Lingaa works, par dil maange more ...

Coming in the backdrop of ueber duds like Kocchhai-adiyaan and Kuselan, and unbelievables non-pareil such as Endhiran, Lingaa is a simple deja vu tale on many counts. And it works, for a Rajni fan, despite what the critiquing neanderthals and High Court paramatmas could say! That means, the box office is/will be a-ringing, and there ends the economics lesson.

But beneath that account book lies the why-s, what-s and wtf-s. Here is my take on some of these.

The good-old Rajnikanth movies of the early- to mid-90s (before Superstar became S-U-P-E-R-S-T-A-R) such as Rajaadhi Raaja, Adhisayapp piravi, Muthu, to name a few, used to be believable tales that took off on a tangent, with ample space for comedy (situational as well as contrived), new-age Thirukkurals (on everything from faith, politics, way-of-life, and love), detestable villains who played their role perfectly, beautiful heroines at their personal heights as a set-piece (all those Kuluvalilles, Adikkudhu Kulirus, Selai kattum pennukkorus were primarily a highlight on the music and the heroines rather than on Rajnikanth), followed by an unbelievably funny yet idiotic fight sequence that noone could have rationally cooked up except as the climax of a Superstar movie.

Lingaa is all that, and more. I wont regale you on the positives, as they need to be rewinded, many a time. I will bore you on "the cup is half-full" moments, for that is often missed out.

The side tale is believable, fantastically so that it could well be the main tale rather than a sidey one, and hemmed in perfectly given the eternally parched nature of much of Tamland. This is the second big water war movie in Tam this year, with Vijay's Kathhi capturing the urban-rural dichotomy on water issues nicely (within the caveats of Tamland's movie-making of course). Rajnikanth's role of the British-era 18-gun salute zamindar transforming himself into an ICS Collector is filled with historical inaccuracies, especially so for the pre-World War II stage in 1939, but not necessarily discernible to a Rajni fan and the historically inept hoi polloi Indian. The desi version of a John Pennycuick and Arthur Cotton rolled into one tries to leverage their ongoing valorization efforts in different parts of India. There is the usual Kallanai-Kodiveri argument on dam building in Tamland, yet there is no finger pointing elsewhere (thankfully!) except at nature's fury perhaps. Even the British have been treated relatively softly with positives highlighted as much as the humans come in different forms-type argument. While that soft tone is typical of Rajnikanth movies, it still leaves a jarring note to the absolute perfidy that was the British rule. Only ignoramuses can find positives (net or otherwise) in the British rule.

Like Thanneer Thanneer (that original water war movie that begins with a kid losing his balance and losing the water he has collected with some effort, after picking up -- funnily enough -- a Rajnikanth picture on the way-side), this is a movie with a politician tale in the background. Nevertheless, the politician-villain continues the transformation of the Rajnikanth villain club from the hallowed heights of Ekambaram (Senthamarai in Moondru Mugam), Mark Anthony (Raghuvaran in Baasha), Neelambhari (Ramya Krishnan in Padaiyappa), etc. to the dud level that it has become with characters such as Adi Seshan (Suman in Shivaji), somuchso that Rajnikanth had to cook himself up as the villain in his next tale in Endhiran. This villain is not even a caricature, he is beyond a damn dud who cannot even confront Rajni with one tale of intrigue/sophistry despite being an MP. Even a pale version of a Perumal Pichai or a Saniyan Sagadhi or a Muthupandi would have made a better villain any day.

The heroines are as expectedly under-used and showcased primarily because that is what they have signed up for. And like most of the heroines of Rajnikanth's movies, they will be quickly forgotten for they have better career highlights than this movie. It is clear that age has slowed down Rajnikanth and with all those attendant constraints, he cannot shake a leg, not even comparably with Sonakshi Sinha. Yet when he does, however limitedly, there is a deja vu moment. And of course, noisy requests for encore from the faithful. The unbelievable stuff is limited to one stupid fight sequence at the end. Impressive is KS Ravikumar in limiting the crapfest to the very end, and that is one sharp turn from Endhiran, thank god for small mercies.

