How NYT and WaPo covered Jayalalithaa’s demise

Amidst the coverage and obituaries that washed over us yesterday, there were two that especially stood out. Subramanian Swamy’s beautifully oblivious, self-centred paean to himself, and one by The New York Times’s South Asia Bureau Chief, Ellen Barry. Barry’s obituary, titled “Death of Tamil Nadu’s Leader Leaves Power Vacuum in Southern India” was more puzzling. Over 1,000 words, it leapfrogged over well-known episodes from Jayalalithaa’s life, all the while being exceedingly reductive and at times betraying an Orientalism we thought we’d put to rest.

Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Barry is usually not a careless writer. Yet her first line refers to Jayalalithaa as a starlet, which is an odd way to refer to someone who starred in over 140 films and has been an iconic figure in India’s political scene. There’s also the curious headline that claims Jayalalithaa’s demise “leaves power vacuum”. There is a clear line of succession and regardless of what may follow, Panneerselvam is the new chief minister of Tamil Nadu. Sure, there were some speculations about who would take over the position of power in All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), but these are at the level of rumours.

Barry goes on to tell us, “Dramatic displays of emotion are not unusual in southern Indian politics.” Ummm, let us ignore the sports-based riots that are a glorious yearly tradition, but y’all have rioted over pumpkins. We’re not sure what the Western metric for dramatic displays of emotion are, but apparently pumpkins are kosher.

Then there’s the neat reduction of Jayalalithaa’s turbulent rise to power with the phrase “clawed her way, in one instance literally”. Couched in casual sexism, this is, one assumes, either an oblique reference to the attack on her by her party members as she tried to clamber on to the gun-carriage of her mentor MG Ramachandran during his funeral procession in 1987 or the 1989 Legislative Assembly fight during which Jayalalithaa was assaulted and manhandled. Despite the agency credited to her in the name of wordplay, the superficiality in the writing is disappointing.

For instance, Barry also ignores Jayalalithaa’s administrative policies and her popularity, emphasising instead an admittedly bizarre display of worship from her supporters with this quote from historian Venkatachalapathy: “She not only made men fall at her feet, she made it a spectacle…Women really liked that.” There’s a context to this: Tamil Nadu’s politics (much like the rest of India’s) is intensely male-dominated and for Jayalalithaa, who had no lineage and in fact was attacked for being her (much-married) mentor’s mistress, to have reached the position of supremacy is remarkable.

What is most perplexing is that Barry’s Twitter timeline, through retweets and tweets, shows a nuanced understanding of both Jayalalithaa and Tamil Nadu that simply isn’t in the story.

To be fair to Barry, she does say in a tweet that this is not an obituary and a proper one will be forthcoming.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign of that obituary so far.

Compare this to the obituary (neatly labelled as such) by Annie Gowen, The Washington Post’s India bureau chief, “Jayaram Jayalalitha, powerful Indian politician who broke gender barriers, dies at 68”. Gowen’s story makes clear what the focus of the story is, not to mention what was especially remarkable about Jayalalithaa (while naming her in their headline, albeit incorrectly, a courtesy the NYT didn’t deem necessary).

Running at a little over 600 words, this story isn’t exhaustive but it does centre its focus on the cult of personality around Amma, while never proselytising, “a secretive, somewhat imperious politician who rose to power despite India’s deeply patriarchal political system and was credited with developing her state and helping the rural poor”.

The obituary also notes that for all the good done under Jayalalithaa, the low infant and maternal mortality rates etc, the State was struggling with debt due to them. Gowen also displays an understanding of the political landscape of Tamil Nadu, noting that Jayalalithaa’s cultish devotion ran across class lines.

Both Barry and Gowen are fascinated by the cult of personality that sprang up around the late chief minister and that’s fair enough. Where Barry ponders what this meant for Tamil Nadu in a larger context, Gowen attempts to locate the person at the heart of it by focusing on her history over her myth.

Enigmatically, though, Gowen’s last line simply states “a complete list of survivors was not available.” This is provided with no comment and it is unclear if this is a reference to Amma’s next-of-kin, or her grief-stricken followers.

Postcolonial theorists will be happy to note that it is the British daily The Guardian that refrained from reporting solely on the performativity of grief. Michael Safi and Sandhya Ravishankar reported on the funeral, speaking to mourners as well as party officials. The quotes from transgender women and supporters from villages far outside Chennai say little about Amma’s administrative policies or her style of governance, but they speak volumes about why the leader’s life was noteworthy.