Former chief minister and DMK leader M.
Karunanidhi who is in the winter of a long political career, might be
surprised to know that US diplomats in mid-70s had considered him to be “the
most charismatic and complete politician in India” even amid the hostile
environment created by his opposing Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.
In a US diplomatic cable of September 20, 1976
from its Chennai Mission, which has now been released by Wikileaks, an American
diplomat had analysed Mr Karunanidhi’s tough politics in the backdrop of then
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi dismissing his government for alleged corruption
and thereafter touring Tamil Nadu to tell the people that he had not only been
corrupt but also a secessionist.
“For a man supposed to be disgraced and
humiliated, a man who has faced every instrument that a determined government
has been able to throw against him and his party short of incarceration, he
tours the cities and rural areas undaunted by the forces arrayed against him”,
said the US diplomat, adding, “It may not be an exaggeration to say that
Karunanidhi is probably the most complete and charismatic populist politician
in India today.”
The diplomat goes on to state that Mr Karunanidhi
could move his audience to tears when he spoke in public “as he did on August
20, 1976 at Coimbatore” and that “when he speaks or writes, the people listen”.
The US analyst might have eaten his words if
some magical crystal ball premiered a trailer of the thrilling politics that
followed—the Sarkaria Commission found substance in the corruption charges and
the DMK chief found the going terribly tough against the more popular AIADMK,
founded by MGR and later led by Ms Jayalalithaa, the Iron Butterfly of Indian
politics.
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