Rajnikanth's earlier movies used to be known for a fantastical comedy line, with all those paa-paa-paambhu, jalaja jalsaa, saathvikam-prachodhakam-bayaanikham scenes, not necessarily out-of-sync with the main storyline. The comedian used to be a counterfoil (Goundamani in Uzhaippaali, Senthil in Padaiyappa, Vivek in Shivaji) or a challenger-of-sorts (Vadivelu in Muthu and Chandramukhi). While Santhanam tries to reprise the counterfoil role, the comedy in Lingaa is half-baked with Santhanam's presence guaranteed only because he is the numero uno comedy king of Tamland today. Most of the blase dialogues and the context of these comical interludes appear to be a grand misplacement and a waste of time for everyone including Santhanam. Even Vivek in Shivaji appears to have done a far better job than Santhanam's debut in Rajnikanth movies. At close to three hours, the movie is quite slow and boring in phases (especially the British India scenes) and could have helped with at least a 20 minute cut. AR Rahman continues his fare of dishing out somber bores* across the board -- a far cry from his shake-a-thons in Muthu or Padaiyappa or Shivaji or most of his numbers from the early- to mid-90s.

Despite all the negatives highlighted, Lingaa works because it is paisa vasool (despite being 20$ a pop) for a Rajni fan, as simple as that. It is a deja vu movie in how it smoothly ties a Maanik Baasha of days gone-by with a Kaasu-panam-duddu-money-money reality. From the word go, Lingaa Lingaa sounds like Baasha Baasha and that is not meant to be an accident. There are many such un-accidentally constructed parallels/reminiscences into different scenes to appeal to the deja vu generation. In general, it is deja vu for those good old KS Ravikumar and P Vasu days, which were suddenly interrupted by the need-to-be-pseud Shankar days. It is a simple lesson to Rajnikanth in what a post-Shivaji landscape should ideally have been. While those seven years cannot be gotten back, there is still space for a real blast from the past with the next Ravikumar feature that is to start filming soon. That hopefully means that Shivaji may not be the Himalayan peak of a Himalayan career and Lingaa may only be a small way-stop in that journey perhaps. And one also hopes that someone can convey the message to his daughter that she can find someone else for her boring farce. Sorry, business is business and a fraction of the Indian GDP is tied to this machinery!

But more than all that, the deja vu lies in the unabashed theism that used to be Tamland cinema and Tamland at large, before the need-to-be-in-sync-with-the-new-powers-that-be kicked in. The highlight of the movie to me is the slow but well-laid out connect from the credit reel of Rockline Entertainment to the Shiva Thandava Sthothram played playfully somewhere before the one-third stage. With a name like Lingaa, one could nt have gone too wrong in that messaging, I guess. Unlike the Mani-Raavanan combo (the movie I meant) that was straight from hell, this Shankar-Raavanan combo (the sthothram) will always remain an eternal powerful hit! Therein lies the simple lesson of Lingaa on the reality of life: dissing the gods is as much hard work as praising Him!!

* Ok, Mona Gasolina is fine after a few hears, especially nice to see someone like Mano reinvent himself after years. But one cannot ignore the closeness of this song with Nenjukkulle and therein lies the rub, southern style yodelling or chamber music, its all deja vu again.

Chennai Illai, Madras: Tales from the City

A chapter titled, '"Madras Manade" -- How Chennai remained with Tamil Nadu" by A.R. Venkatachalapathy in a volume edited by him titled, "Chennai Not Madras: Perspectives on the City"

Chennai is now well-entrenched as the capital of the modern state of Tamil Nadu. Not only is it the administrative headquarters but it has also evolved over a century and a half since at least the mid-19th century as the social, political, and cultural capital of the Tamil country. Despite its cosmopolitan nature and a significant minority population, no Tamil could possibly imagine that Chennai could be anything but Tamil. But for some years in the mid-20th century the pre-eminent place of Madras as the Tamil capital came to be challenged by Telugu politicians. "Madras Manade" ("Madras is Ours") captures this controversy in an alliterative Telugu slogan.

