SUNDAY noticed Unbiased Kerala MLA and a Left insurgent, P Anvar, invoke Tamil Nadu’s social justice politics in a bid to safe the assist of the ruling DMK. The Social Justice Motion of Tamil Nadu has now entered its centenary 12 months, and this was one other instance of how a motion that indelibly formed the state’s political and social cloth continues to be a cornerstone of its politics. Rooted within the imaginative and prescient of equality and human dignity, the motion fought in opposition to caste-based oppression and non secular supremacy, championed girls’s rights, and challenged conventional hierarchies.
The motion’s roots lie within the formation of the South Indian Liberal Federation (SILF), generally generally known as the Justice Get together, in 1916. This was the primary organised political effort to problem the Brahmins’ monopoly over energy within the Madras Presidency. In line with the 1871 Census, 3.6% of Brahmins held 42.2% of jobs with a wage of Rs 10 and above whereas 87% of different Hindus held 36.5% of the roles.
The SILF was led by Dr C Natesa Mudaliar, T M Nair, P Theagaraya Chetty, and Alamelu Mangai Thayarammal. The occasion launched a number of reforms to degree the enjoying subject for non-Brahmins and marginalised communities, together with the historic Communal Authorities Order (GO) of 1921, which was lastly handed in 1928, that ensured proportional illustration for all communities in authorities employment and training. It remained in impact until the Structure of India got here into impact in 1950.
Dravidian politics skilled Prof A Karunanandham mentioned the Social Justice Motion was by no means an anti-Brahmin motion however a non-Brahmin one. “Its early leaders, besides Nair, weren’t atheists however leaders who continued practising native customs. They united in opposition to the systematic monopolisation of energy by Brahmins in places of work, training, and non secular observe. They considered it as a deliberate plan and their calls for centered on social reforms, a secular try to reset the social order not like in northern India, the place reforms have been spiritual in nature,” he mentioned.
In contrast to northern India and Bengal, the place social reform actions remained confined to elites, in Tamil Nadu, leaders akin to Vaikunda Swamy and Ramalinga Vallalar related with the lots, most significantly with the non-Brahmin majority. Whereas the Brahmo Samaj of Raja Ram Mohan Roy retained its spiritual character, Tamil Nadu’s non-Brahmin motion was largely secular.
“The Justice Get together believed that spiritual reforms alone wouldn’t suffice; sensible reforms that included power-sharing amongst all sections of society have been vital,” Karunanandham mentioned.
Periyar’s entry and reforms
The motion took a radical new dimension with the entry of E V Ramasamy, higher generally known as Periyar, who launched the Self-Respect Motion in 1925 after resigning from the Congress.
Periyar’s imaginative and prescient expanded the Justice Get together’s objectives. He believed that political actions and reservation alone have been inadequate and that folks’s mindsets additionally wanted to alter. He launched reforms akin to caste-less, priest-less, and ritual-less marriages, which have been revolutionary at a time when marrying outdoors one’s caste was a punishable offence.
Periyar fought for ladies’s rights, demanding equal inheritance, training, and jobs. He championed household planning, insisting girls resolve whether or not to have kids, fairly a radical place for the Thirties. He abolished caste surnames and caste markers and the Self-Respect Motion pushed for a shared social identification. At Congress conferences, he launched non-Brahmin and Dalit cooks, forcing northern Congress leaders to convey their very own Brahmin cooks to the South.
The Justice Get together’s reforms ended segregation in public areas akin to railway stations, canteens, and public transport. Justice Get together leaders warned transport homeowners of license revocations in the event that they continued such discrimination.
Additionally they reformed faculty admissions, rising the variety of non-Brahmin college students. A Labour Division was created for “Shudras and Panchamas”, as outlined by Manu, leaving out caste names. The Hindu Spiritual and Charitable Endowments Act of 1925 took away temple management from higher castes. The abolition of the Devadasi system in October 1947 triggered a backlash from nationalists, who noticed it as cultural destruction. “All these have been secular reforms, not atheistic ones,” Karunanandham mentioned.
The motion’s legacy
The Social Justice Motion stands out for being grounded in self-respect, an idea central to its ideology.
“Periyar’s Self-Respect Motion is taken into account distinctive in world historical past. In contrast to the Soviet Revolution or the French Revolution, which emphasised political independence, liberty or fraternity, the self-respect motion centered on human dignity, an important situation in India’s caste-based society,” mentioned Dr Gopalan Ravindran, who teaches media and communications on the Central College of Tamil Nadu in Thiruvarur, about 310 km from Chennai.
Dr Ravindran identified that Periyar advocating for ladies’s management over reproductive selections was an thought not mainstream even amongst Western feminists on the time.
“Sadly, the general public notion of the motion has usually been decreased to its anti-God, anti-North Indian rhetoric. The motion’s authentic objective shifted because it grew and tailored to new social and political realities and it was solely later that the motion developed into what grew to become generally known as the Dravidian or Social Justice Motion,” he mentioned.
The political entities that subsequently sprang up from the motion, such because the DMK and the AIADMK, got here to be mistaken for it. Periyar had criticised C N Annadurai’s shift towards politics. Nonetheless, Annadurai was dedicated to carrying Periyar’s beliefs ahead. Regardless of tensions, he sought to implement Periyar’s needs and after coming to energy declared his authorities would work to fulfil the reformer’s imaginative and prescient. “This included legalising self-respect marriages and renaming the state Tamil Nadu, each seen as victories for the Self-Respect Motion,” Ravindran mentioned.
From the start, the motion was not solely a Tamil Nadu phenomenon. It additionally united individuals throughout south India, together with Telugu individuals, Kannadigas, and Malayalis, with leaders akin to Nair enjoying a pivotal function on this pan-South unity.
All India Federation of Different Backward Courses Workers’ Welfare Associations’ normal secretary G Karunanidhy mentioned, “After the Justice Get together captured energy in 1920, they began implementing their important reforms that laid the inspiration of the whole lot that we see at present. One of many first important steps in direction of girls’s empowerment was the introduction of ladies’s franchise in 1921. The Communal GO launched reservation for varied communities, an important step in guaranteeing that reservation for OBCs and different marginalised teams in training and public employment.”
On the legacy and impression of the motion, Karunanidhy mentioned, “Right now, Tamil Nadu’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in greater training is round 50%, a goal for India by 2035. The state’s doctor-patient ratio stands at 250:1, much better than the nationwide common of 1000:1. Amartya Sen and Jean Drèze attribute Tamil Nadu’s success to the participation of underprivileged communities, particularly in rural areas, whereas dominant castes usually maintain sway within the north. The motion has notably improved the state’s socioeconomic standing.”