The Dravidar Kazhagam (DK), founded by Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in 1944, turns 75 on August 27. The social movement, which suffered a split in September 1949, with Periyar’s protégé C.N. Annadurai launching the DMK, remains relevant in the Dravidian firmament, decades after its founder’s death in 1973.
“Even the organisations founded by other reformists like Narayana Guru in Kerala or Jyotirao Phule in Maharashtra or B.R. Ambedkar did not enjoy influence of the kind wielded by the DK, which is carrying forward the legacy of Periyar. What Periyar visualised during his lifetime were ideas that were implemented by many governments,” contended DK vice-president Kali Poongundran. It was after Periyar dropped his caste surname ‘Naicker’ in 1929 that the culture of dropping caste surnames spread among the people of Tamil Nadu, he said.
From fighting the taboo against widowhood, encouraging their remarriage and continuing the struggle against casteism to asserting the idea of social justice, the DK is carrying forward what Periyar stood for, said DK propaganda secretary A. Arulmozhi.
But what about the criticism that Dalits were left out of the movement? “We did take them along. There are ulterior motives behind those levelling this criticism against the DK,” she said.
RSS ideologue and Thuglak Editor S. Gurumurthy, however, disagreed. “My study is that any movement born in anger is contextual. It will lose its value once its leadership sees and acquires power and becomes soft. Then, the movement dissipates and becomes irrelevant. This rule is valid for communism and the DK.” The DK movement, according to him, failed because though its anger was against Brahmins, it wrongly targeted Gods. “It was defeated by Gods. But its effect is that it made the Brahmins less dependent on the State and other castes for their survival,” he argued. “Its result is a huge minus and it has stunted T.N. — the intellectual leader of India and the world — by dividing and engaging intellectuals in short-term issues,” he said.
Major reference point
Political commentator P. Ramajayam had a different take. In Tamil Nadu politics, he said, the DK remains the major reference point where all Dravidian and Communist parties meet, since both strongly subscribe to the ideas of Periyar. “DK president K. Veeramani may not get many votes, but his presence on the political stage means a lot to the political parties and the leaders present on that stage,” he said.
Unlike the RSS, which had only the BJP, the DK would have several parties wanting to be seen aligning with it, he said. But the organisation also had its limitations as “Periyar has not only grown beyond the DK and beyond borders but has also often been a reference point among the intellectual community across the world on annihilation of caste,” he added. Many youth were more interested in his principles than the activities of the organisation he founded, he said.
