Jayalalithaa Biography
జయలలిత జీవిత చరిత్ర
Jayaram Jayalalithaa (born, 24 February
1948 – 5 December 2016) was an Indian politician and film actor who served five
terms as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for over fourteen years between 1991
and 2016. From 1989 she was the general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida
Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), a Dravidian party whose cadre revered her as their
Amma (mother), Puratchi Thalaivi (revolutionary leader) and Thanga Tharagai
(golden maiden).
Early life, education, and family
Jayalalithaa was born on 24 February
1948 at Melukote, Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district, then in Mysore State
(now Karnataka) to Jayaram and Vedavalli in Tamil Brahmin Iyengar family. The
name Jayalalitha was adopted at the age of one for the purpose of using the
name in school and colleges. 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. 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.
Jayalalitha's father, Jayaram, was a lawyer but never worked and squandered most of the family money. He died when Jayalalitha was two years old. The widowed Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore 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. Jayalalitha remained under the care of her mother's sister Padmavalli and maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore. After her aunt Padmavalli's marriage in 1958, Jayalalitha moved to Madras and began to live with her mother. 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 however discontinued her studies due pressure from her mother and became a film actress.
Political Career
Jayalalithaa first came into prominence
as a leading film actress in the mid-1960s. 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 actor and for her
dancing skills, earning the sobriquet "queen of Tamil cinema". Among
her frequent co-stars was M. G. Ramachandran, or MGR, a Tamil cultural icon who
leveraged his immense popularity with the masses into a successful political
career. In 1982, when MGR 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. After
MGR's death in 1987, Jayalalithaa proclaimed herself his political heir and,
having fought off the faction headed by Janaki Ramachandran, MGR's widow,
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 Karunanidhi.
In 1991 Jayalalithaa became chief
minister, Tamil Nadu's youngest, for the first time. She earned a reputation
for a punishing work ethic and for centralising state power among a coterie of
bureaucrats; her council of ministers, whom she often shuffled around, were
largely ceremonial in nature. 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
loyalist 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
"Amma"-branded goods such as canteens, bottled water and salt. 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 MGR in 1984 to be voted back into office.
Illness and Death
On 22 September 2016, Jayalalithaa was admitted to Apollo Hospitals in Chennai, as she was suffering from infection and acute dehydration. Her official duties were handed over to her aide O. Panneerselvam on 12 October 2016, though she continued to remain as the chief minister of the state. On 4 December 2016, she was re-admitted to the intensive care unit after suffering a cardiac arrest around 16:45. The hospital released a press statement stating that her condition was "very critical" and that she was on life support. On 5 December 2016, the hospital announced her death.
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