Though Telugu speakers, at about 15 per cent of the population compared to about 70 per cent of Tamil speakers, constituted a clear minority in the city of Madras, for a variety of historical reasons they had high visibility. Proximity to Telugu regions, the dominance of the Telugu elite in the early history of Madras, their prominence in early nationalist politics where some of them founded organizations such as the Madras Native Association, and their preponderance in trade and business gave, at least to some, an illusion of Madras as a Telugu city. This was further accentuated by the disproportionate power Telugu speakers wielded in an electoral world where enfranchisement was based on property holding and direct taxation. With the gradual rise of Indian nationalist politics, at the threshold of its mass phase, legitimate demands were voiced for a separate province of Andhra for Telugu speakers. It is said that such demands were articulated as early as 1913. The Andhra Maha Sabha was a major voice in the articulation. By 1920, with its Nagpur session, the Indian National Congress had reorganized itself on linguistic lines and the newly-formed Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee demanded that the city of Madras come under its jurisdiction. Similar claims were made on Madras when a separate Andhra University was formed in 1926. Though such demands were articulated through the subsequent two decades, the issue came to a head only as Indian independence became imminent. The Telugu demand for Madras unfortunately got tied to the formation of a separate Andhra state and consequently became a running sore for over half a decade.

In June 1948 the Constituent Assembly of India appointed a commission headed by S.K.Dar, with Panna Lal and Jagat Narayan Lal as members, to examine the formation of the new provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra. Interestingly no mention was made of Tamil Nadu as it was erroneously assumed that the Madras Presidency was representative of Tamils. In the event the Dar commission recommended reorganization not on "linguistic consideration but rather upon administrative convenience." This was a view that was close to Jawaharlal Nehru's heart despite the many assurances the Congress had made over the years, and especially during the 1937 elections, on linguistic reorganization of provinces.

The Congress in turn, in its Jaipur session (December 1948), appointed a Linguistic Provinces Committee with Nehru, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Pattabhi Sitarammaya (hence commonly known as the JVP Committee after their initials). The committee, which presented its report in April 1949, more or less accepted the Dar Commission's views by recommending the postponement of linguistic reorganization by a few years. But Andhra was an exception. "In some ways," the JVP Committee observed, "the demand for an Andhra Province has a larger measure of consent behind it than other similar demands," and added ominously, "Yet there is a controversy about certain areas as well as about the city of Madras." While the JVP Committee argued that Greater Bombay should not be part of any linguistic province, it placed Madras on a different footing despite its apparent analogous nature:

to a large extent what we have said about Bombay city applies to Madras. At the same time there is a difference in that it is a clear Tamil majority area. It seems impossible to restrict the aspirations of the majority to the confines of the city and as far as we can see its isolated existence would be a perpetual source of conflict between Andhra and Tamilnad.

Therefore the decision of the Congress leadership was clear and unequivocal right from the beginning: "On the whole, therefore, we feel if an Andhra Province is to be formed its protagonists will have to abandon their claim to the city of Madras." But there precisely lay the problem. Inextricably linked with the demand for Madras, the declaration of Andhra province came to be delayed by a few more years. Further, it also occasioned unnecessary and tragic loss of lives and property and caused teething problems for the fledgling nation state.

Pressure began to mount as is clearly recounted in the voluminous Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru. By September 1949 Nehru had received at least three deputations: one an Andhra deputation led by P. Ramamurti, another of the Tamil members of the Constituent Assembly, and a third of the Andhra Maha Sabha. Meeting these delegations only further convinced Nehru of his position articulated in the JVP Committee. In November the Congress Working Committee, following the JVP Committee's views, recommended to the Government of India that an Andhra state be formed but without Madras city.

