#Dravidian Movement

A portrait of Kannadasan in eggshell mosaic. The poet's birth centenary is being marked across Tamil Nadu.

Kannadasan at 100: the factory hand from Chettinad who made philosophy sing

Born Muthaiah in Sirukoodalpatti in 1927, Kannadasan left school after Class VIII, found his voice beside a poet-saint's memorial in Tiruvottiyur, and wrote film songs that still open the day in Tamil villages.

30 September 2026 · 3 min read

Senate House of the University of Madras, a landmark of the city in which the Justice Party was born. By 1944 the party had moved from governing the Presidency to a social movement.

History

27 August 1944: at Salem, the Justice Party becomes the Dravidar Kazhagam

At its sixteenth confederation, the party gave up British titles, caste suffixes and elections, and took a new name. A rump that refused the change fought one last election in 1952.

29 September 2026 · 2 min read

Periyar, who led the 1937–40 agitation and was elected president of the Justice Party while in prison in December 1938.

History

1937–40: the first anti-Hindi agitation and the Justice Party's second life

A Congress government's order making Hindi compulsory in 125 secondary schools set off thirty months of protest. Two men died, about 1,200 people were jailed, and a defeated party found a new purpose under Periyar.

28 September 2026 · 2 min read

Leaders of the Vaikom Satyagraha (1924–25). E. V. Ramasamy, later known as Periyar, was imprisoned twice during the campaign.

History

From Vaikom to Kudi Arasu: how the Self-Respect Movement found the Justice Party

Periyar left the Congress in 1925 and led a movement that asked for more than jobs and seats. For a decade it worked alongside the Justice Party, and in the end it took the party over.

27 September 2026 · 2 min read

Fort St. George, where the Madras Legislative Council met. The Justice Party formed the Presidency's first elected ministry here in December 1920.

History

December 1920: the first elected ministry of Madras, and the limits of dyarchy

The Justice Party won 63 of 98 seats in the first elections under the Montagu–Chelmsford reforms. Its ministers soon discovered how little power "transferred subjects" really carried.

23 September 2026 · 2 min read

Madras from the sea in the early nineteenth century, by William Daniell. A century later Justice would be printed in the city for a Presidency-wide readership.

History

26 February 1917: the newspaper that gave a party its name

Justice, edited without pay by Dr T. M. Nair, became so identified with the movement that the South Indian Liberal Federation came to be called the Justice Party. Its pages show both the movement's courage and its blind spots.

22 September 2026 · 2 min read

Fort St. George, Madras, seat of the Presidency government, in a view by Thomas Daniell. The manifesto was addressed as much to the Government as to the public.

History

December 1916: the Non-Brahmin Manifesto and the storm it raised

A month after its founding, the new association published a manifesto that pledged loyalty to the Raj and demanded a fair share of public life. The nationalist press was furious.

21 September 2026 · 2 min read

Victoria Public Hall, Madras, associated with the founding of the South Indian Liberal Federation in 1916.

History

20 November 1916: the evening a movement was founded in Madras

How a gathering of non-Brahmin leaders in Vepery created the South Indian People's Association and the South Indian Liberal Federation, the organisation history remembers as the Justice Party.

20 September 2026 · 3 min read