Dr. Kalaignar Karunanidhi, is considered the most experienced politician in indian political circles.. and is known best as a shrewd politician and a great writer and poet in the language Tamil.Firstly, lets not misunderstand things here.. He is prefixed Dr. because some nice professional university conferred on him the decree of the Doctor. He is often (or always) referred to as 'kalaignar', meaning 'artist' or sometimes 'expert', in tamil, though he is not the greatest of all tamil poets or writers known or existing. But atleast the media sweetly (or out of force and fear) calls him Dr. Kalaignar M. karunanidhi.
karunanidhi founded the 'Dravida munnetra kalagam' or DMK, a regional party in Tamilnadu India, and has also been the leader of this party since a long time. Though there are debates as to whether he was the real founder or leader of the party, or did he hijack resources and everything for the party from the late Mr.M.G.Ramachandran's party, Whatever be it, we now have DMK as the leading political party in Tamilnadu, having karunanidhi as its leader, karunanidhi's sons realtives and loyalists as its senior executives, and also this party has governed the state Tamilnadu 5 times (though not in succession ever), with karunanidhi as the Chief Minister.
While this post or any part of me, has no interest in discussing anything about the DMK, let alone their victories in elections, or comparisons with other equally nice politicians or parties, or discuss anything about their government of the state... I would just rephrase or just mention what many tamilians almost have come to consider as general knowledge about DMK, karunanidhi or, related people or factions.
We will start with .. a report from one DVAC (Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption) enquiry which boldly went on to state that DMK practices a "scientific way of corruption"...which I believe is very much true because you could see all reforms and decisions of the party indirectly link up to some source of revenue by means of sale of something that the party or party members trade.
It works like this.
How to scam Scientifically (add 'in 21 days' if you like it that way):
1. You make a decision to build 4 bridges for helping transportation infrastructure in the city.
2. You help your relatives, family and loyalists setup raw material dealerships for all raw materials that are required.
3. Such dealerships purchase lower grade of material than that gets invoiced. and suggest your contractors to buy and use these materials and allow the invoicing and payment process to be smooth so that no politics need be made during the construction of the bridge.
4. In exchange the contractors and engineers get the DMK's trust and friendship, and very importantly more projects even if they bid at chiefly high costs than competitors.
At the end of the day,
1. What people get is a not-bad quality infrastructure but paying through taxes atleast 20 to 30 times the actual commercial cost.
2. Contract organizations get more projects. DMK gets credits for making available the better infrastructure.
3. DMK senior executives and most party men are left wealthier due to sale of materials at very high costs. That is apart from the percentage customary loot political parties make for awarding projects to a friendly contractor.
Its always made me wonder, about the irony in India, that while people always seem to know the color* of most politicians in the country, but very often, who they finally vote for during elections doesn't seem to reflect this understanding or knowledge.
[ * color, here means the inner mind of a person while he/she manages to present himself/herself to people who can't read their minds ]
Now to finish this post possibly attempting to cut a long story short, to save ourselves time in reading other important things than reading about indian politics, I will tell you a story.
The story so far:
DMK karunanidhi's relatives, the Marans, are popular for thier television business, and their once held ministerial positions in the central government of India.
Murasoli maran, a relative of karunanidhi, also a loyalist and party member of the DMK, rose up to the level of being communications and industries minister of India.. after many other positions and ministries he helped or he managed. During his tenure, he educated his two sons Dayanidhi and Kalanidhi well enough that they currently (or atleast until recently) were important advisors or sympathisers for the party directly or indirectly.
The maran sons raised the SUN TV network, and bought a few print media companies to double their medium and reach .. all built from scratch, with love, care, good management, and also with help directly or indirectly from the ministry of communications which was managed by their father.
The marans and their media companies, openly and directly supported the DMK's political interests, by publishing and broadcasting, news and content that was biased to the DMK. Especially the news that their media carried, were woven with close communication and advice from the DMK functionaries or other DMK sympathizers like them, or sometimes guided by the leader karunanidhi himself behaving like an Editor of their News content.
After a point in time, even till today, there's never a day or a news bulletin on their TV channel or magazines or newspapers, that forgets/sidelines some news or the other about karunanidhi, or if nothing is there, they carry karunanidhi's thoughts for the day.
Meanwhile, SUN TV network became an empire, with atleast one channel in every south Indian states regional language, conquering south India, truly of its hard work and good management, and not to forget the little help from ministry on acquiring licenses to broadcast quickly.
The SUN network empire became one of the media moghuls in the world, rated next only to the STAR TV network when it came to coverage, and rated No.1 in India, and Asia as a whole.
To be honest, except for their news which is biased, and programmes or interviews that are biased with political interests, especially during elections in the state of Tamilnadu, all their other programmes are of considerable quality and are marketed and promoted, the best.
Their newspapers, magazines, are royally second rated and biased, and if they are selling its only because they get zero-cost Advertizing times on the Television empire SUN TV.
Thier Opponents end up criticizing their growth and programmes totally to the DMK's influence and politics, but, the political interest and help could not have got them their coverage and revenues unless they had 90% support from their programmes and importantly the makers and staff of these programmes in their offices.
Few years back, Murasoli Maran, father of the Marans died due to ill health, and the family made the best use of their media to mourn his death for atleast as long as they mourned in their houses.
After the death of Murasoli Maran, the ministry for information became vacant, and a subsequent election to form the central government saw Mr.Karunanidhi's thrust, political influence, and power play getting the ministry's control to a fresh new politician Dayanidhi Maran, the younger son of Murasoli Maran.
