As the political battle between the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) turned into a war of personalities, the Dravida in their names started to lose its significance.
Dravida refers to an anti-caste social reform movement from 1925, started by activist and freedom fighter E.V. Ramasamy (known to most as Periyar). The ‘Self-Respect’ movement launched itself on the platform of abolishing caste inequalities and ‘tackling Brahmanism’, with the vision of a casteless Tamil society. The movement later evolved into an anti-Hindi, Tamil nationalist force, diluting its shot at having a Pan-India appeal.
Its political successors have triggered a sense of disillusionment among Dalits, who found that the parties positions were increasingly appropriated by increasingly favoured the powerful forward caste communities over their own. Tamil Nadu’s most successful Dravidian party had a person who was Brahmin at birth as chief minister – but not a Dalit.
However, caste politics play out differently in Tamil Nadu. Jayalalithaa might have been Brahmin at birth, but she had to take up the roles her party’s origins demanded of her – ostensibly atheist and rationalist. Her body was not cremated in the Iyengar style, but buried – the same way as other Dravidian leaders like Periyar, Anna Murai and her mentor, M.G.R.
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