The 1960s were a time of student uprisings across the world. Militant socialist students in Europe, especially in France and West Germany, staged protests with the aim of bringing about revolutions in their countries. Anti-war students and “hippies” in the US opposed the military intervention in Vietnam. There were student movements against undemocratic regimes in Latin America and in countries of the former Soviet bloc as well. While all these protests made for spectacular news, and are duly commemorated every year, only a few of them resulted in a concrete political change. The anti-Hindi agitations in Tamil Nadu of the 1960s are one such exception.

Led predominantly by students, the anti-Hindi agitations contributed to unseating the ruling Congress and bringing the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) to power in 1967. Ever since, only Dravidian parties have formed the government in Tamil Nadu.

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While the Dravidian Movement, its leaders and parties, its policies and governance have all received significant academic attention, there is not much work dedicated to the anti-Hindi agitations—which marked a decisive turning point in Tamil Nadu’s politics—apart from articles by the scholars Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr, and Duncan B. Forrester. R. Vijaya Sankar’s timely translation of Hindi Imperialism, whose author, Aladi Aruna, was an active participant in the anti-Hindi agitations and later became an important leader in the DMK, should kindle interest in this crucial political movement of modern Tamil Nadu among a wider audience. Not only is Hindi Imperialism a document of a turbulent time authored by a participant-observer, it also speaks to the political issues of our times.

Aruna asserts proudly: “Dravidians and Bengalis are the only people in the world who created a revolution to protect their mother tongue.” There has been a strong Tamil cultural-nationalist sentiment since the dawn of modernity in colonial Madras, accompanied by opposition to “Aryan” Sanskrit. Several Tamil intellectuals counterposed imagined egalitarian Tamil pasts against what they saw as a hierarchal north Indian-Sanskrit-Aryan culture. Hindi was seen as the tongue of Aryan domination over the South.

The Anti-Hindi ‘Revolution’

The anti-Hindi mood got sharpened when C. Rajagopalachari (popularly known as Rajaji), the then Premier of the Madras presidency, made Hindi a compulsory subject in 1937. This was opposed by several Tamil political leaders and social reformers. The protests saw the participation of people across caste and religious divides and was noted for the active involvement of women. The protesters Natarajan and Thalamuthu died in custody and instantly became martyrs of the resistance. “Periyar” E.V. Ramasamy, who was already an established leader by then, played a prominent role in these protests.

This period saw his reach grow wider with the entry of a new crop of militant and articulate youths, chief among whom was C.N. Annadurai. Meanwhile, a student, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, neglected his schooling to take part in the anti-Hindi agitations. Arrests failed to contain the uprising, and in 1940, Hindi as a compulsory subject was withdrawn—only to be reinstated soon after Independence.

When Annadurai broke from Periyar to form the DMK, most of the young Dravidianists who left with him had already proven their mettle as capable organisers and leaders. From 1949 to 1967, the DMK was uncompromising on Tamil assertion, federalism, and opposition to “Hindi imperialism”. Although there were other leaders and outfits fighting for Tamil rights, the DMK became the vanguard of the anti-Hindi protests in this period.

It is worth remembering that the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits advocacy of separatism, was designed in response to the DMK. Aruna captures the key role played by these protests in shaping the Official Languages Act of 1963, which allowed for the continuation of English along with Hindi instead of Hindi as the sole official language as was originally planned. Further, the 1968 language resolution made it incumbent on the Indian state to protect and contribute to the languages in the Eighth Schedule. On coming to power, the DMK brought a two-language formula (Tamil and English) to the State, which has since been guarded by the different Dravidian Chief Ministers.

Interestingly, Rajaji, against whom the original anti-Hindi agitations were waged, himself opposed Hindi imposition in the 1950s and became a DMK ally in the 1960s. On the other hand, Periyar took a thoroughly anti-DMK position in the wake of the 1960s agitations; in some instances, he called for a ban on the party and, in others, for force to be used against the protesters who damaged public property. In Aruna’s partisan and linear narrative, such uncomfortable aspects of the history of Dravidian politics figure minimally.

