Jayaram Jayalalithaa (24 February 1948 – 5 December 2016), popularly known as Amma, was an Indian politician and actress who served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for six terms spanning more than fourteen years between 1991 and 2016. She was the longest-serving General Secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the first female chief minister to die in office in India. Regarded as one of the most influential politicians of post-independence India, she was also a prominent film actress, appearing in nearly 140 films between 1961 and 1980 in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada cinema, and winning multiple Tamil Nadu State Film Awards and Filmfare Awards South.
Before entering politics, Jayalalithaa rose to prominence as a leading film actress in the mid-1960s, earning recognition for her versatility and classical dance skills. In 1982, she joined the AIADMK, founded by her frequent co-star M. G. Ramachandran (MGR), who was the Chief Minister. She rose swiftly within the party to become its Propaganda Secretary and was elected to the Rajya Sabha. After MGR's death in 1987, she outmanoeuvred the rival faction led by his widow V. N. Janaki to emerge as the party's sole leader.
Jayalalithaa first became Chief Minister in 1991, making her Tamil Nadu's youngest at the time. Her tenures were marked by strong centralisation of power, an extensive social-welfare agenda—most visibly the Amma-branded subsidised canteens, bottled water, salt, and cement—and an at-times ruthless posture towards political opponents. Her career was punctuated by serious legal difficulties: the DMK government led by M. Karunanidhi, her bête noire, filed 28 corruption cases against her after the 1996 election, and she was convicted in a disproportionate assets case in 2014. Each time, she was eventually acquitted and returned to office. In the 2016 assembly election, she became the first Tamil Nadu chief minister since MGR in 1984 to be voted back into power.
In September 2016, Jayalalithaa fell severely ill and was hospitalized for 75 days before passing away from cardiac arrest on 5 December 2016 and became the first female chief minister in India to die in office. She never married and had no children. Critics accused her of fostering a personality cult and demanding absolute loyalty from party legislators and ministers.
Early life, education and family
Jayalalithaa was born on 24 February 1948 to Jayaram and Vedavalli (Sandhya) in a Hindu Tamil Iyengar Brahmin family at Melukote, Pandavapura taluk, Mandya district, then in Mysore State (now Karnataka). She had a brother, Jayakumar.
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. Her maternal grandfather, Rangasamy Iyengar, moved to Mysore from Srirangam to work with Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. He had one son and three daughters—Ambujavalli, Vedavalli, and Padmavalli. Vedavalli was married to Jayaram, son of Narasimhan Rengachary. The couple Jayaram and Vedvalli had two children: a son, Jayakumar, and a daughter, Jayalalitha. Her mother, her relatives, and later co-stars and friends referred to her as Ammu.
She is of the same lineage as popular figures like K. T. Bhashyam (former minister of Mysore State and Chairman of Mysore Legislative Council) and famous lawyer L. S. Raju, who made significant contributions to the history of Mysore State (now Karnataka).
Jayalalithaa's father, Jayaram, was a lawyer but never worked and squandered most of the family's wealth. He died when Jayalalithaa was two years old. The widowed Vedavalli returned to her father's home in Bangalore in 1950. Vedavalli learned shorthand and typewriting to take up a clerical position to help support the family in 1950. Her younger sister Ambujavalli had moved to Madras, working as an air hostess. She also started acting in dramas 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. Vedavalli worked in a commercial firm in Madras and began dabbling in acting from 1953 under the screen name Sandhya. Jayalalithaa remained under the care of her mother's sister Padmavalli and maternal grandparents from 1950 to 1958 in Mysore. While still in Bangalore, Jayalalithaa attended Bishop Cotton Girls' School, Bangalore.
After her aunt Padmavalli's marriage in 1958, Jayalalithaa moved to Madras to live with her mother. She completed her education at Sacred Heart Matriculation School (popularly known as Church Park Presentation Convent or Presentation Church Park Convent). Sisters Catherine simon and Clare was one of her favourite teachers in church park convent. She excelled at school and was offered a government scholarship to pursue further education. She won the Gold State Award for coming first in 10th standard in the state of Tamil Nadu. She then joined the Stella Maris College, Chennai; however, she discontinued her studies due to pressure from her mother and became a film actress.
The Poes Garden plot was bought by Jayalalithaa and her mother on 1 July 1967 at a cost of ₹ 1.32 lakh, measuring around 24,000 sq. feet (10 grounds) with a built-up area of 21,662 sq. feet. Jayalalithaa's mother, Vedavalli, died in November 1971 at the age of 47. Jayalalithaa held the housewarming ceremony of her residence, Veda Nilayam (named after her beloved mother, Vedavalli, alias Sandhya), on 15 May 1972, early in the morning, followed by dinner and a Veena recital by classical musician Chitti babu in the evening. Her brother's wedding took place at her Veda Nilayam home in Poes Garden in 1972. Her brother Jayakumar, his wife Vijayalakshmi, and their daughter, Deepa Jayakumar, lived in Poes Garden with Jayalalithaa till 1978 and then moved to T.Nagar, Madras, to the bungalow 'Sandhya Illam,' which was bought by the mother of Jayalalithaa. Her brother was unhappy with the adoption of Sudhakaran, a relative of Sasikala, as the foster son of Jayalalithaa. Jayalalithaa had adopted Sasikala's nephew Sudhakaran in 1995 and disowned him in 1996. Her brother died in 1995 of a heart attack.
Jayalalithaa was fluent in several languages, including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, Malayalam, and English. She often conversed with Karnataka Chief ministers in Kannada. Basavaraj Bommai, the former irrigation minister and later chief minister of Karnataka, said, "I was astonished by her Kannada slang and fluency." She was fond of dogs as her pets. But after the death of Julie, a spitz, in 1998, she could not bear the loss and discontinued keeping pet dogs at her home.
In Madras (now Chennai), Jayalalithaa was trained in Carnatic music, western classical piano and various forms of classical dance, including Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Mohiniyattam, Manipuri, Kathak. She learnt Bharatnatyam and dance forms under K. J. Sarasa and also from K. N. Dandayudhapani Pillai. She had also learnt Kuchipudi under Padma Bhushan Guru Dr. Vempati Chinna Satyam. She became an accomplished dancer and gave her debut dance performance at the Rasika Ranjani Sabha in Mylapore in May 1960. The Chief Guest at the Arangetram was Shivaji Ganesan, who called her a "thanga silai" (golden statue) and expressed wish that Jayalalithaa becomes a film star in future.
As a child, Jayalalithaa acted in the Kannada-language film Sri Shaila Mahathme (1961), which starred Rajkumar and Krishna Kumari. She was taken to the studio by her mother as she was shooting in the same premises for a different film. While Jayalalithaa was watching the shooting, a problem arose as the child actress playing the Goddess Parvathy in a school drama scene in the film failed to show up and the producer Neerlahalli Thalikerappa and director Aroor Pattabhi asked Sandhya if Jayalalithaa could act in the dance sequence. Sandhya agreed and Jayalalithaa was swiftly dressed up as Parvathy and the scene was shot in Sri Shaila Mahatme.