As Nehru wrote shortly later to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, the Chief Minister of Madras Presidency, "it now appears that the way to the formation of the Andhra Province is not as easy or clear as we had thought it was." An eight-member Partition Committee had been formed in November 1949 and the Madras Cabinet had approved its report in January 1950, "based on a large measure of agreement." But this was mired in controversy, with T. Prakasam ("one leading member from Andhra" in the words of Nehru) signing a note of dissent that the apparatus of the new province should reside in Madras city until a new capital was ready, clearly a ploy to subvert the federal decision not to grant Madras to Andhra.

In the ensuing months the movement for Andhra hotted up. In the coastal districts and Rayalaseema, support was welling up for a separate Andhra province. Apart from numerous public meetings, one Swami Sitaram even undertook a fast portending perhaps the subsequent fast of Potti Sriramulu which ended tragically. Given Nehru's view that "Personally I am opposed to bringing in fasting as a method of finding a solution for political problems" and his categorical statement in Parliament that "Government will ... submit to facts and not fasts," the fast was broken only with the intervention of Vinoba Bhave. During the course of this fast it all once again boiled down to one issue: while the protesters demanded a separate Andhra state and the government was more than eager to grant it, the doubtful claim over Madras was what stalled the issue. In Parliament on September 14, 1951 the government said as much when N.G. Ranga, the prominent Andhra Congressman, made an intervention in the debate.

As the agitation for a separate Andhra got protracted, the fault lines within the Andhra Congress began to be more visible. It became obvious that the interests of Rayalaseema and the coastal districts of Andhra were not in tandem. (Here it should be mentioned that, even after the so-called police action in Hyderabad which ensured its integration in the Indian union, its amalgamation with the Telugu state of Andhra was scarcely discussed.) Given their close proximity and other material interests in the city of Madras, Rayalaseema and Nellore could not envisage an Andhra province without it. Further, their people were also apprehensive about due representation to them in the new province and therefore demanded a proportionate share in the new legislature and other government offices. This amounted to putting a spoke in the Andhra wheel. The elite of the coastal districts of Andhra had a far larger stake in the creation of a separate state than in a faraway city. As Nehru observed in a letter to Swami Sitaram on September 29, 1951, "On the Andhra side, there appear to be varying opinions. Some people say that they were prepared to give up the city of Madras wholly; others are not prepared to do so; yet others ... want to reserve consideration of this to a later stage." To this may be added the view that Madras city should become a Chief Commissioner's province, effectively under the control of the Central government.

If this was the political division within the Andhra government, the situation in Tamil Nadu was even more complex. While the Congress was deeply faction-ridden, and the other dominant force, the Dravidian movement (both the Dravida Kazhagam under Periyar E.V. Ramasamy and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam under C.N. Annadurai), with their commitment to a Dravidian homeland consisting of the whole of southern India, did not divert adequate energy to the issue. The Communists on the other hand, emerging afresh from underground after being weakened by toeing the misconceived B.T. Ranadive line, reflecting the ground strength of their movement, preferred to be led by the Andhra section of the Communist Party. Ultimately it was left to the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam, headed by Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, a pressure group within the Congress, to counteract the Andhra demand. Apart from organizing meetings and conferences, the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam intervened effectively in the Madras Corporation by passing resolutions that thwarted Andhra designs on Chennai. (A particularly tactical move was the defeat of a motion brought forward in the corporation expressing sympathy for the death of Potti Sriramulu in December 1952, which was a moral blow to the Telugu demand.) An important all-party public meeting of Tamil leaders was organized in March 1953 by the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam where Periyar E.V.R., M. Bhaktavatsalam, S.S. Karaiyalar, Meenambal Sivaraj, and others spoke. In subsequent meetings widely respected Tamil cultural figures with no overt political connections also participated.

In this context, with the question of Madras and the interests of Rayalaseema acting as brakes, the struggle for a separate Andhra state went from strength to strength. The situation drove both the state and Central governments to exasperation. Once Nehru was even forced to write to P.S. Kumarasami Raja, "A reference in the Hindu says that your government is apparently waiting for us to do something about the Andhra province or for us to ask you about it. I do not quite know what is meant." By early 1952, Nehru was blaming T. Prakasam and his supporters alone for the stalemate in forming the Andhra province. In a press conference in New Delhi Nehru asserted, referring to Prakasam's dissent note to the partition committee's report where he had insisted that Madras city be the interim capital of the new Andhra province: "As a matter of fact, if Mr Prakasam had accepted that award three years ago, probably there would be an Andhra province now."