There is a tendency among many Dravidianists today to view Dravidian politics as a seamless teleology from Periyar to M.K. Stalin via Annadurai and Karunanidhi. History does not attest to that. From the point that Annadurai separated from him and until he became the first Dravidian Chief Minister, Periyar treated the DMK as enemy number one and missed no opportunity to mock its politics. It is a testament to the political sagacity of Annadurai that not only did he trounce the powerful Congress and much-loved leaders like Kamaraj, but he also effectively navigated around the attacks by his mentor. And all this despite hailing from a non-elite background, with no inherited socio-economic or political clout.

DMK Chronicles

R. Kannan recounts the glorious days of Dravidian pasts and also dares to visit its grimy corners in his fact-by-fact account in The DMK Years: Ascent, Descent, Survival. The book can be seen as part of a “Dravidian trilogy”, preceded by Kannan’s biographies on Annadurai and M.G. Ramachandran (MGR).

In The DMK Years, Kannan attempts a biography of the DMK party and concurrently provides a panoramic view of Tamil politics post-Independence. He has used an impressive array of primary sources to build his narrative on how the DMK grew from a splinter of the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) to become a dominant political power in Tamil Nadu. The massive anti-Hindi agitations of the 1960s catapulted the DMK to prominence. But more was at work. The party used grassroots organising, literature, street theatre, agitprop, and of course, cinema to reach to a wide public. The key DMK leaders were great speakers who could command the attention of their audiences, and they also published papers to propagate their views.

Annadurai, like Lenin, recognised the power of cinema as a pedagogic tool. Dravidian cinema produced no Eisenstein or Vertov, who brought innovative techniques to the art. Instead, it was boosted by writers and poets whose dialogues and songs containing explicit or coded pro-Dravidian messages were lapped up by the public. It also invested in and benefited from the stardom of N.S. Krishnan, Sivaji Ganesan, and the charismatic MGR, who attained the status of a demigod as film hero and politician. It must be noted here that Periyar was opposed to cinema and the DMK’s use of the medium.

Annadurai’s DMK wove a rainbow coalition by roping in the conservative Swatantra Party and the CPI(M). Although these parties had been bitterly opposed to the DMK earlier, they were brought together by a set of common, broadly progressive demands against a powerful adversary in the Congress; the post-Marxist theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe would theorise about similar populist strategies much later. The DMK took from the DK a commitment to social justice measures; its firm pro-reservations stand earned the DMK the support of the OBCs and the SCs in Tamil Nadu. Kannan notes that after the DMK took power, “backward, Dalit and rural representation began to grow in government services”.

The DMK Years is not an academic book—Kannan candidly admits as much in his introduction—but it is a book that academics working on Tamil politics cannot ignore, simply because there is no other book in English that captures the story of the DMK from its formation until the present. The DMK suffered four major splits: from E.V.K. Sampath (1961), MGR (1972), V.R. Nedunchezhiyan (1977), and Vaiko (1994). All four were critical of Karunanidhi’s role in the DMK. It could be a coincidence that all these four leaders were from upwardly mobile non-Brahmin castes, while Karunanidhi hailed from a marginal one. MGR’s All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), when it captured power in 1977, kept the DMK in opposition until 1989. MGR’s split dealt a body blow to the DMK, but what it also did was push the non-DMK opposition in Tamil Nadu to the margins.

The DMK’s alliances with the parties that formed the government at the Centre were dictated by a combination of principles, tactical compromise, and opportunism. The DMK’s oppositional role during the Emergency has been glorified by its supporters for good reason. But Kannan also draws attention to how this was not straightforward. Karunanidhi was not above using the Maintenance of Internal Security Act to arrest his opponents; he was also eager to prove his patriotic credentials. Yet, he provided sanctuary to political dissidents from other parts of India.

There was an apprehension of centralisation and unbridled repression that compelled him to voice his opposition to the Emergency, leading to his government’s dismissal in 1976. Many DMK leaders were arrested. Stalin was beaten up brutally in jail, and Chittibabu, former Mayor of Chennai, succumbed to his injuries following torture.

