Under her rule Tamil Nadu grew safer, richer and better educated.17 In 2016, a survey judged it one of the country’s two best-governed states,18 despite being led for the best part of two decades by a leader who mixed prodigious corruption, autocratic whims and a fondness for politically expedient handouts. ‘Jayalalithaa has become, for better or worse, the template that all India’s successful chief ministers seek to follow,’ as commentator Mihir Sharma put it just after her death.19
