Categorize Karunanidhi’s political career into six convenient phases.

Phase 1 (1952-1964) – period of ascendancy
Phase 2 (1965-1971) – period of peak
Phase 3 (1972-1976) – period of descendancy
Phase 4 (1977-1995) – period of rot and hard labor
Phase 5 (1996 – 2000) – period of redemption
Phase 6 (2001- 2006) – period of senile idling.

The period of ascendancy (1952-1964) saw Karunanidhi emerging as a front rank leader for the Dravidian cause. In 1962, the Parasakthi Tamil movie, which introduced a skinny Viluppuram Chinnaiah Ganesan (as ‘Sivaji’ Ganesan, 1928-2001) also brought to limelight the spell-binding prose of Karunanidhi, who by then had become popular with the prefix ‘Kalaignar’ (the literal connotation being, The Artiste) to his name.

His admirers would never even call him by his name, but only by the glorified prefix ‘Kalaignar’. The Kallakudi (Dalmiyapuram) train-stopping agitation carried out in 1953, made his name a household word in Tamil Nadu. In 1954, the Sivaji-Kalaignar [the hero-script writer] combination worked the cinematic magic again, in the historical costume adventure Manohara.

In 1956, Karunanidhi was one of the 15 nominees of DMK to win their seats in the then Madras Legislative Assembly elections. He confirmed his ascendancy within the DMK ranks by engineering the split in DMK for the first time in 1961, by evicting the then Number 2 in the party ranks, E.V.K.Sampath and Sampath-aligned poet Kannadasan. Kannadasan’s two volumes of autobiography ‘Vanavaasam’ (1962, pp.371-372) and ‘Manavaasam’ (1988), provide first hand details about Karunanidhi’s manipulations, which resulted in the first major split of DMK.

The period of peak (1965-1971) for Karunanidhi began with the agitational protest against the imposition of Hindi as the official language of India in 1965. Then, in 1967, he saw the DMK becoming the ruling party in Tamil Nadu. When the DMK Cabinet was formed by Annadurai, the nominal Number 2 at that time was V.R.Nedunchezhiyan, university educated, ranking orator. Karunanidhi’s then nominal rank within the party was Number 3. However, in mass appeal, MGR performed equally or even better than Karunanidhi, a fact noted by the party founder Anna himself.

When Anna fell ill and succumbed to gullet cancer in February 1969, Karunanidhi outfoxed Nedunchezhiyan for the leadership post. As noted aptly by Kannadasan in his autobiography, MGR’s vital support to Karunanidhi at that critical moment tilted the leadership throne towards Karunanidhi’s head. Having anointed himself as the legitimate heir of Anna, Karunanidhi reached his zenith in the 1971 Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly elections, by leading the DMK to capture 184 seats against a paltry 13 seats won by the Congress Party (Old) led by Kamaraj. The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s ‘rebel’ Congress Party, was aligned with DMK in that election. After reaching the pinnacle, Karunanidhi became rather ‘top heavy’, and crossed swords with MGR, and that saw the beginning of his period of descendancy.

The period of descendancy (1972-1976) for Karunanidhi commenced with the eviction of MGR and his supporters from the DMK in October 1972. MGR formed his rebel party and labeled it as Anna DMK. This party was initially ridiculed by Karunanidhi and his supporters with a movie metaphor as ‘a successful movie’s 100 day run’. But, MGR had the last laugh.

The period of rot and hard labor (1977-1995) set in for Karunanidhi in 1977. MGR, with his mass-voter appeal, never allowed Karunanidhi to gain political power in Tamil Nadu until he died. He was chosen as the victor in the political duels of 1977, 1980 and 1984 Legislative Assembly elections by the voters of Tamil Nadu. Following MGR’s death, Karunanidhi was given a new lease of life by the Tamil Nadu voters in the 1989 Legislative Assembly elections, mainly because MGR’s Anna DMK Party vote was split between the factions of Janaki Ramachandran (MGR’s wife) and Jayalalitha (MGR’s leading lady in the movies and unofficial partner in life).

However, Karunanidhi failed to consolidate his standing and was knocked out again in the 1991 Legislative Assembly elections by Jayalalitha (24 years junior and a political novice), who claimed to be the ‘protégé of MGR’. It has been noted that Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May 1991 was also a contributing factor in Jayalalitha’s success in that year’s election. In that election, Karunanidhi survived by scraping a victory with a narrow margin of only 350 votes.

The period of redemption (1996-2000) for Karunanidhi was a consequence of excesses indulged by Chief Minister Jayalalitha and her cronies between 1991 and 1995. But, why Karunanidhi couldn’t lead the DMK to victory in a sequential election in 2001? After his party was voted out of power, Karunanidhi spent the past five year period in senile idling. In his current term as the fifth-time Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, his party leads a minoriy government.

Why had Karunanidhi fared badly in the esteem of Tamils (both Tamil Nadu and Eelam) since 1977? Three factors may be attributed, other than the much publicised ‘political corruption’ which MGR used to his advantage in the first half of 1970s.

First, though blessed with excellent organization skills, oratory and mass adulation, Karunanidhi relied too much on his manipulatory cunningness and vanity. He wanted to be the ‘leader’ badly and out-foxed his seniors and contemporaries in DMK by devious methods. Initially, it was E.V.K.Sampath in 1961. Nedunchezhiyan was first outsmarted in 1969 and MGR was thrown out of DMK in 1972. Whereas Sampath and Nedunchezhiyan failed to tackle Karunanidhi effectively in politics, MGR succeeded in keeping Karunanidhi in political dog house for 11 years from 1977 to 1987. Nedunchezhiyan left Karunanidhi’s DMK and joined with MGR in 1978, and later even served as Jayalalitha’s Number 2, until his death in 2000.

Secondly, when there were signs that some junior colleagues of him showed skills in oratory or gained mass support, Karunanidhi ‘cut them short’. This happened to K.Subbu and V.Gopalasamy (Vaiko). Even his contemporaries who didn’t toe his line occasionally, such as Arcot Veerasamy and Nanjil Manoharan were snubbed by Karunanidhi and then taken back to lick their wounds with docility.

Thirdly, promoting nepotism became a passion for Karunanidhi. That’s why one cynic had noted aptly that in Indian politics, ‘Blessed are the leaders (Kamaraj, Anna and MGR) who did not have a biological progeny; they have been freed from the nepotism stain’. In early 1970s, while being the Chief Minister, Karunanidhi aimed to promote his son M.K.Muthu against MGR in the movie arena to check MGR’s influence among the party cadres. That step cost him a lot. Then since 1990s, he had actively promoted his son M.K.Stalin as the next leader of DMK, to neutralize the ascendancy of Vaiko. This led to Vaiko leaving the DMK party.

When poet Kannadasan highlighted the manipulative mind of Karunanidhi in his 1962 autobiography, many Tamils gave the benefit of doubt to Karunanidhi. This was partly because, success in the political arena escaped Kannadasan. But Father Time had revealed who had told the truth. It was Kannadasan who also labeled Karunanidhi as a Goebbels (for exploiting the Tamil masses with exaggerated lies), and wrote and acted in a drama with that title. Reference to this exists in Kannadasan’s 2nd volume of autobiography, Manavaasam (pp. 48 and 75). Though Kannadasan had written the preface for this volume in 1980 and had died on Oct.17, 1981, the volume in appeared in print only in 1988.