By this time however the first general elections of January 1952 had added more variables. The Congress failed to win a majority in the Madras Presidency, weakening the hand of K. Kamaraj, its leader, and paving the way for Rajaji to form a Congress government through a prescient form of horse-trading. On the other hand, T. Prakasam had himself lost his deposit in the North Madras constituency, exposing the weakness of his demand. He headed the United Front, a motley alliance dominated by the Communists, which opposed the Congress. Despite Rajaji's well-advertised view that the demand for linguistic provinces was a "tribal demand", he nevertheless supported the formation of an Andhra province but without conceding the city of Madras. (It was widely believed that Rajaji's support for the immediate creation of Andhra province would give him a reprieve from the relentless attack of the Communists whose legislators mostly came from Andhra.)

Various Andhra leaders such as Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and V.V. Giri put pressure on the Central government. Even the philosopher Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan was not to be left out in this regard. All this only drove Nehru to exasperation. Nehru refused their demand for the appointment of a commission without general agreement: "Even reference to an arbitration means consent of parties." He also ruled out plebiscite, as it would not throw up a clear result. By July 1952 Nehru made it ever more clear that "there has been so much argument on this subject that no one can say anything new or worthwhile."

This, however, was to change with one as-yet-unknown Congressman's fast. In a letter to Rajaji, Nehru had observed that "some kind of fast is going on for the Andhra province .... I am totally unmoved by this and I propose to ignore it completely." But it was not to be. Potti Sriramulu epitomized the demand for Andhra. Actively egged on by T. Prakasam and Bulusu Sambamurthy, he began his fast at the latter's hime on October 19. 1952. Within days Nehru had to sit up and listen: "I do not know how long we can just go on postponing it. If we are clear that sometime or other we shall have to face it, it does little good to go on postponing this and waiting for a more favourable opportunity. The probability is that conditions will deteriorate."

T. Prakasam kept on the pressure by convening an all-Party convention in Madras on December 7, 1952, and dissolved it after calling for immediate formation of Andhra with Madras as capital. It was left to T. Nagi Reddy, the Communist leader, to reconvene the meeting and pass a resolution that left the question of Madras to a plebiscite.

Nehru hoped to seize this psychological moment to the advantage of the nation-state. He feared that otherwise there would be complete frustration. He even suggested the appointment of a one-man commission which was turned down by Rajaji as he feared that it would only help "to keep alive the claims which we wish to be abandoned."

The death of Potti Sriramulu on December 15, 1952 after 57 days of fasting led to violence in Andhra, especially in Nellore, and the looting of Vijayawada railway station. Genuine fears arose about the safety of Tamils in the Telugu districts. Despite Nehru's bold statement in Parliament that "we must not mix up various things because a riotous mob did something", the Government of India appointed in December 1952 a committee under K.N. Wanchoo.

Wanchoo's report, submitted in early February 1952, unequivocally favoured the creation of an Andhra state but equally clearly recommended that Madras should not be included. However he indicated that until a new capital was built the Andhra government could be temporarily (for about five years) lodged in Madras. Understandably Nehru was inclined to accept this recommendation but Rajaji stoutly opposed it on the grounds that the troubles would spread to other Tamil areas where a sizeable Andhra population lived. He even went to the extent of threatening to resign from the chief-ministership. This finally convinced Nehru and he agreed that this move would only result in "unseemly agitation, acrimonious controversies, and administrative conflicts" and would adversely affect the friendly atmosphere.

By 1952 the question of Andhra was pretty much settled, if ever it was in question. Despite the seeming controversy, the Andhra demand for Madras was a rather sectarian one raised by a group of Andhra leaders from the Rayalaseema region. What gave some impetus and nationwide visibility to the agitation was that it was linked to a very popular, genuine, and longstanding demand for a separate Telugu-speaking province of Andhra. But in fact the demand for Madras unnecessarily delayed the formation of this province. The relative quiet with which Tamil Nadu responded to the Telugu demand for Madras was rooted in the certainty that it was most obviously a Tamil city conceded by one and all.

