Our tale begins in the early 1900’s, a young Tamilian Hindu on a pilgrimage in Varanasi spots a charity that provides free food. Hungry and broke, he enters this charity in the hopes of satiating his hunger. To his great shock, he is stopped by a chowkidar who asks him where his sacred thread is? This young fellow, nonplussed asks the chowkidar how a thread is relevant to his being allowed in. To which he is told that the charity is run by Brahmins and for Brahmins only and that he is not welcome here. Ironically the charity was set up by a Nadar (a powerful trading caste), but served only Brahmins.

He wandered around, desperate and hungry. He begged in street corners for a few anna’s, he ate from garbage bins. Looking around he saw only misery, povery and despair in this holiest of holy cities. He had come to to Varanasi looking for salavation, he went back to Erode (a city in TN) disgusted with Hinduism, with religion and mostly what he saw as Brahmnical Hinduism.

His name was EVR Periyar.

The year he got back to Erode was the year C N Annadurai, the founder and father of the political Dravidar movement was born.

Around 1900, the British started playing their favorite card of divide and rule. Brahmins, who form only ~2% of the population (I think it is 1% now), control the entire administrative process in the Madras Presidency. Judges, magistrates, collectors, professors, university heads. Their influence became legendary, and one that would come back to haunt them 60 odd years later. Britain, to first create and later exploit latent frictions in society introduced Brahmin / Non Brahmin quotas in all seats. The mercantile class (Mudaliars’s and Nadar’s- think Shiv Nadar of HCL) started chafing under the total administrative control exercised by Brahmins and a couple of them came up with, The Justice Party. The main aim of this party was to lobby the British and ensure non Brahmins got placed in positions of power. From these rather limited orgins. The Justice Party published a manifesto called the “Non-Brahmin manifesto” which asked for an end to Brahmin occupation of chief administrative posts and to open it up to Non Brahmins (Nadars, Mudaliars and Chettiars primarily).

These three disparate elements would coalesce and determine Tamil Nadu politics from 1950 to this date.

The young man, EVR comes back home to his beloved wife. She was 12, he was 19 when they first met through the process of ‘ponnu pakarudhu’ (Bride Seeing). It was a weird arranged marriage. The bride, a fiery young girl by the name Nagammai was in her short life very driven, and took to her husband’s causes and became the fiercer of the two in fighting for his ideals and political beliefs. We don’t know when or where they first met (romantically), but it is certain they knew each other as she was his maternal uncles daughter. She was betrothed to another man, but young Periyar convinced his uncle to break off that engagement and sanction his marriage to her. He takes up his father Venkata Naicaker’s business but his mind is not in it.

That is when the Gandhi Tsunami sweeps that part of India, and Periyar has suddenly found his calling. He quits his business, takes up to Gandhi and Gandhian philosophy like a duck to water. He felt like he was home at last. Here was a party and leader that not only fought for freedom, but wanted to abolish castes, wanted equality. An apocryphal tale from this period suggests that he used all his considerable persuasive skills in persuading everybody (Friends / Family) in his rich, wealthy circle to burn their Manchester milled clothes and only wear homespun Khadi.

Periyar worked his way up the Congress ladder, a decent orator, he was actively involved in another movement that gave him immense popularity with the womenfolk of TN. He and his wife decided to go after the Toddy (liquor) industry in TN. These gave him both credibility as well as a platform with which to launch his future career.

The biggest single event in his life happened now. The Vaikom Satyagraha. It was a move that married the Gandhian principle of Satyagraha and something dear to Periyar – fighting Casteist oppression. Now, detractors of Periyar will rightly point out that this was hardly a struggle, and certainly not like the struggles that Ambedkar (Periyar’s contemporary) was leading in Maharashtra. This was more of a leisurely protest, that the chief of police himself used to have his meals with Periyar and Nagammai. The truth is being debated even till today, but what is relevant to the story is, he returned home as “Vaikom Veerar” (Hero of Vaikom)

At this point, I should point out something very interesting and very unique to TN politics. Periyar, was a Kannadiga Baliga by birth. His mother tongue was Kannada and he….hated Tamilians and Tamil culture. Yes, the person who is even today revered and held up as god by quite a few Tamilians actually wasn’t a Tamilian, but one who hated Tamils. I say this is unique to TN politics because, MGR was a Malyalee (Keralite), Jayalalitha is a Tamilian who was born in Karnataka and Karunanidhi while Tamilian, has his roots in Andhra. This somehow has always struck me as fascinating. Name any big icon of TN history, and mostly they are not Tamil in origin. Why, even Rajinikanth’s real name is Shivaji Rao Gaekwad and is a Mahrashtrian. Even other lesser leaders like Vaiko and Vijayakanth have Telugu roots, but I am running far ahead of my story and will take you back to ~1920 now.

