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Brothers Maran! Last but one chapter to be written

Events of the last two days indicate that twilight hours have set in for the Marans, estimated to be worth $4billion in 2011 by Forbes magazine.

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“The Sun never sets on the Maran Empire”, business honchos used to say about the Sun Group owned by Kalanithi and his younger brother Dayanithi Maran, the union textiles minister. But events of the last two days indicate that twilight hours have set in for the Marans, estimated to be worth $4billion in 2011 by Forbes magazine.

Those who have watched the rise of the Sun Group describe the growth as mindboggling. “Their growth is due to political patronage and influence. Politics was their launch pad into the world of business,” Cho Ramaswamy, writer and political analyst told DNA.

Dayanithi and Kalanithi are the sons of former union minister and DMK strongman late Murasoli Maran. The lineage does not end with that. Murasoli was Karunanidhi’s sister’s son and Murasoli’s younger brother Selvam is married to Selvi, Karunanidhi and Dayalu’s daughter.    

Kalanaithi launched his business enterprises in 1990 with Poomalai, a video new magazine. Cable TV and private FM radio were unheard of in India at that time. But with grand uncle Karunanidhi the chief minister Kalanithi did not face any problems. In 1993, he launched Sun TV, south India’s first private satellite TV channel with a bank loan of $86,000.

By 1995, his net worth grew to $10 million. Though the DMK was out of power in Tamil Nadu during 1991-96, the party had a stake in the United Front governments at the Centre headed by Deve Gowda and IK Gujral (1996-98). Murasoli was Union cabinet minister between 1989 and 1990 and from 1996 to 1998.

In 1996 Karunanidhi became CM again. The DMK aligned with BJP and was a constituent of the National Democratic Alliance government between 1999 and 2004. Murasoli was cabinet minister for industries, trade and commerce till he breathed his last in 2003.

On the eve of the 2004 general election, the DMK switched alliance to the Congress camp and since then the party has been an important stakeholder in the UPA government. Dayanithi, rated as a mediocre student by his Loyola College batch mates, was DMK’s poster boy and got the plum portfolio of Communication and Information Technology in the first UPA government.

There were allegations of Dayanithi using his clout in the ministry to delay license to prospective TV channel operators in south Indian languages. “Our application for a news channel was put on hold for three years by Dayanithi. It was following a court directive that we got the license,” said K P Sunil, chief editor, Jaya TV. He said other channels from Tamil Nadu had to face the wrath of Dayanithi because he never wanted competition for Sun Network.

Intra-personal rivalry
within the Karunanidhi family saw Dayanithi being dropped from the union cabinet. But he was rehabilitated in 2009 with a patch-up brokered by Selvi, who is in charge of Maran’s business interests in Karnataka. 

“The Marans, both Kalanithi and Dayanithi have an uninterrupted power patronage since 1996 and they successfully mixed politics with business,” said MR Venkatesh, chartered accountant and author of the book Sense, Sensex and Sentinel. He described the group’s core strength was its political clout. 

The brothers own Sun Group, India’s largest private sector satellite television network with 20 channels in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu. They also own Dinakaran, the second largest circulated Tamil daily and a dozen magazines catering to various sections of the population.

Sumangali Cable Vision (SCV), Tamil Nadu’s largest cable TV network and Sun Plus, the DTH service are also owned by the brothers. In addition to this the siblings own Suryan and Red FM radio networks. The latest acquisition is Spice Jet, a private airliner in which the brothers hold 40 % stake. Kalanithi also owns Sun Pictures, the biggest movie production house in south India.

Cho attributes the group’s success to strong political back up supplemented with Kalanithi’s management skills. “There are so many TV channels in Tamil. But none of them can match the popularity of Sun TV,” he said.

For the Maran brothers, politics has been a means to further their business interests. They do not have any love lost for the Dravidian ideology or Tamil pride. Even as grand uncle Karunanidhi swears by them, his pride and passion for Tamil, the Marans were educated in English medium schools.

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