About The Justice

On 20 November 1916, non-Brahmin leaders meeting in Madras formed the South Indian People's Association, a joint-stock company created to publish English, Tamil and Telugu newspapers, and the South Indian Liberal Federation, the political body that came to be called the Justice Party after its newspaper.

By February 1917 the company had sold 640 shares of one hundred rupees each and bought a printing press. When talks with its first choice of editor broke down, Dr T. M. Nair took over as honorary editor, with P. N. Raman Pillai and M. S. Purnalingam Pillai as sub-editors. The first issue of Justice came out on 26 February 1917. A Tamil paper, Dravidan, followed in June 1917, and the party acquired the Telugu Andhra Prakasika.

Nair edited Justice until his death in July 1919. The party it spoke for won the first elections held under the Montagu–Chelmsford reforms in 1920, and its governments introduced caste-based representation in public appointments and the Hindu Religious Endowments law. In 1944, at its Salem conference, the party became the Dravidar Kazhagam.

The Justice today is a new publication. It has no legal or corporate connection to the 1917 newspaper or to any party. What we take from that history is a commitment: to report on behalf of people who are usually written about rather than listened to.