Dravidar Kazhagam was born to safe guard Periar.Tamil Speech S.V.Ramani.

Dravidar Kazhagam was born to safe guard Periar.Tamil Speech S.V.Ramani.

During December 17, 1939, Periyar EVR raised the slogan "Dravida Nadu for Dravidians", changing the earlier slogan "Tamil Nadu for Tamils". It is at the Justice Party State Conference in Thiruvarur on August 24, 1940 that Tamil Nadu Independence Movement morphed into Dravida Nadu Independence Movement. Since Periar E.V.R. belongs to Kannada Naicker community and all other justice party leaders belongs to Telugu community.. At that time both Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy and C. N Annadurai were Justice Party members.


The Justice Party’s provincial conference held in Salem on 27th August 1944 marked a turning point in Periyar’s movement. The name of the Party was changed as Dravidar Kazhagam. The members were asked to give up the posts, positions and titles conferred by the British rulers. They were also required to drop the caste suffix of their names. It was also decided that the members of the movement should not contest the elections. In other words, the Justice Party, which was political, was transformed into Dravidar Kazhagam and became a non-political socio-cultural movement. It remains so even today.


Thus what started initially as Tamil Nadu independence took a turn to Dravida Nadu independence and then took a turn back to Tamil Nadu independence because there was very little, if any, support in Andhra Pradesh (Telugu), Karnataka (Kannada) and Kerala (Malayalam).


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