Anna had been politically deified with daily invocations and crude statues. Karunanidhi was on the path to Annahood, but there was a hitch—MGR. If Karunanidhi felt the chief ministership had taken him to another level, MGR appeared to be an independent spirit with a massive following. The party flag was often described as the ‘MGR flag’ and the DMK itself as the ‘MGR party’. In many places, his fan clubs were the party’s backbone. Anna was easy about it. Karunanidhi, like Sampath and Kannadasan, was ill at ease.
Some busybodies instigated an already stardom-conscious MGR that the party could not do without him. Even in 1960, R.M. Veerappan’s intervention had staved off a fans’ conference. MGR had then assured them that his actions would not cause ‘anxiety’ to
Veerappan. But now, Karunanidhi appeared overcome with anxiety.
Karunanidhi records that MGR wished to be ‘Medical Minister’ (sic) or minister of health, and he had agreed but asked that he quit films. ‘Karunanidhi is a good story writer,’ mocked MGR later. R.M. Veerappan affirms that the twenty-three-year-old Jayalalithaa
had put MGR up to it. MGR was ‘greatly upset’ when law minister Madhavan said that rules did not permit a dual role adding, ‘Why do you have to be a minister? You can be above all of them. We will give you that stature and honour.’ But MGR had already reached that stature. When Karunanidhi pointed out that a minister-actor would have looked ‘odd’, MGR took it as a slight. In retrospect, Karunanidhi could have taken the easy way out by calling the actor’s bluff. However, as Karunanidhi often said, ‘Hindsight is a perfect science.’
The bigger slight was Karunanidhi’s eldest son, M.K. Muthu. Karunanidhi had become Kalaignar and Thalaivar. He wished to be his own man, but the masses went into raptures for one man like no other—MGR. The scriptwriter, therefore, had chosen to craft a new script with his son as the hero. On 21 September 1971, Murasoli officially broke the news of Muthu playing the lead role in Pillayo Pillai (Oh! The Son, 1972), produced by Karunanidhi’s Anjugam Pictures. On 21 October 1971, MGR declared the shoot open
despite the underlying tensions.
In March 1973, MGR dismissed talks of Muthu emerging as a competitor as ‘ridiculous, silly’. No one has ‘stayed on like him’, and Muthu played his ‘life on the stage’. ‘Isn’t that something? How can that be a rival to MGR?’ he posed.
Despite this bravado, Muthu had become an issue. Maran’s brother Murasoli Selvam later alleged that MGR ‘threatened’ the producer who had initially intended to cast Muthu. The film proved a dud.
Permissions came quickly for Muthu fan clubs from the parent organization, while those for MGR were put on hold. Further, at the DMK Madurai meeting kick-off on 4 August 1972, M.K. Muthu, dressed in military fatigues in a jeep, led a mammoth procession. As tension simmered, Karunanidhi reached out to MGR through Chief Minister Farook Maricar of Puducherry, promising that the mandrams or fans’ associations would not be an issue. However, an unsure MGR later agreed to the fateful Thirukazhukundram and
Royapettah meetings, as shown below.
On 9–10 August, Karunanidhi wrote two letters where he referred to his son Muthu at the rally, the praise Maran won for his speech from leaders and claimed that Madurai had never seen such a rally. But the conference had caused Karunanidhi much heartburn.
He could speak for only twenty minutes, after which he ‘fainted’. Kamaraj described it as the ‘act’s climax’ while MGR reasoned later that the crowds had begun to disperse after his speech. In his speech, Karunanidhi allegorically referred to Indira Gandhi as the cow and Mohan Kumaramangalam and C. Subramaniam as the calf—alluding to the Congress (I)’s symbol cow and calf. While the cow was quiet, the calves were jumping, he said.
But MGR rankled more. By leaving early, the actor had dealt a serious slight in public. Each slight made the other wary, and Ma.Po.Si. records the incident as a major cause of the split. The conference had begun on a bad note. Karunanidhi claimed that MGR desired an invite for Jayalalithaa, which he rejected as not befitting the Dravidian movement. They chose to part company.
This excerpt from ‘The DMK Years: Ascent, Descent, Survival’ by R. Kannan has been published with permission from Penguin Random House.