Periyar And DMK: Forging A Horizontal Dravidian-Tamil Solidarity

The campaign song 1 of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for the 2021 Legislative Assembly elections became the most-watched political campaign song in India. It goes like this: “Those who try to impose [the Hindi] language, and those who seek to politicise religion, dare not step foot in Tamil Nadu. We have someone [M.K. Stalin] to stand against such forces. We carry the fire ignited by Periyar within us.” While the song is about preserving the pride of the Dravidian-Tamil identity, it also emphasises two key elements of social justice: equal opportunity and self-respect.

Throughout my fieldwork, I noticed a powerful, broader sense of identity that went beyond just caste identity, and a thriving discourse around caste-based social justice—especially when it comes to empowerment and representation. Over a hundred years after the 1916 non-Brahmin manifesto put forward by the South Indian Liberal Federation (better known as the Justice Party), which pushed for better representation for non-Brahmin groups, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly remains one of the most diverse in terms of caste representation.

The diversity seen in the assembly is often linked to the inclusive Dravidian-Tamil identity, which has shaped the politics of Dravidian parties since they first came to power in 1967.This identity, linked with an ethos, has created strong connections across various non- Brahmin lower-caste groups that, despite their traditional caste- based divisions,3 have come together in ‘horizontal solidarities’. These bonds are rooted in shared social and economic goals and cultural aspirations of these caste groups. The ongoing strength of these solidarities can be traced back to Periyar’s radical yet gradual and ever-evolving anti-caste ideas and activism.

In my work, I’ve explored Periyar’s ideas and how they can be found in the writings of other thinkers—both within and beyond the academic world, not just in the subcontinent but globally. His anti-caste ideas and brand of activism are not just about demanding adequate representation for the numerically dominant non-Brahmins or from an antagonism towards Brahmins. It’s about embracing pluralism in identity politics, challenging the outdated views on caste, and providing it a modern and practical context. At the heart of his philosophy is the idea of self-respect, which has been central to the struggle against oppression and social degradation—an idea that has shaped the Dravidian parties’ politics for over fifty years.

A quick overview of the literature on Periyar is important in the context of this chapter. Sumathi Ramaswamy (1997),V. Geetha and S.V. Rajadurai (1998), Narendra Subramanian (1999), and M.S.S. Pandian (2007) have critically examined prominent activists and social reformers from the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries in the Madras region. They later focused on how the Dravidian parties altered social relations among communities in a caste-based society, particularly through the contributions of activists like Periyar. These studies also discussed the strengths and limitations of these movements in fighting inequality in caste and class systems.

Although their views on the movement differ, Pandian, Ramaswamy, and Subramanian all agreed on the vital role Periyar played in broadening the scope of the Dravidian-Tamil identity. Subramanian noted that even though lower and depressed caste groups faced uneven political and developmental outcomes, ethnic conflicts were kept under control, helping foster growth and development. Pandian, in addition to discussing Periyar, also highlighted the contributions of non-Brahmin Saivite leaders and depressed-caste intellectuals like Iyothee Thass when conceptualising the non-Brahmin identity. He expressed concerns about the stability of this identity due to tensions between lower- caste groups and Dalits.

Despite some notable omissions, such as the absence of Iyothee Thass in her work, Ramaswamy classifies activists based on their contribution to the Tamil language and its political significance. She positions Periyar as a political opportunist rather than a passionate advocate of the Tamil language and its storied past. Geetha and Rajadurai’s work on social reformers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries places Periyar and his writings at the heart of debates around the complexities of non-Brahmin politics.

G.Aloysius (2019 and 2022) explores Periyar’s ideas in specific contexts—modernity and category-wise rights, for instance. In his book Periyar and Modernity, Aloysius argues that Periyar’s idea of self-respect was his rational response to Brahminism pretending to be nationalism.This approach was critical of the past, rooted in modernity, and focused on addressing current issues. In his 2022 work on category-wise rights, he highlights how Periyar pushed for communities, big or small, to take political action and assert their agency for the nation’s development. This was in contrast to the idea of blending one’s identity into a larger nationalist framework, which, in his view, would not be as representative when it comes to who holds power.

While these authors engage with specific aspects of Periyar’s work, others like Anita Diehl (1978), E. Sa.Visswanathan (1983), and Karthick Ram Manoharan (2022) have written full-length books about Periyar’s life and his interventions in the social and political spheres in South India. Diehl looks at Periyar’s views on religion, caste, women’s empowerment, and how he used rationalism to fight gender and caste discrimination against women and the lower castes. She concludes that Periyar wasn’t a philosopher in the traditional sense, but more of a practical preacher, whose messages were at times repetitive and a bit superficial. Hjejle (1979: 75–76) argued that this view ignores the varying educational levels of the audiences that Periyar was reaching out to. The next chapter presents a picture of the reading rooms across Madras State that were key spaces for spreading the DMK’s ideas, and how they communicated with the less educated.