HAS Jayalalithaa, a twice born Brahmin, become the high priestess of anti-Brahminism after last year’s rout of her party, AIADMK, faced in the elections to the Lok Sabha with not a single seat to show out of the 40 in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry? The DMK and its allies swept the board with the Congress making a good tally of 10 seats in alliance with the DMK and other friendly outfits after a political drought of three-and-a-half years in the State legislature.

It is not just the fury of nature that the eastern coast of India deep down south has gone through. It is not just the giant earthquake of 8.9 on the Richter Scale or the tsunamis that churned the seas and jet waves that hit the coasts and lands beyond. It is now the fury of a most powerful woman that began showing its face six weeks earlier. Two of the holiest shrines, Kanchipuram and Vellore, have gone through and are going through with the senior and junior Shankaracharya being put behind bars one after the other, the senior seer having been granted bail after two months in jail by the Supreme Court and finally released. But simultaneously, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa acted swiftly and ordered the arrest of the junior seer, claiming that everyone, no matter how high and mighty and spiritual, was equal before the law. She even chose to protest to the Supreme Court that it should delete its remarks and observations about the lack of evidence against the senior seer. She promptly sacked the police chief and Home Commissioner and the prosecution lawyers also faced her ire for their failure to stop the senior seer winning the bail pleas. But her representatives had to give assurances to the courts that the senior seer will not be arrested until January 20.

It remains to be seen whether she will have the guts to defy the highest court of the land and put the senior seer behind the bars once more. She has succeeded in getting orders that the senior seer will not enter the Kanchi mutt, but remain at a shrine 40 miles away from it. She has also demanded that the Kanchi saint should be barred from the whole of South India. BJP chief L K Advani has demanded that the trial of the seer should be held outside Tamil Nadu as Jayalalithaa’s intentions and actions appear to make it difficult for a fair hearing in the State she rules ruthlessly.

At the same time Jayalalithaa has leaked to the media selected excerpts from police questioning of the senior seer and two TV channels claimed to have secured footage of the saint lying on a bed with a mustard cover answering questions. But nowhere does the selected police video show the seer implicating himself, but he did accuse his junior whom he brought up like a younger brother engaging in activities, not quite desirable. That may be something for Jayalalithaa to go by, but not enough.

The Tamil Nadu police have been forced to withdraw summons to the seer because his lawyers quoted Tamil Nadu High Court rulings that only witnesses could be summoned and not the accused. Meanwhile, the Kanchi seer has renewed his appeal to the Prime Minister to ensure that prayers at the mutt could be held without interruption. There had been no interruption for more than 2500 years, he said.

Apparently Jayalalithaa is preparing the ground for elections to the State Assembly, due next year, to win over the anti-Brahmin sentiment among the Dravidian backward classes, which were brought to the fore by great leaders like Naicker and Annadurai. Annadurai was a fiery orator of his times and swayed public sentiments to the point that many highly emotional Tamils gave their lives by committing suicide when he died. It is after him that the Jayalalithaa party, AIADMK starts its name with the word Anna in a salute to the great hero of times bygone — All India Anna DMK, a clear case of one-upmanship on the DMK.

She did not hesitate to overlook the Prime Minister’s earlier advice that puja should not be interrupted in the absence of both seers; she claimed that at Kanchipuram the two seers had been away in the past and prayers had been performed without interruption, but at Vellore, for the first time possibly in centuries, the pujas were not performed on Tuesday after the new moon in the absence of the two seers. The two shrines, among the holiest places of India, and the two most pious of men of god, are going through terrible times now. This has never happened in last 2500 years since the Adi Sankara set up Kanchipuram Mutt.

When Jayendra Saraswati stepped out of the Vellore prison on January 11, devotees and several BJP leaders and VHP top leader Ashok Singhal welcomed him. The fear of the senior seer being arrested again haunts the devotees and the seer’s lawyer has applied for anticipatory bail in the third case. The third case is under Section 424 of the Indian Penal Code for alleged fraudulent or dishonest removal or concealment of property and Section 323 for alleged attempt to murder. The Tamil Nadu state lawyers have assured the courts that the seer would not be arrested until January 20.

The BJP is now demanding the dismissal of Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and has organised a countrywide protest against the arrest of the two seers as it says that the Tamil Nadu Government has failed to come up with evidence against the seer.

The Congress is of the view that there should be no disruption of the prayers at the two holy places and arrangements should continue to be made at the mutt in accordance with the sentiments of the devotees. The Prime Minister had written to the Chief Minister that the prayers should not be impeded.

Political observers believe that the rout in the elections to the Lok Sabha has made Jayalalithaa perturbed even though she enjoys a comfortable majority in the State legislature. She had an alliance with the BJP which was deserted by the DMK last year, but she has now turned against the BJP which is greatly annoyed over the arrest of the seers and cases against them. Yesterday’s friends are today’s foes, but has she got any friends in political quarters other than her own. She might have tried to build bridges with the Congress, but even the ruling party at the Centre would not like to have anything to do with her. Not yet.