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Anna: The Life and Times of C.N. Annadurai

By R. Kannan, Penguin, Rs 550



R Kannan laments that C.N. Annadurai is ubiquitous in Tamil Nadu, lending his name to parks, universities, welfare projects, but is rarely a subject of biographies, even in Tamil. One has to remember that a certain mental distance has to be traversed from an event or a person before a reasonably dispassionate recollection can be attempted. Tamil Nadu and its Tamil-speaking population, still steeped in the politics and culture spawned by Anna’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, are yet to travel that distance. Anna is too much of a living presence to be remembered through a biography there. Kannan’s biography is clearly meant for a readership outside the state whose idea of the man has been shaped by the perspective of the country’s largest national party and its difficulties in containing the aspirations Anna had for his people.



This dream was essentially one of bringing about a revolution — a drastic change in the Brahmin-dominated social order. The dream, as Periyar saw it, involved instilling a sense of pride in one’s identity. Through the churning that the Self-Respect Movement initiated in the early 1920s, Tamil identity came to be shaped first in opposition to the Brahmins and then the Hindi-speaking North. What had been a social project took wing, under Anna, to become a political movement aimed not only at bringing power to the people but also preserving what was projected, and perceived, to be a distinctly different Tamil identity.



The quest for a separate Dravida Nadu and the anti-Hindi agitation were two facets of this movement. The first scheme was dropped unceremoniously, following the Chinese invasion in 1962. The second ended after self-immolations and a bloodbath in 1965 forced the Centre to allow Tamil Nadu, then Madras, to follow a two-language policy that it still follows today. Both demands lent a sour taste to the festivities that followed India’s independence. Their persistence weakened the Congress’s grip on the southern state and placed it at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the power equation at the Centre which it is yet to overcome. The leaders of the Dravidian movement have been considered unnecessary irritants to the grand game of democracy. Kannan tries to prove how stalwarts like Anna have provided a “safe and democratic outlet for regional aspirations within united India”.



Kannan does not want to write a hagiography, but Anna is clearly his hero. In this account, Anna scores way above Periyar in his literary genius, oratory and sensitivity. Kannan extensively covers Anna’s relations with Periyar and several of his thambis or brothers. Anna appears to be dictated more by his heart than head. However, sentiment does not cloud his political vision. Unlike Periyar, Anna never misjudged politics as a means to effect actual social change and did not allow ideology to come in the way of electoral alliances, a strategy that made him the chief minister in 1967. Kannan’s Anna is an idealist, but also a pragmatist.



Kannan’s study of Anna’s associations — in academia, theatre and cinema — brings alive a time similar to the intellectual ferment Bengal witnessed in the 1960s and 1970s. But somehow, the Tamil people, on whom phenomenal changes were wrought, are missing from the scene. This is because the spotlight remains steadfastly trained on the principal characters in Anna’s life — Periyar, E.V.K. Sampath, MGR, Karunanidhi. Kannan is perhaps too taken up by his effort to get the facts right. While taking a stand on Anna or the DMK, Kannan first quotes their principal critics, and then tries to arrive at a mean. A sign that Kannan, like his generation, remains too close to the subject of his study?



CHIROSREE BASU