The bitterness between Andhra and Tamil Nadu festered for some years after, with the controversy over the northern borders becoming the subject of further agitation and necessitating yet another commission. That however is a separate story.

SOURCES:
1) Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Volumes 10-22, Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi, 1990-97.
2) Ma. Po. Sivagnanam, Puthiya Tamilagam Padaitha Varalaru, Poonkodi Pathippagam, Chennai, 1986.
3) T. Vasundhara and S. Gopalakrishnan, Sub-Nationalism: A Case Study of Modern India, New Era, Madras, 1996.

Dravidian Movements & Parties - late 19th and early 20th century

Continuing the study of the evolution of various Dravidian Parties, I collected the names of some prominent movements and parties that were launched in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The period 1890 through 1930 seem to have seen lot of activities among the non-Brahmins leaders. These leaders were not from the most backward castes but came from some pretty forward castes claiming to speak for the ALL non-brahmins. The much heralded or scorned Dravidar Kazhagam was yet to be formed.

The important take away are not the names, years and people who started these; but that there were plethora of sabhas, associations, leagues and parties bustling and fighting for recognition and for the causes of non-brahmins. Each party has its own history and complexity. And the Christian Missionaries and Indian National Congress were always around; just like the Brahmins of those days.

What's in a name? The curious case of Paschimbanga

I am as amused as you are at why certain states/cities change their names: United Provinces to Uttar Pradesh, Central Provinces to Madhya Pradesh, Madras State to Tamil Nadu, Orissa to Odisha, West Bengal to Paschimbanga, Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkata, Ahmedabad to Amdavad, Bangalore to Bengaluru, etc. The more interesting case of Madras to Chennai is something over which I have strong personal biases/opinions. For someone who grew up in Madras, Chennai makes zero sense and I dont intend to call it Chennai any time soon.

What is the case for this renaming? The most obvious issue is one of linguistic/cultural pride as Linky

legendary magician P.C. Sircar Jr. expressed happiness over the decision. "I am very happy and excited. Finally Bengali sentiments have been honoured. No other state in the country has an English name except ours. The new name will remind the coming generation about the painful history of division of Bengal. It will help them grow strong."

If it was just pride that is the burning issue, that should be stated so. Here is one reason that is suggested: Linky

State Commerce and Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee has said a change of name is essential as West Bengal, which begins with the letter 'W', figures last at inter-state discussions when it comes to the alphabetical order of things. "Since the name of the state starts with W, our representatives get to speak only at the fag end of any function when most of the audience has left. To do away with the problem, the chief minister has suggested the name be changed," Chatterjee said. "We wanted a change in the name of the state to get the administrative advantage," he said.

This makes absolutely no sense, going from 35th in the list of speakers to 27th is NOT improvement however Partha Chatterjee wants to spin it. Further, the fact that the Mamta Banerjee-led government chose to rename it as Paschimbanga and not Bangla or Bangabhumi suggests that the state still has not moved away from the 1905 division that fed into the Naokhali carnage and Partition of 1947. To me, there does not seem to be inner peace, whatever the case may be. Atin Bandyopadhyay says:

"East Bengal and West Bengal came into existence after the bifurcation of Bengal. East Bengal became Bangladesh. The name West Bengal signifies that Bengal has been divided," he added. Partha Chatterjee added that, "Paschimbanga as a new name also mirrors history."

We will have to wait for a while to figure out what administrative/economic, popular/cultural, sociological/historical issues were considered in the renaming. That said, I am yet to see a decent case study of renaming a State in the Indian context. In any case,

Once a bill is passed by two-thirds majority in the Parliament and ratified by the President, the state would get the new name.