By the mid 20’s, Periyar was disillusioned with the Congress. For all his faults, Periyar was never in this for power, and he felt that the leaders of the Congress (mostly Brahmins) were being dominated by other North Indian Brahmins and that he wasn’t going anywhere. The breaking point was when his resolution for communal representation in educational institutions was shot down by upper caste (mostly Brahmin) leaders 3 years in a row. The Salem conference in 1923 when his resolution was shot down for the third time finally broke his resolution to stay with the Congress.

By 1926, he was done completely and resigned from the Congress and started his defining political masterpiece – the Self Respect Movement.

In 1909, was born the leader who would decide the template, and write the playbook that is still being followed in Tamil Nadu. Strong Oratory, leveraging Cinema and using it as a propaganda tool and most importantly, creating that cult of personality (though he himself would be aghast to see what it has become today). He was Arignar Anna a super personality and one who did not have political loyalists, but devotees who worshipped him.

He was the first modern political leader to use Tamil Nationalism and Tamil Pride as tools of mobilisation. He continued Periyar’s anti Hindi stance (Periyar had an anti North Indian stance, of which anti Hindi was but a subset) and used it as a rallying cry to gain electoral vote share against the Congress behemoth. However, we are running ahead of our tale. To go back to 1930, we see Anna as this youth leader, dynamic. One who turned oratory into a power of its own. The key to his success was a mix of high falutin Tamil and more common speak to reach the common man. Think of Buddha using Pali to deliver his sermons and that is what Anna was doing to political rhetoric in TN but before he was a politican, he was a prodigious writer, a very popular script writer (of plays).

Anna’s plays and scripts had some common themes, anti-Brahminism being one, an attack on the feudatory caste system another. His plays had very unique protagonists, one of his plays had a Servant Maid as the protagonist, and most of these interwove these two elements with the chief protagonist being a Brahmin (or a rich, upper caste landlord). Another one of his powerful plays was centred around Shivaji (the Maratha emperor) and his problems with a clique of Brahmin priests, the chief who was actually played by Anna himself. His plays also tended to play up on Tamil nationalism and Tamil pride and would deride the North Indian as the evil Aryan other. This “North Indian” other created by Anna and the counter, “Tamil Pride” is now deeply rooted in Tamil Society, and only slowly is TN even climbing out of its anti-Hindi stance.

By the time Anna and Periyar first met in Tirupur, Anna was this young superstar, fast rising. Periyar was this grand old man, with impeccable gravitas, a mass following and one who could if he wished play kingmaker in post independence India and he gained this strength via the Self Respect Movement (SRM).

The SRM was to change the caste architecture of TN along with ending what Periyar felt was Brahmin domination in TN. The core objective of this movement was to end the entire caste system as it was practised. Periyar, a prototype of a feminist, also wanted and got women included in his reform movement.

A key component (and one meriting its one line) and one that has had an impact on TN even today was his reform in the educational system – he said all castes had a right to education, and wanted rich caste leaders (non Brahmins of course) to set up and run cheap schools and colleges and ensure the lowest of the low caste got quality, cheap education.

By 1930, the self respect movement was spreading like wildfire across TN, and this is what attracted political legends like Anna to Periyar. They were drawn to him like moths to fire but the roots of the schism were visible, even in these heydays of the SRM.

Periyar did not believe in political power, he wanted to play the game from outside the system. His acolytes (chiefly Anna) believed that any such social reform movement should aim to capture power from the ‘outsider’ (Brahmin / North Indian) Congress and reform the system from within. To use a modern example, the exact same differences of opinion between Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal inflicted Periyar and Anna.

For the time being though, their interests (anti Brahminism, Dravidian/Tamil pride, social justice and reform) initially aligned spectacularly well. Their forces combined, and just when the SRM was slowing down (by 1936 it had been around for close to a decade) in fervour, C Rajaji THE Congress leader in TN and another stalwart handed Periyar and Anna a second wind.

In August 1937, Rajaji made the fatal flaw (and one that would cost him his government) of making Hindi mandatory in schools across TN. This was precisely the platform Periyar, and more importantly, Anna wanted and they had it.

Sources for the Pictures – Where possible, I have written to the content owners seeking their permission. Will gladly take them down if they infringe any copyrights.