April 13, 1997
THIS PICTURE DIDN'T CLICK The attempt by a section of the media to link Jayalalitha with Rajiv Gandhi's assassins boomerangs

On March 27 readers fo The Indian Express, Dinamani, a Tamil daily, and Junior Vikatan, a tamil bi-weekly, got the shock of their lives: on the front page was a picture showing former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha supposedly in the company of Dhanu, the human bomb who killed Rajiv Gandhi, and Sivarasan, the brain behind the assassination.

The group photo was taken in 1990, said the caption, which identified some of the others in it. There was no explanation of the occasion to the picture. Was any needed?

But when the truth emerged, the journals had to face the readers' anger, until then focused on Jayalalitha. The 'Dhanu' and 'Sivarasan' in the photograph, it turned out, were two AIADMK lawyers, M. Dakshayani and K. Nanje Gowder, of Hosur in Dharmapuri district.

The identification was effected in an uproarious assembly by the Janata Dal member from Hosur, B. Venkatasamy. Also in the photograph was Pappa Subramaniam, who had left the party in 1988. How did he figure in a 1990 party picture with a sylphilike Jayalalitha?

"When I saw the photograph in the newspaper I recognised myself," said Dakshayani, who is a Kannadiga hailing from Kelamangalam in Dharmapuri. "But I was shocked to read the caption."

She immediately contacted the Dharmapuri AIADMK secretary, K.P. Munnusamy, who got in touch with the party headquarters in Chennai. She and Gowder lost no time in going to Chennai to clarify things. "I knew there was no personal motive. It was all aimed at our leader," Dakshayani told The Week.

And on March 28 they were presented by their leader at a press conference, ending all speculation. But the issue is far from over for the AIADMK and specifically the two lawyers, who are members of the Hosur Bar Association.

Hosur advocate M. Vijaya Kumar, the bespectacled man to Jayalalitha's right in the photograph, recalls the occasion of the shoot very well. "It was taken on February 13 or 14, 1988," he said. "The AIADMK had just split into the Jayalalitha and Janaki factions and I had led a team of 11 advocates from Hosur to Chennai to congratulate Jayalalitha and pledge out support to her. The photo session was right after that."

Dakshayani remembers that it was Sivarathri and that some of them had obtained copies of the photographs, which they vaguely recall as having been taken by a party photographer.

"Where is the resemblance between us and Rajiv Gandhi's killers?" asked Nanje Gowder, who is also a Kannadiga and hails from Kembathapalli in Dharmapuri,

"This has personally affected me and may family members. I have also lost face in my community," said Gowder who is the district secretary of the Dharmapuri Vokkaligare Sangam.

The Hosur Bar Association was quick to come to the support of its members. In 1985 Dakshayani became the first woman to be called to the Hosur Bar. In a show of sympathy advocates of the association boycotted the court on March 31 and appealed to the Chennai Lawyers Federation to initiate further action.

Definitely there is someone behind this. Papers of such repute couldn't have done it deliberately," said Dakshayani's father C.M. Mallaya, a well-known social worker in Kelamangalam.

Dakshayani, who is not married and is one of the breadwinners of her large family, sued Indian Express and Sun TV (Which showed the newspapers carrying the photograph in their morning news bulletin) for Rs 30 lakh in loss and damages. The publication of the photograph, she said, had caused "serious injury and loss of reputation" to her. Nanje Gowder also plans to sue the publications.

The two lawyers are concerned for their personal safety. "Because we are alive, it could be proved that those in the photograph are not Dhanu and Sivarasan," said Dakshayani. "But if somebody could profit from our deaths, wouldn't they do so?"

Who gave the photograph to the publications? "I do not want to commemt on this issue at all," V.S. Karnic, resident editor of The Indian Express in Chennai, told The Week.

Junior Vikatan, however, made amends in its very next issue by running a cover story and editorial apologising for the gaffe, saying, 'Emathapattru Ju Vi' (Junior Vikatan was cheated).

There are many theories about who was responsible for the wrong identification of the photograph. One is that the photograph came into the hands of vigilance or intelligence officials during the raids on Jayalaliths's Poes Garden residence. Since there seemed to be a superficial resemblance between Rajiv's killers and the lawyers, it was passed on to the publications.

"But all that the publications had to do was to check the veracity of the picture with either S. Thirunavakkarasu or Dr H.V. Hande (both senior AIADMK leaders who were in the photograph) instead of publishing it in such an unseemly hurry." said Vijaya Kumar. "How could they publish it just on hearsay?"

The photograph in the guise of a "scoop" was apparently given to the three publications under a plan by which it would appear the same day. While the controversy raged, another Tamil bi-weekly, Nakheeran, claimed that it had got the same photograph as early as November 1995.

R.R. Gopal, editor of Nakheeran, told The Week: "When I received this photograph way back in 1995, I got it checked for forgery. I then tried to get it clarified with Thirunavakkarasu, but he brushed it aside saying that he didn't remember the occasion. I showed it to a few Tamil militant groups, which confirmed that the duo were not Dhanu and Sivarasan. So I just filed it away."

Gopal claimed he was offered the photograph by some 'photographer shorces' for a price of Rs 4 lakh. "I didn't pay the amount once I found out that the identities were fake," he said.

The Biggest beneficiary of the controversy is obviously Jayalalitha. She had all along been saying that the media were deliberately carrying slanderous reports about her. The expose of the photograph seemed to bear her out. "The diabolical conspiracy has fallen flat on its face," She said. They (the publications) have taken a potsshot but it has miserably fizzled out."

Conceded Gopal: "Whatever work we had done in the last few years can now be labelled untruths by her. This particular incident, gives her a golden opportunity to label everything that appears against her a falsehood."

But this is not the first time a picture has been used to try and nail politicians in Tamil Nadu.

During Jayalalitha's regime a photograph showing Dr Subramaniam Swamy with Ravi, a TADA prisoner, was the centre of a controversy. But Nakheeran which acquired the photograph first, proved that it was a forgery.

"We enlarged the photograph and could make out that it was a cut and paste job," said Gopal. We published it but with a caption that it was a forgery."

With Jayalalitha demanding a special CBI inquiry the last word has not yet been said in the latest case.

E. VIJAYALAKSHMI

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