J. Jayalalitha

Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and actress who served as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for more than fourteen years over six terms between 1991 and 2016. From 9 February 1989 to 5 December 2016, she was the 5th and longest-serving general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a Dravidian party whose cadre revered her as their "'" (Mother) and "'" (Revolutionary leader). Her critics in the media and the opposition accused her of fostering a personality cult and of demanding absolute loyalty from AIADMK legislators and ministers, who often publicly prostrated themselves before her.

Overview

Jayalalithaa rose to prominence as a leading film actress in the mid-1960s. Though she had begun her acting career reluctantly at her mother's behest to support the family, Jayalalithaa was a prolific actor. She appeared in 140 films between 1961 and 1980, primarily in the Tamil, Telugu and Kannada languages. Jayalalithaa received praise for her versatility as an actress and her dancing skills, earning the sobriquet "Queen of Tamil Cinema". Among her frequent co-stars was M. G. Ramachandran, popularly known as 'M.G.R.', a Tamil cultural icon who leveraged his immense popularity with the masses into a successful political career. In 1982, when M.G.R. was chief minister, Jayalalithaa joined the AIADMK, the party he founded. Her political rise was rapid; within a few years she became AIADMK propaganda secretary and was elected to the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of India's Parliament. After M.G.R.'s death in 1987, Jayalalithaa proclaimed herself as his political heir and, having fought off the faction headed by M.G.R.'s widow, V. N. Janaki Ramachandran, emerged as the sole leader of the AIADMK. Following the 1989 election, she became Leader of the Opposition to the DMK-led government headed by M. Karunanidhi, her ''bête noire''.
In 1991, Jayalalithaa became chief minister for the first time and Tamil Nadu's youngest. She earned a reputation for centralising state power among a coterie of bureaucrats; her council of ministers, whom she often shuffled around, were largely ceremonial in nature. The successful cradle-baby scheme, which enabled mothers to anonymously offer their newborns for adoption, emerged during this time. Despite an official salary of only a rupee a month, Jayalalithaa indulged in public displays of wealth, culminating in a lavish wedding for her foster son V. N. Sudhakaran ( Sasikala's elder sister son) on 7 September 1995. In the 1996 election, the AIADMK was nearly wiped out at the hustings; Jayalalithaa herself lost her seat. The new Karunanidhi government filed several corruption cases against her, and she had to spend time in jail. Her fortunes revived in the 1998 general election, as the AIADMK became a key component of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's 1998–99 government; her withdrawal of support toppled it and triggered another general election just a year later.

The AIADMK returned to power in 2001, although Jayalalithaa was personally disbarred from contesting due to the corruption cases. Within a few months of her taking oath as chief minister, in September 2001, she was disqualified from holding office and forced to cede the chair to minister O. Panneerselvam. Upon her acquittal six months later, Jayalalithaa returned as chief minister to complete her term. Noted for its ruthlessness to political opponents, many of whom were arrested in midnight raids, her government grew unpopular. Another period (2006–11) in the opposition followed, before Jayalalithaa was sworn in as chief minister for the fourth time after the AIADMK swept the 2011 assembly election. Her government received attention for its extensive social-welfare agenda, which included several subsidised -branded goods such as canteens, bottled water, salt and cement. Three years into her tenure, she was convicted in a disproportionate-assets case, rendering her disqualified to hold office. She returned as chief minister after being acquitted in May 2015. In the 2016 assembly election, she became the first Tamil Nadu chief minister since M.G.R in 1984 to be voted back into office. That September, she fell severely ill and, following 75 days of hospitalisation, died on 5 December 2016 due to cardiac arrest and became the first female chief minister in India to die in office.

Jayalalithaa never married and had no children. On 29 May 2020, her nephew J. Deepak and niece Deepa Jayakumar.

Early life, education and family

Jayalalithaa was born on 24 February 1948 to Jayaram and Vedavalli (Sandhya) in a Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family at Melukote, Pandavapura taluk, Mandya district, then in Mysore State (now Karnataka). She was initially named Komalavalli after her grandmother. She had a brother named Jayakumar.

Her paternal grandfather, Narasimhan Rengachary, was in the service of the Mysore kingdom as a surgeon and served as the court physician to Maharaja Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV of Mysore. Her maternal grandfather, Rangasamy Iyengar, moved to Mysore from Srirangam to work with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. He had one son and three daughters—Ambujavalli, Vedavalli, and Padmavalli. Vedavalli was married to Jayaram, son of Narasimhan Rengachary. The couple Jayaram-Vedvalli had two children: a son Jayakumar and a daughter, Jayalalitha. Her mother, her relatives and later co-stars and friends referred to her as Ammu. The name Jayalalithaa was adopted at the age of one for the purpose of using the name in schools and colleges. It was derived from the names of two houses where she resided in Mysore. One was "Jaya Vilas" and the other "Lalitha Vilas".

She is from the same lineage of popular figures like K. T. Bhashyam (Former minister of Mysore State and Chairman of Mysore Legislative Council) and famous lawyer L. S. Raju who made significant contribution in the history of Mysore State (Now Karnataka).

Jayalalithaa's father, Jayaram, was a lawyer but never worked and squandered most of the family's wealth. He died when Jayalalithaa was two years old. The widowed Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore in 1950. Vedavalli learnt shorthand and typewriting to take up a clerical position to help support the family in 1950. Her younger sister Ambujavalli had moved to Madras, working as an air hostess. She also started acting in drama and films using the screen name Vidyavathy. On the insistence of Ambujavalli, Jayalalithaa's mother Vedavalli also relocated to Madras and stayed with her sister from 1952. Vedavalli worked in a commercial firm in Madras and began dabbling in acting from 1953 under the screen name Sandhya. Jayalalithaa remained under the care of her mother's sister Padmavalli and maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore. While still in Bangalore, Jayalalithaa attended Bishop Cotton Girls' School, Bangalore. In later interviews, Jayalalithaa spoke emotionally about how she missed her mother growing up in a different city. She had the opportunity to visit her mother during the summer holidays.

After her aunt Padmavalli's marriage in 1958, Jayalalithaa moved to Madras and began to live with her mother. She completed her education at Sacred Heart Matriculation School (popularly known as Church Park Presentation Convent or Presentation Church Park Convent).

She excelled at school and was offered a government scholarship to pursue further education. She won Gold State Award for coming first in 10th standard in the state of Tamil Nadu. She joined Stella Maris College, Chennai; however, discontinued her studies due to pressure from her mother and became a film actress.

The Poes Garden plot was bought by Jayalalithaa and her mother on 1 July 1967 at a cost of ₹ 1.32 lakh, measuring around 24,000 sq. feet (10 grounds) with a built-up area of 21,662 sq. feet. Jayalalithaa's mother Sandhya died in November 1971 at the age of 47. Jayalalithaa herself held the ''house warming ceremony'' of her residence ''Veda Nilayam'' (named after her beloved mother Vedavalli alias Sandhya) on 15 May 1972, early in the morning, followed by dinner and a Veena recital by classical musician Chitti babu in the evening. Her brother's wedding took place at her Veda Nilayam home in Poes Garden in 1972. Her brother Jayakumar, his wife Vijayalakshmi and their daughter Deepa Jayakumar

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