In a State known for pageantry and grandiosity, it is not strange that arrests of politicians always become a spectacle. Much before the people were treated to a live coverage of the Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Udhayanidhi Stalin, being taken for a ride in a jalopy of a police van through the roads of Tamil Nadu, from his house in southern Chennai to the outskirts of Thanjavur, the State has witnessed the enactment of many such dramas. Though most of arrests have seemingly turned out to be much ado about nothing farces, their reruns keep coming one after the other for some reason or the others, keeping the people in thrall. Ahead of the latest live arrest coverage, before the advent of 24×7 television, arrests of politicians, particularly if they happen late in the night, were nightmares for the common people.
Many arrests of those bygone eras have seen the stopping of public transport by supporters of the arrested politicians, leaving families with children stranded in godforsaken places with no food and water, besides triggering violence. Not only arrests executed by the police but also conviction of political leaders by courts have led to ghastly incidents like the burning of a bus, carrying Agricultural university students in 2000, at Dharmapuri. Three of those AIADMK volunteers who were part of the mob frenzy that claimed the lives of three girls were later sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life and the three men were released from jail in 2008.
Later on, in 2014 AIADMK cadre struck by setting fire to a bus at Kancheepuram but ensured that the passengers disembarked before the match was struck. In earlier years many such incidents had occurred with party cadres rising in protest when their leaders were arrested for something or the other. But those incidents relating to the arrest of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa drew the media persons and the cameras to the scene after the rampage was over and the particular politician for whom the police went calling for whatever reason was in the picture at all.
The arrests of Jayalalithaa that started in 1996 after the completion of her first term in office mainly did not draw media attention because the police never tried to barge into the Poes Garden residence of the former Chief Minister and AIADMK leader. In fact while executing the first arrest, the police officers reportedly gave her time to complete the pooja that she was doing when they knocked at the door and waited patiently for her to come and accompany them. Jayalalithaa never resisted arrest on any occasion.
But such arrests were turned into spectacles later on. Though it is not possible to exactly trace the history of the latest trend, some vignettes from such dramas that unfolded in multiple locations are etched permanently in the collective minds of the people like the midnight arrest of former Chief Minister, M Karunanidhi. When the police knocked at the doors of his house at around 2 am on June 30, 2001, it marked the beginning of an action-packed episode on police crackdown that television viewers were treated to, evoking strong sentiments from the early morning hours.
Those scenes captured on camera from the DMK leader’s house were watched by people all through the next day, making the event a sensational one, with television stations beaming them non-stop and holding continuous discussions involving so-called ‘experts.’ When the senior politician, who was 78 years then, was taken to the Chennai Central Jail opposite to the Central Railway station (Puzhal prison was then only in the making), he sat on the lawn outside with his daughter Kanimozhi Karunanidi beside him, a poignant spectacle beamed to the drawing rooms of millions of people.
That midnight two Union Ministers belonging to the DMK, the late Murasoli Maran and T R Baalu were also arrested by the police as they tried to resist the arrest of their leader by the police. Those scenes were also live on TV, particularly the one showing Baalu banging at the gates of the government estates shouting ‘open the door, I am Union Minister’ went live on TV. When Karunanidhi was bundled out of his house by the police, the TV visuals had a sound crying out ‘kolran, kolran,’ meaning ‘(he is) killing, killing’ that was initially considered to be cry for help from Karunanidhi. Later it was revealed the sound was made by somebody else from behind and the microphone in the camera had captured it. The entire episode turned out to be a highly charged melodrama shot live, perhaps setting the trend for modern day’s dramatic arrests that unfold under the klieg lights.
Though nothing came of the midnight arrest politically or in terms of jurisprudence, the vignettes of the drama that unfolded at multiple locations that late night were etched permanently in the collective minds of the people. It also led to the public identifying arrests of leaders as a weapon of political vendetta, giving rise to a perception that to get back at a political adversary, those in power use the police unfairly. So every arrest of a politician is now seen as nothing but an expression of rivalry, whatever the charge was and whatever evidence was made available. That was perhaps one reason that Udhayanidi Stalin’s arrest failed to earn encomiums for the government.
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