J Jayalalithaa has not left behind a void. She has left behind a legacy. It is the legacy left for her by her mentor, MGR and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK).
The various DMK’s spawned by the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) of Periyar – the DMK of CN Annadurai followed by the Karunanidhi’s DMK, MGR’s ADMK, Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK, Vaiko’s MDMK, Vijayakanth’s DMDK etc have something in common besides their antecedents.
CN Annadurai hailed from Conjeevaram (Kanchipuram) and was a Mudaliar. Just like my mother. The Mudaliar community was prominent in the Justice Party with its strong underpinnings of anti-Brahminism. Annadurai reduced the Periyar Ramaswamy Naicker call for an independent Dravida Nadu of the four south Indian regions to that for an independent Tamil homeland- Tamil Nadu.
The DMK made a strong showing in 1960 with its anti -Hindi and secessionist plank quite prominent. But Annadurai dropped it in 1962 on Jawaharlal Nehru’s personal appeal in the wake of the Chinese attack that year. Only the anti-Hindi plank remained (as it does till today).
After Annadurai died a couple of years after the DMK decisively trounced the Congress in 1967. He was succeeded as CM by MK Karunanidhi, a Telugu. The next CM, MG Ramachandran was a Malayali. Jayalalitha was a Mysore born Kannada speaking Iyengar. Vaiko is also a Telugu. Even Capt.Vijayakanth, now heading a near extinct party is a Telugu.
In India, few seem to notice or care about the irony of the standard bearers of Tamil sub-nationalism all being non-Tamilians. I am Malaysian, but sadly (for me) I am both a Mudaliar and a Tamilian but with no Tamil. A bit like Mani Shankar Aiyar whose familiarity with Tamil might be even lesser than mine.
This takes me to the fact that German nationalism reached its virulent high when it was led by an Austrian – Adolf Schickelgruber later Adolf Hitler. It is a strange paradox. The Soviet dictator and Russian supremacist, Stalin was a Georgian. Napoleon, whose French Empire ambitions plunged Europe into two decades of warfare was an Italian from Corsica.
Selvarajasomiah's Weblog 
Talking about “strange paradox”, of leaders not really being of the ethnicity they represent. What about Malaysia’s so-called “nationalist” leaders? Starting from the pioneers: Almost all, if not all, mostly mixed. Non-pure. Thai, Turkish, Indonesian, Indian Malabari, Chinese, though always claiming Arab pedigree.
Even the claim of so-called Arab lineage has always been intermixed with Chulias (Tamil Muslim) from Aden (Khudramaut Yemeni) who were taken there by the British from the time of the East India Company, ie. the likes of Munshi Abdullah and latter-Syeds who climbed to top positions in Malaya. This can be truly said of the ‘ruling class’ in Patani, Acheh, Brunei, Sabah and Southern Philippines as well. The ‘sarong pulickat’ they wear is already a give-away! Purity theory has been de-bunked from the day it was first coined! The true nationalists are the ones who love their country no matter where they came from, not the ones who have the right and privilege to pilfer from their own coffers.
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Even mega star RajniKant is not a Tamil, what a coincidence.
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Selva Sir, note this, one more person to be looked at is Mr Natarajan, husband of Sasikala, who has been expelled by JJ a few years ago.
He appeared at the funeral near the corpse and gave sound bytes to the media. Beside him was RSS man Aseervatham Achary, a close associate of Subramanian Swamy.
Natarajan is big time power broker.
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Watch for how Dr.Maitreyan AIADMK MP (Rajya Sabha) and a confidant of Sasikala, in turn the late Jayalalitha’s “confidant” who is now making a bid for Supreme power in the AIADMK, will edge her ever so closer and beholden to the RSS. Maitreyan was, is and will always be a RSS man.
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