With respect to Tamil Nadu, the state was renamed and this renaming was codified by the "Madras State (Alteration of Name) Act, 1968" which was then approved by the Union Government via the "Central Act 53 of 1968." This happened in the immediate aftermath of the 1967 victory of the DMK when renaming the State became an electoral issue due to various other baggages of linguistic pride. Of course, the question of why Tamil Nadu and why Chennai has been confronting many a jobless people, including me. A PIL was filed that the name of the state should have been Tamizh Naadu and not Tamil Nadu (the Anglicized version). The PIL was of course dismissed with the only comfort being that it was not dismissed as "frivolous," see the case history at Linky. On the 1967 elections, I must digress. Here is a voter % in the first few elections that mattered in the then Madras State and Tamil Nadu (Click on the pic for a better resolution):


Certain facts should be clear from the above table:
1) The DMK excelled in mobilizing people along ideological lines and in getting people to vote (especially the youngistan of those days). This is seen by the clear jump in voting % from the 1957 elections to the 62 elections. This jump stayed consistent at 70+% in those days. While some of it could be attributed to the post-Independence euphoric polity, there are clear evidences of ideological polarization along the lines of Tamil pride, which was channelized by the new "kid" on the block, the DMK.
2) In a head-to-head battle in 1967 that changed the electoral face of the then Madras State, it is surprising that the DMK garnered a lesser popular mandate in terms of voting % than the Congress. Of course, the most famous display of this verdict was the defeat of K. Kamaraj, but this is belied by the fact that the Congress was ahead of the DMK in terms of voting %.
3) The lack of any stalwarts in the post-Kamaraj era delivered a death knell to the fortunes of Congress in the state from which it has still not recovered. The same cannot be said for the DMK as the grassroots of the DMK covered the bases well.
4) Characterized by a Stalinistic purge that became the DMK in the Karunanidhi-era, and depleted by the purging of the grassroots/money spinning vehicle/propaganda machinery that mattered, the ADMK delivered the same medicine to the DMK in a multi-cornered fight that was the 1977 elections.

Founding Members of Justice Party

P.Theogaraya Chetty

Dr. C. Natesa Mudaliar

Dr. T.M.Nair

It is not uncommon that suddenly someone drop the words 'Anti-Hindi Agitation' and 'Dravidian Movement' in a conversation. Especially, if the conversation is about Tamilians. I personally prefer the word 'Tamilians' than the word 'Tamil'; just like I prefer 'Burma' over 'Myanmar', 'Madras' over 'Chennai'.

It is fascinating to read about these movements, the moments that gave rise to the movements and the humans behind these movements. I decided to document what I read into a series of blog posts, following the footsteps of a 23rd century scholar who said the following about blogging:

..., the reward for running a blog is not readership as that cannot sustain. It should be something else. For me, it is my database.

I will try my best to collect the information and regurgitate it here; I am not a scholar and if you expect a scholarly objective unbiased coherent chronological observation , I urge you to stop reading and look else where. This is for casual reading, but by no means a dishonest effort to rewrite history. This is after all a blog. Please keep that in mind. You are not reading a History text book written by KAN Sastri.

If you are allergic or sensitive to jati, varna, caste, ethnicity, race, color, creed, gender, lingual differences, Christian Missionaries, Islam, Hindutva, British, Dravidian, Aryans, politically incorrect words, capitalism, socialism, communism etc, stop reading immediately. Go watch a feel good movie on Netflix (no I do not own Netflix shares, I wish I did)

Without using the words 'Brahmins' and 'Non-Brahmins', the subject matter can not be blogged. So you need to be uber insensitive to these sensitive words too.

With a such big unnecessary introduction, let us see the 'Founding Fathers' and key personnel of the Justice Party of India. Wikipedia lists 21 parties with the words "Justice Party" in them. India, Indonesia and UK each had two of them.

So why start with Justice Party? Because, if one has to understand the 'Anti-Hindi Agitation' or 'Dravidian Movements', one has to understand the Caste and Politics of South India - especially Tamil Nadu. One has to understand the origins of DMK and AIADMK. Before understanding DMK, one needs to read the Self-Respect Movement and Periyar. Before reading about Self-Respect Movement one has to read about the Justice Party, before understanding the Justice Party....well I got tired and stopped at the Justice Party.