While many things happened in the media industry of India apart from the marans, whether they helped it happen or not, the most important thing that happened was 'Sting operations'.
Every other TV News channel caught up on politicians accepting bribes, through hidden cameras. Sometimes rich people bribing police officers and getting away with crimes and murders they commit..were also exposed or promoted heavily, so much so that the judicial activism in India today was also an outcome of these bold efforts by Television channels.
Collectively people in India seem to have grown a long-time-disabled hormone or gene that protests corruption at any level in the country, rather than tolerating it and continuing to grow the practise of bribing government officials. It was not long ago, that some indians considered working in the government a quick-and-easy model for earning lot of money and influence considering the amount of bribes every other senior officer in the government gets paid... be it in the police departments, or military and defence, or in government offices or directly as a politician in the government.
Probably tempted by this, SUN TV and its media magazines and newspapers also started to carry reports of small sting operations and news, to boost their viewership or readership.
As SUN TV didn't find much guts to do sting operations on politicians even the opposition politicians for they were afraid how it was going to be taken by their relatives at the DMK, they did sensitizing news articles on hotels and pubs that had late night adult parties, or the likes. And very often they created havoc in the opposition's camp by producing news against the opposition with artificially created evidence supported by people who they paid for acting and saying things that they asked for, on camera.
It is during one of these days that they hired AC Neilsen to do a survey with people for understanding who will be the successor to the DMK's leadership, which is currently held by karunanidhi who is old enough for things... this was apart from many other sensitive surveys that were conducted, to publish results in a tamil daily Dinakaran which was run by the marans.
The survey of successorship, gave obvious results, no matter whether it was a real survey or just an act with using the name of AC Nielsen, it declared karunanidhi's son M.K.Stalin as the probable, against another son M.K.Azhagiri.
This, for obvious reasons triggered a protest from the losing son of karunanidhi M.K.Azhagiri's camp, which ended up when the Dinakaran Madurai office went in flames killing 3 staff members.
So gruesome this was, that neither the marans nor the DMK expected it to end up killing 3 innocents which could easily make them all accountable with evidence now. The marans immediately announced 15 Lakhs to each grieving family of the dead (or murdered). And, the DMK leader karunanidhi was forced to move the case to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), though he would not want it to since it could directly allow the CBI question his sons and his extended family.
Now, to keep up with their committments to their employees, the marans supported protests by their company staff against the killing, and all members of the media from other newspapers, channels etc., participated in the protests.
This greusome killing of 3, what karunanidhi prefers to call an accident, created the bisection, between the marans and the DMK leader's immediate family that was long awaited by people in tamilnadu and the staff of the maran companies.
And everyday its bringing up the colors of karunanidhi and his crude mind and shrewd politics, which is gradually but willing making the gap bigger between the once brotherhood relationship with the marans.
The Colors of karunanidhi:
> karunanidhi hosts a party, the very next day of the "accident", celebrating his 50 years in business (or in politics), as member of assembly, which was attended by all "distinguished" politicians, including, Prime minister Mr. ManMohan singh, ruling congress party national president Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Lalu prasad yadav, and other like politicians and guests.
> karunanidhi condemning protests by the media in relation to the so-called accident, especially protests by marans and their company staff.
> karunanidhi says the case is handed over to the CBI, so nobody should protest against anybody. Wait for action to be taken.
> karunanidhi conveys his interest indirectly to political circles and the central government, in removing dayanidhi maran from his ministerial berth, ahead of a DMK party general meeting. Dayanidhi maran resigns his ministerial position in the central government, noting he doesn't want to stay a minute if his leader karunidhi has other plans.
> karunanidhi suggest and finally gets another of his 13 ministers in the central government Raja, the additional responsibility of being the Information and broadcasting minister.
> karunanidhi appoints a party member as a new minister in the central government without any responsibilities, to replace the ministerial berth vacated by Dayanidhi Maran, so that no other party at the national level tries to occupy the vacated slot, and to keep the number of central ministers under him at 13.
> karunanidhi says 'they' (he means DMK party workers and other family members) are going to start a new TV channel. (This can be very easily understood as to support DMKs future interests considering karunanidhi wants to move away from SUN TV marans and cant expect much out of them or their TV channels anymore, for promoting DMK)
May I take your consent to wish, on behalf of us, All the very best to Mr.Karunanidhi and his "nuclear" family with the new channel and the future of DMK.
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Honest Disclaimer:
The article has not got into the physciartic explanations or inferences of Mr.karunanithi's mind, because as an author I don't have the experience or legitimacy to discuss those aspects directly.
The article expects the reader to feel the different thoughts running in Mr.Karunanithi's mind during the above mentioned phases of his political life, and understand the colors of the politician, whom all politicians in India consider the most experienced politician of the country.
The above article is constructed based on facts that are publicized or exposed or broadcasted in newspapers, television, and other media, over the years of DMK's existence.
If all the media and television and journalists, were all writing false news or information, based on their own perspective of things, over many years till now, then the above article is just a piece of junk and kindly feel free to ignore it or not believe it, consider that I apologize my best, to you already, for writing false information on my blog, and lets live and let "others" with many colors also live even if it will need lot of tolerance.
I do not have interest in proving or producing any evidence whatsoever, to any level on the above content.
Thank you for using your esteemed judgement in valuing/trusting the contents and facts in the above article.
http://www.harishpalaniappan.com/archives/2007/05/the-color-of-th.html
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