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Culture Documents
The uncanniness of the way the Indian caste system works has never seized to amaze us all,
with how almost staggeringly slow it has been in its approach towards development, moreover,
evolution. Our past saw Brahmins being favored over the rest while the remaining lower castes
got exploited, harassed, and suffered discrimination on a daily basis. It was simply unfair, so
many social reform movements were launched amongst which Dravidian movement too had
reformation in this caste-based system as its prime target.
Justice party
Self-respect Movement
Dravidar Kazhagam
The justice party, however, failed to remain standing despite all odds and its
influence finally succumbed when in 1936 none of its candidates got elected to
state legislature. After being ruthlessly smacked down, the justice party
approached Periyar who took it under his capable wings, withdrew from politics
himself, and transformed it into a social organization Dravidar
Kazhagam(Dravidian Organization).
The manner in which we received our independence was not exactly a matter of
celebration for Periyar, and he shunned any form of independence celebration,
as he believed that the British dominance just got metamorphosed into
dominance of North India and Congress, which was dominated, again, by the
Brahmins. This led to him making a rather preposterous request for a separate
and independent south Indian nation/ Dravida Nadu or Dravidsthan which did
not receive any support from many other party leaders, including CN Annadurai.
The 16th Amendment, popularly known as the Anti-Secessionist Amendment,
discouraged the secessionist tendency and declared it illegal, and no further
demands for politically independent nation were made.
Periyar's marrying a woman 40 years younger than him further deepened the
gorge created between the party leaders and caused them to split, and CN
Annadurai established a new party Dravida Munnetra
Kazhagam(Progressive Dravidian Organization).
AIDMK
In 1938, Tamil Nadu and many other non-Hindi speaking states blatantly
opposed to Hindi being used as the official language and forced the government
to withdraw their issued order in 1940. Post-Independence, people again felt
agitated when Hindi was given a special status and the talks of it becoming the
official language of India surfaced. The official language act issued provisions to
use English for the transaction of business in Parliament, by Centre and states
and for certain purposes in high courts for 15 years. 1967 brought about an
amendment which allowed English to continue being used for official purposes.
The language related issue persists because even in 2006, Tamil Nadu passed
a resolution to make Tamil the official language of Madras high court.