Without more ado, the founding fathers of Justice Party (JP) were:

1. T.M Nair
2. Theagaroya Chetty
   
3. C. Natesa Mudaliar
   

The Presidents of the party were:

1. Theagaroya Chetty
2. Raja of Panagal
3. P.Munuswamy Naidu
4. Raja of Bobbili
5. E.V.Ramasam
   
6. P.T.Rajan

Wikipedia says, the movement arose as a result of conferences and meetings in the Madras Presidency, in the late 19th and early 20th century, due to caste prejudices and disproportionate representation of brahmins in government jobs. See I told you we will be using the 'b' word.

Let us briefly look at each of the key members:

Taravath Madhavan Nair:
TMN was a doctor, his brother was a lawyer and his sister was a scholar. Doctor, Lawyer, Scholar, rhyme no? TMN was known in his circles as a physician, journalist, social reformer and politician. After completing his studies in India, he went to England and obtained lots of degrees in the medical field. Being a well read man, and coming from an educated family, he was prominent in politics and various clubs and societies. His sister was a Sanskrit and Malayalam scholar. His father was a lawyer in Calicut and became a Munsif later on. TMN studied Sanskrit in England while pursing his M.D. He returned to India and went on to hold several public office positions.

In those days, everybody was associated with Indian National Congress; and it so happens several of them became disenchanted with INC. How about a small detour and look at the evolution of INC. It won't take long, just a picture.



Moving on, TMN a surgeon on S.S.Madras during WWI. He campaigned for equal treatment of Indian Officers. In 1916, he lost elections. He was running for a position in Madras Corporation, and was beaten by Dewan Bahadur T. Rangachariar. The elections were darn important for TMN. He went on to lose two more elections to tamil brahmins. He accused tamil brahmins in INC to have caused him the elections. So we have a guy who was now pissed off at INC and brahmins - especially Tamil Brahmins. Though accused of being an Anglophile, he loved his Malayalam. He came from Nair family from Palghat ending up in Madras.

Pitti Theogaraya Chetty:
PTC, as I will call him, belonged a Telugu Chetty family from Madras. He was a lawyer, industrialist and a political leader. He went on to serve as the President of Corporation of Madras. He was one of the founding members of 'South India Chamber of Commerce'. Once PTC fought on behalf of the newspaper 'Indian Patriot' and its editor Karunakara Menon against, yes, T.M. Nair. PTC was actively involved in the various non-brahmin movements that were seeing the light of the day in that era.



C. Natesa Mudaliar:
CNM, for short, came from a Tamil Vellalar family. After passing out from Madras Medical College he began his medicine practice. However, he became involved in politics and social reform. He had once started a hostel for non-brahmin students in Madras Presidency, because he felt non-brahmin students did not get hostel accommodations in Madras. CNM was prominent in some of the non-brahmin movments in Madras Presidency those days.



Madras Presidency had several anti-brahmin movements, and there were several key people and leaders. TMN and PTC were two of the stalwarts, however they were at loggerheads. CNM was instrumental in bringing them together and in the eventual creation of South Indian Liberal Federation - popularly known as the Justice Party. The credit of creating the Justice Party goes to CNM by all accounts. If not for him, the disunited non-brahmin movements would not have become one.

Now that we have briefly looked at the background of three prominent people who went on to create the Justice Party. We need to look at some of the other non-brahmin movements and leaders in that era. Like the 'Federalist Papers' and 'Anti-Federalists Papers', there arose in the early 20th century a book called the 'Non-Brahmin letters' - a set of 21 letters written by prominent non-brahmin leaders urging non-brahmins to rise and shine. I have not laid my hands on that book or those letters, yet. I don't think it is available on the internet.

In the next post.....we will look at some of these leaders. Oh EVR, Annadurai and Karunanidhi are still long ways to go. And the European Christian Missionaries continued to work their charm. So hang on.