In 1977, the DMK aligned with the Janata Party (JP) to defeat the Congress. Soon after, the DMK walked out of the JP alliance and offered its support to Indira Gandhi in 1980, claiming that she alone was capable of providing stable rule. On her part, Indira Gandhi forgot her past fabulous accusations of the DMK’s secessionism, corruption, and its plots to hurt her and vaunted the party as an ally.

This is not a trait of the DMK alone, though. The AIADMK aligned with the Congress in the general election of 1977 and got a thumping victory in the State. In the State Assembly election that year, it was supported by the CPI(M) that turned a blind eye to the alliance between the AIADMK and the party that declared the Emergency. When Morarji Desai became Prime Minister, MGR promptly cosied up to him. In 1980, MGR discovered that the Congress was undemocratic.

The Dravidian parties were similarly flexible in aligning with the BJP. Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK supported the Hindutva party in 1998, not because of any commitment to its principles but, as Kannan claims, because she wanted serious corruption charges against her withdrawn and Karunanidhi’s government dismissed. When this did not happen, she withdrew support. The DMK then backed the BJP because it felt at that time that Jayalalithaa’s corruption was worse than the BJP’s communalism. This uneasy alliance, too, did not last. Other parties in the State, whether centrist, caste-based, Dalit, or leftist, have done similar flip-flops in aligning with the DMK or the AIADMK.

Irrespective of their alliances at the Centre, the Dravidian parties compete with each other on protecting federalism, defending reservations, promoting Tamil rights, and delivering on populist welfare schemes. However, Kannan indicates that in cases of conflict between labour and capital, whichever Dravidian party is in power errs on the side of capital. Both the DMK and the AIADMK are pro-investors. Critics in Tamil Nadu, depending on their political affiliations, tend to focus on the errors of one party while minimising those of the other. Thankfully, Kannan brings that much-maligned word, objectivity, to the table.

The DMK Years was released in September to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the DMK’s founding. But one cannot avoid the feeling that the book was published in a hurry. The copyeditors could have taken more care to avoid errors, some of which are quite glaring. For instance, a subheading on page 5 on “Non-Brahmin Identity and Assertion” has nothing on this theme but instead has trivia on Karunanidhi’s naming of M.K. Stalin and on the number of his Facebook followers. The author claims on page 98 that the “Congress never missed an opportunity to advocate cultural nationalist issues” and follows on page 99 about “Congress’s deep-seated indifference to cultural nationalism”, alleging that it bungled on this front. A table about the 1980 parliamentary election on page 252 shows the DMK as having contested in 16 seats and winning in 48. The index has jumbled up Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar with Pon. Muthuramalingam.

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However, both books present valuable information on Dravidian politics. Kannan notes that with the demise of Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, the time of mass leaders is over. Stalin’s regime banks more on performance than on personality as the current DMK tries to protect the political and socio-economic achievements of past governments even as it tries to build more effective policies. But it faces vociferous challengers. Currently, the BJP and the Tamil nativist outfit the Naam Tamilar Katchi seek to discredit the whole of the Dravidian movement and overthrow Dravidian rule.

The popular Tamil actor Vijay recently floated the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam but does not seem to propose an alternative to Dravidian politics, rather a continuation of it. At the first conference of his party, he declared Periyar as his leader, said that Dravidianism and Tamil nationalism are like his two eyes, and spoke strongly in favour of State autonomy, Tamil rights, and social justice, all part of the Dravidian vocabulary. His party’s flag anthem positions him along with Annadurai and MGR. If he grows, he is likely to take away the non-DMK votes.

While the DMK is criticised by allies for its handling of labour issues, such as the recent Samsung workers’ strike, there is recognition of its value for secular politics at the local and national levels. Principled support and criticism from the Left can guide it to follow reasonable pro-labour policies. The ghosts of Dravidian pasts hold much lessons for Dravidian futures. 

Karthick Ram Manoharan is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. He is the author of Periyar: A Study in Political Atheism (Orient BlackSwan, 2022).