Re 1 salary : A token pay, a token show - Tryst with infamy
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 29, 2014 -

Chief Minister Jayalalithaa being taken away by the police after the Court's verdict :: Pix - TSE

Just Re 1 as salary. A token pay and as the Court has implied it was also a token show.

An observation amply underlined in the ruling passed by the special Court Judge John Michael D’Cunha at Bangalore on September 27.

Real life seldom follows the script of reel life but in the case of J Jayalalithaa, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, her meteoric rise in the world of politics seems like a staple taken straight out from one of the films she graced the silver screen with her mentor MGR decades back.

For someone coming from a non-political background, her rise in the AIADMK and hence politics was fast and looked like tailor made scripts fit for the movies.

After starring in a number of box office hits, notably with MGR, Jayalalithaa made her entry into the topsy turvy world of politics in the early 80s when MGR opened the door of the AIADMK and made her the propaganda secretary.

After her baptism in the world of politics, her rise was equally phenomenal and she became the undisputed leader of the AIADMK after the death of MGR, becoming the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after sweeping the polls in 1991.

Jayalalithaa’s tryst with infamy started soon after she embraced politics and in as much as she continued to capture the imagination of quite a large number of people in Tamil Nadu, she had cultivated the art of courting controversy.

It was during her first stint as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu that the seeds of the present case were sown and not without reason. It was during this period that her assets grew from Rs 3 crore to Rs 66.65 crore while drawing a token amount of Re 1 as her salary. Playing to the gallery does have its downside.

Sixty six years old now and Jayalalithaa will certainly not have the space to play the little lost girl who has been wrongly accused of laying her hands on the next door’s little doll.

Real life unlike reel life can certainly catch up and Jayalalithaa is today caught in this universal understanding of how harsh real life can be at times.

At the moment Rs 66.65 crore may seem too little to merit such a harsh judgement, but remember the case dates back to 1991-’96, when prices of all commodities had yet to touch the double digit mark or when a petrol of litre was something very different from the over Rs 65 per litre that one has to pay now.

If the conviction of Jayalalithaa did send a wave across the country, then surely there must be quite a number of political leaders who must be feeling uneasy with the quantum of punishment spelt out so far and pending another appeal to a superior Court.

This much must be true for quite a number of political leaders in Manipur for they have become synonymous with corruption and underhand dealings.

Not at all clear when the long hands of justice will arrive here, but it is not for nothing why corruption has become so institutionalised here.

If at all a silver lining can be read into the verdict of the case, then it should at least make the political class and the officials more conscientious for there can be no rampart against the long hands of justice.