The culture of burial at the ‘Sicilian’ beach started with the death of chief minister and DMK founder C.N. Annadurai in 1969.
New Delhi: The Madras High Court Wednesday allowed the burial of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi at the Marina, the world’s second-largest urban beach, in Chennai.
The Marina is also the resting place of three other former chief ministers, C.N. Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran, and J. Jayalalithaa. The DMK had moved court after the state government, led by the DMK’s arch rival AIADMK, denied its request to bury the five-time chief minister alongside Annadurai, his mentor.
The hearing began late Tuesday night, but was deferred to the morning as the AIADMK-led government sought time to reply.
A row had erupted over the Marina’s use as a burial site in 2016 as well, after Jayalalithaa’s death. As preparations were made to bury the former star alongside her mentor MGR, environmentalists, reportedly at the DMK’s behest, challenged the move in the Madras High Court citing environmental concerns.
With the petitions pending in court until Tuesday night, the AIADMK cited the same reason to refuse the DMK’s plea. However, by the time the high court took up the DMK’s plea late Tuesday night, three of the petitions had been withdrawn, according to a PTI report.
The controversies beg the question why the Marina — a pre-Independence hub of public gatherings addressed by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi, Bal Gangathar Tilak, and Subas Chandra Bose — has emerged as a hallowed burial site for local titans. ThePrint explains.
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In the 19th century, British governor Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, while travelling across the Napier’s bridge, found himself mesmerised by the beauty of a shore.
To open the beach up for public recreation, he constructed a road from Napier’s bridge to Santhome, Duff wrote in his memoirs, Notes of an Indian Journey. The shore reminded him of old Sicily, he added, which is why the name ‘Marina’ was chosen for it in 1884.
Over the years, Marina became a significant place in the city and a public favourite.
The culture of burial and building memorials at the Marina started with the death of chief minister and DMK founder C.N. Annadurai in 1969. A mass leader like none Tamil Nadu had seen before, Annadurai’s funeral march drew a record crowd, also noted in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was in honour of his popularity that the then DMK government laid him to rest at Marina Beach.
In the meantime, a Gandhi memorial had also come up in the city. Over the next few years, monuments meant to honour subsequent chief ministers — M. Bhaktavatsalam (died 1987), Kamaraj (1975) and Rajaji (1972), all from the Congress — were built adjacent to the Gandhi memorial.
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The second memorial at Marina came with the death of MGR, another local stalwart, in 1987. An interesting anecdote here: People from all across the state visited MGR’s memorial in the belief that the tick-tock of his watch, buried with him, could still be heard.
With MGR’s interment at the site a clear distinction emerged between the two sites of tribute — while the Gandhi memorial was the centre of similar monuments for Congress and Gandhian leaders, the Marina was for the Dravidians.
The state government ought not to have made an issue of this. Do gaz zameen for the titan of Tamil politics, a taller leader in many respects than Jayalalitha, was richly merited.
Ananth, thanks for the insight on how the beach came to form. But, I was hoping to read about DMK supported petitions against burials on the shore. I, for one, surely back the idea of burying Karunanidhi near the shore if that means ‘respecting him’. I was actually hoping they would bury him near the Tiruvalluvar statue at Kanyakumari. That would be a fitting tribute to the man.