Nanjil Sampath is a product of Dravidianism, and not many will be surprised at the crudeness and perversion with which average Dravidianist political orators and ideologues speak about women.

Many Dravidian storm-troopers get a kick out of an urban legend about one of their tallest leaders, C N Annaduarai, who, when asked about his relation to a well-known actress of that time, said in rhyming Tamil that he was no saint who had conquered desires nor was she a chaste woman.



In a recorded biographical anecdote, EVR, the original Dravidian demagogue, wanted to discourage his wife from going to a temple. So what did he do? Did he win her with his arguments? No. Instead, he went to his ruffian friends, told them that she was a new Dasi who had come to town, and told them to win her over. As the ruffians started stalking her, the frightened wife hurried back home. Traumatised, she stopped going to temple.



M Karunanidhi was appreciated by many of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) cadres for the crude double-meaning insults he had thrown at the women politicians of the opposition. M K Stalin, too, had made crude remarks at Jayalalithaa.

While MGR refrained from making such comments against women politicians and with Jayalalithaa herself facing some of the worst taunts in politics, neither of them ever attacked other women in a sexist way. However, the same cannot be said about the street-orators of AIADMK. The women of the Karunanidhi family were special targets of the obscene diatribe of these orators. Nanjil Sampath himself had made such comments when he was in the AIADMK.

Given the fact that the Dravidianist cadre and leaders grow up in such a culture, it is not surprising that their top campaigners habitually talk ill of women. During the #metoo campaign, DMK leaders Radha Ravi made double-meaning disparaging remarks against the singer Chinmayi. Chinmayi being an Iyyengar made her a legitimate target for the Dravidianists. In October 2018, Ravi spoke in a film function and targeted the female singer. The video went viral among the Dravidianists: