, hesitate to use the medium to attack Karunanidhi, who became his political enemy after the DMK split in 1972. He devoted a whole film, Namnadu, to castigating Karunanidhi’s DMK government. But he never sought to mobilise public opinion against social injustices. Nevertheless, people began to think the person they wanted as their leader was not someone like MGR, but MGR himself.
Having endured hunger, poverty and squalor in his boyhood, MGR knew how to identify with the have-nots. When he parted company with the DMK and launched his All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) in 1972, the established politicians failed to grasp the implications of the move. Within five years, the party was voted to power in the state, solely on the popularity and personal image of MGR.
He soon proved that he was as shrewd a politician as he was a successful film star by winning the subsequent state assembly elections in 1980 and 1984, the last one from his hospital bed in Brooklyn, New York, where he was undergoing a kidney transplant. As chief minister, he tried to bring his film image to life. Feeding poor school children and the aged, distributing clothes and caring for the destitute, he earned from the masses an affection bordering on worship. But in terms of economic development, Tamil Nadu slid down a slippery slope under his decade of stewardship.
As MGR became ever more popular, he began distancing himself from the public. He considered himself a repository of all that was good and consolidated his following by publicised philanthrophy. In the people’s eyes he was a god, and consequently he became more autocratic. Increasingly, he receded behind his dark glasses and makeup, hiding his age. He shunned the press and prevented his ministers and officials from meeting journalists.
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3 responses so far!
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How sad!!!! The way millions of people cried for him, he has cheated them during the duration of his life by doing lots of wrong things. Anyways, the kind of adulation that he received, only Superstar Rajnikanth has bettered it so far.
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MGR didn’t cheat, we expect everything on free, without hardwork. He is a great hardworker and goodman. His life is history and lesson for hardwork. After Mr. Kamaraj, he only thinked about education and ordered free meal scheme. Till there are lot of villages without electricity and schools, in those days because of free meals many stepped-in school and some learned atleast something and now there family childrens are engineers, doctors… Rajini only for style not for social work.
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rajni….a stupid fellow n sissy too.
