Beloved Leader’s Admirers Grateful : Surgery Puts New Life in U.S. Image in South India

A hysterical crowd surrounded a car full of U.S. officials here, but the faces were friendly, symbolizing one of the most remarkable outpourings of pro-American sentiment in India in recent years.

The ecstatic people outside U.S. Consul General Dan Waterman’s car wanted only to ask him if he was one of the American doctors who had brought their beloved leader, M.G. Ramachandran, back to life.

Only a few months before, Ramachandran, chief minister of the 49-million-population south India state of Tamil Nadu, hovered near death in a Madras hospital. A former film star with a fanatical following here, the 68-year-old leader had suffered two strokes and kidney failure and lay in a coma.

A false rumor of his death had already caused rioting in this state capital. Doctors remembered that a decade earlier, the death of a similarly beloved leader had resulted in a mob burning down the home of his attending physician.

So, despite Ramachandran’s rapidly failing condition, local doctors, after consulting with U.S. and Japanese physicians flown here in October, decided to put the Tamil leader on a special airplane and fly him to a New York medical center. Three potential kidney donors from his family and 40 medical workers flew with him.

At that time, the United States was not particularly popular here.

India’s Tamils generally support the separatist movement of Tamil-speaking residents of Sri Lanka, the island nation just off the coast of southern India, and believe that the U.S. government has given too much support to the Sri Lanka government, which is dominated by the country’s majority Sinhalese.

After the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in October, mobs threatened U.S. Consulate buildings here. It seemed that the general impulse was: If something goes wrong, blame the United States.

But, if American foreign policy has not been able to win the hearts of the people of Tamil Nadu, American medicine has. People here are suddenly aglow with good feelings toward Americans, particularly those in the American medical system.

On Dec. 24, doctors in New York performed a daring kidney transplant on Ramachandran, making him one of the oldest recipients ever. The kidney came from his 31-year-old niece.

Three days later, Ramachandran--whose political trademarks are wraparound dark glasses, which he wears constantly, even in dark rooms, and a fur cap--was reelected by a huge margin to the state’s leadership. The victory came despite charges by many of his opponents that he was incapacitated and unable to make decisions. After his reelection, opponents here still jockeyed for position within his regional Dravidian Party, convinced that their leader would not be able to weather the serious operation and the return trip to India.

However, a special Air India flight arrived Monday at dawn at the Madras airport. At a nearby stadium, more than 500,000 people waited for a glimpse of their hero.

Ramachandran, who is known universally in India by his initials, M.G.R., is particularly adored by mothers here.

He made at least three films with the word in the title--”Mother,” “Godly Mother,” and “Mother Comes Before Wife.” And it is well known that he has a large shrine dedicated to his mother, with a huge color picture of her above an altar, on the grounds of his three-story, lime-green mansion.

Crowd Is Delighted

When Ramachandran strode briskly from the private car that had taken him to the stadium and mounted a podium, lifting high his right arm, which had been paralyzed by one of his strokes, the crowd went wild with delight. Much good feeling was immediately directed toward Americans and American medicine.

“Reports had been so pessimistic,” said Dr. K. Periaswamy, a professor of economics at the University of Baltimore and an American Tamil leader who accompanied Ramachandran on his return. “When they saw him standing there, as normal as can be, they were thrilled. It has been an emotional experience. The people here think America can do wonders.”

A special ceremony of appreciation, what they call here a “felicitation,” was held Wednesday in an outdoor theater here before 2,000 people.

“This is an appreciation of the medical miracle of the Americans,” said M.A. Rajaram, a Tamil film producer who helped organize the event. “Americans are responsible for the rebirth of our chief minister.”

A Cultural Bridge

Only one of the U.S.-based physicians, Dr. T.K. Sreepada Rao, was able to attend. Rao, however, accepted a huge ivory inlaid teakwood tray on behalf of the Brooklyn Hospital, and he and his American associates were praised repeatedly as a cultural bridge between India and the United States.

Ramachandran, who despite his remarkable recovery is still unable to speak words of more than one syllable, is not the first Indian politician to receive American care. Two other state chief ministers were in hospitals in Houston and New York last year.

One irony of the Ramachandran case not emphasized here Wednesday was that the surgeon in the complicated kidney transplant operation, Dr. Khalid Butt of the New York medical center, is a native of Pakistan, India’s bitterest enemy.