E.V. Ramasamy (Periyar) participated in the Vaikom Satyagraha in Travancore, a mass nonviolent agitation challenging caste restrictions on public access around the Vaikom temple. The campaign became an important early influence on Periyar’s later anti-caste activism in the Tamil region.
The Self-Respect Movement took organized form in the mid-1920s under Periyar’s leadership, focusing on dismantling caste hierarchy and Brahminical dominance through rationalist critique, social reform, and equality-centered public mobilization.
Periyar launched Kudi Arasu ("Republic") as a Tamil weekly that became a major vehicle for Self-Respect/Dravidian rationalist and anti-caste ideas, helping circulate social-justice arguments beyond activist circles into wider public debate.
A “Self-Respect marriage” was conducted without Brahmin priestly mediation and with an explicit emphasis on equality and consent—an emblematic tactic of the movement’s effort to challenge caste-bound ritual authority and patriarchal norms.
Opposition to compulsory Hindi teaching in schools sparked statewide protest. Periyar and the Self-Respect Movement became key organizational and rhetorical forces, linking language policy to anti-caste and anti-“north Indian cultural dominance” critiques.
During the anti-Hindi agitation period, the Justice Party appointed Periyar as president, tightening the connection between non-Brahmin electoral politics and the Self-Respect Movement’s anti-caste social reform agenda.
After years of protest (including mass arrests), the compulsory Hindi instruction policy was withdrawn in 1940. The outcome reinforced the movement’s model of combining street mobilization, cultural politics, and anti-caste messaging.
Periyar announced the Justice Party would henceforth be known as the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK), marking a shift toward a mass social movement centered on rationalism, anti-caste reform, and Dravidian identity, while de-emphasizing conventional electoral priorities.
C.N. Annadurai and allies broke from Periyar’s DK to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), arguing that contesting elections was necessary to secure social justice reforms—an institutional turning point for Dravidian anti-caste politics in Tamil Nadu.
As the 1965 language-policy deadline approached, large student-led and DMK-aligned protests escalated into major unrest beginning in late January. The episode entrenched anti-Hindi mobilization as a core feature of Dravidian political identity and mass politics.
In the February 1967 election, a DMK-led coalition defeated the Congress, inaugurating sustained Dravidian party dominance in state politics and creating new pathways for anti-caste/social-justice agendas through government policy and institutions.
C.N. Annadurai was sworn in as Chief Minister of Madras State, consolidating the transition from social movement to state power for Dravidian politics and helping normalize anti-caste/social-justice rhetoric as a central axis of governance.
Following an assembly resolution and central legislation, Madras State was officially renamed Tamil Nadu. The act symbolized Dravidian cultural politics’ institutionalization and the emphasis on Tamil identity within the postcolonial state framework.
Periyar’s death marked the end of the founding era of the Self-Respect/DK leadership. Dravidian anti-caste politics continued through both non-electoral social reform organizations (DK and successors) and electoral parties shaped by that legacy, especially the DMK.
Self-Respect Movement and Dravidian anti-caste politics in Tamil Nadu (1925–1970s)
