Kalaignar M Karunanidhi : A Tall Leader of our times!

India’s tall leader M.Karunanidhi fondly called as ‘Kalaignar’, who changed the face of Tamil Cinema and Politics is also a master of the unique Tamil language. His journey started from humble beginnings and achieved great heights of power with his acumen and ideological passion. His alliterative dialogues and impassioned monologues wrapped up with humour and strong social views created revolutionary changes in Tamil peoples lives. For him, cinema and politics were closely intertwined. His love for the language and politics reflected in many of his writings, which brought him fame and recognition.

‘Kalaignar’  served as the chief minister of Tamil Nadu for five separate terms between 1969-2011 period. He was a long-standing leader of the Dravidian party  and ten-time president of Dravida Munneta Kazhagam (DMK) political party.

The stalwart leader started off as a scriptwriter for films in 1947 at a very young age of 2o’s . Kalaignar wrote the screenplay  and dialogues for  more than 70 films, besides penning lyrics and producing few films; notable ones are Poompuhar, Rangoon Radha and many more.

Kalaignar Karunanidhi’s brilliant screen writing skills had dialogues written based on  Dravidian culture.
Parasakthi, released more than 50 years ago in 1952, was an instant box office success right from the time of its release. The movie became a success of two factors: One it was the maiden movie of Shri. Sivaji Ganesan who faced the camera for the first time becoming the new star with his great performance that set a new bench mark, the other was for the powerful lines written by Kalaignar.

As a Politician his key achievements are,

• Kalaignar, who coined the term ‘Differently-abled’ replacing the term handicapped. In a step further,he established an exclusive welfare board for them. Not just this, all the 32 districts across TN has District Differently-abled Welfare Officers to aid them.
• Samathuvapuram–brought people cutting across communal lines under a single fold. Almost all the districts has Samathuvapurams.
• Kalaignar hit the headlines in the national media for bringing in Police Commission, perhaps first in the country.
• First in the country, Kalaignar brought forth ‘Free electricity’ to farmers.
• Uzhavar Sandhai, an innovative concept of farmers selling their produces directly to consumers thereby eliminating middlemen was the pet scheme of Kalaignar.
• While for women-folk, Kalaignar brought the 30% reservation quota in government jobs.
• Kalaignar, was also instrumental in bringing in MLA Constituency Development Fund.
• Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Periyar University and Tamil Virtual University for the benefit of world Tamils were all established by Kalaignar.
• Round the clock Primary Health Centres, Varumun Kappom, Vazhvoli Thittam in schools were some of the pet schemes of Kalaignar

The list of his achievement is endless and hard to document. He has always kept his days busy by starting the day before sunrise with yoga, walking, reading all news papers, meeting his party man, writing a column for his cadres in Murasoli daily and taking care of administration when he was the CM and ends his day late at night.

Kalaignar breathed last on 07th August 2018, at 6.10 pm.

Above rare image was photographed by our SICA member/Cinematographer Wide Angle Ravi Shankaran.

SICA pays homage to Kalaignar Karunanidhi  and remembers his contribution to Tamil Cinema and Literature.

CJ Rajkumar

Auhtor/Cinematographer