The Dravidian Movement and the Black Movement

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Preface

During my student days that is in the Sixties I was deeply impressed with and involved in the heroic struggle of the Tamils against the imposition of Hindi on non-Hindi people. In that struggle, Tamils stood united under one banner irrespective of their religion, caste, etc. This spirit of Tamil Nationalism gave me inspiration to undertake an extensive study of Dravidian Movement. However, I wanted to make that study as a comparative one with some other heroic people's movement in other countries. Having that idea in my mind, when I started to study on some movements in other countries, I was attracted towards the struggle of the Blacks against the Whites in U.S.A.

In both the movements - the Dravidian Movement and the Black Movement-Iobserved similar social, economic and cultural conditions which contributed to the birth and growth of these movements. I was very much surprised to see not only similarities in objective social conditions in U.S.A. and Tamilnadu, but also find similarities in the subjective reflections of the Blacks and Tamils and also in the Strategy and Tactics adopted by both movements. That made me to choose this topic for my Ph.D. Programme. In this endeavour Professor S. Bhaskaran, Former Head of the Department of Political Science, Annamalai University, extended his wholehearted support. His untiring guidance and encouragement made this work possible.

It is now 15 years since I submitted this work for the Ph.D. Degree. My beloved leader Kalaignar, one of the heroic stalwarts of the Dravidian Movement and the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu has always been insisting that any materials related to the Dravidian Movement, its activities and achievements should be published and made available for the benefit of the society in a way that they would be useful for the present younger generation to carry on the struggle for the interest of the Tamils. Keeping the valuable advice of my leader in my mind, now 1 bring my work in a book form.

I feel that the present social juncture in India, especially in Tamilnadu, is appropriate for the present publication. The social harmony and unity among the Tamils created by the Dravidian Movement for more than ninety years are being endangered by the vested interests of some groups in Tamilnadu in the name of religion and caste. It is the responsibility of every Tamilian to fight against this harmful attempt of the anti-social elements and safeguard both the identity of Tamils and the unity among Tamils based on Tamil Language and Culture.

I hope the present book "The Dravidian Movement and the Black Movement" may help the Tamils to recollect their past heroic heritage in their present struggle against the troublemakers who are behind the anti-social activities in Tamilnadu in the name of religion, caste, etc.

Introduction

The Dravidian Movement in India¹, and the Black Movement in the USA have contributed to the changes in attitude and identity among the people in their respective societies. The emergence of these two movements and their structures exhibit similar pattern. Both the movements fought for the uplift of the subordinate groups in their respective societies. They also gave birth to various organization and political parties which play a significant role in the political activities of their respective States. As such, the comparison of the two movements could be a meaningful unit of study. The central questions of this study involve the motivation, mobilization, participation and consequences of these two movements. Specifically under which conditions did the movements arise? What kind of people joined in these movements and why did they join? What were the ideologies and strategies through which the movements mobilized? What were the social consequences of these movements?

Objectives

1) To compare the social, psychological and other conditions which typically gave rise to Dravidian Movement in India, and the Black Movement in the USA.

2) To compare the emergence of different ideologies of these two movements.

3) To compare the structure of these two movements.

Writing regional history is a recent development in Indian historiography. So, only limited literature is available on the Social history of Tamil Nadu and they too make only a passing reference to the Dravidian Movement. Some Indian and foreign writers paid attention to the study of Dravidian Movement due to its growing importance in the politics of Tamil Nadu. Most of the studies available on Dravidian Movement are either historical narratives or biographies of E.V. Ramasamy³ who is popularly called as "Periyar", the principal leader of the movement.

E. Sa. Viswanathan in his thesis, The Political Career of E.V. Ramasamy Naicker elaborates not only the political career of Periyar but also the general political history of the period. Subramaniam's Periyar and Self-Respect Philosophy is a philosophical study and as such it helps to understand the ideology of Periyar.

There are two other notable works which treat the Dravidian ideology as Dravidian nationalism. Of them, Barnett in his work The Politics of Cultural Nationalism in South India treats the Dravidian ideology as cultural nationalism. He gave more importance to the political activities of the latter movement organizations such as Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and neglected the activities of the Justice Party and Self-Respectors League, whereas, Nambi Arooran traced the relationship between the Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism during the first four decades of the 20th century, in his book Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism. It is to be noted that both the works give less importance to the socia! and psychological aspects of the Dravidian Movement.

Two other works7, one by Backer and another by Washbrook analyse the economic and political history of Tamil Nadu during the first four decades of the 20th century. But they do not highlight the Dravidian Movement as a separate phenomenon.

With regard to the origin and development of the Dravidian Movement Irschick's Politics and Social Conflict in South India could be considered as one of the important works. While discussing the 'origin and development of the movement, Irschick concentrates more on political rather than social and psychological aspects of the movement, that too only in relation to Justice Party.

Thus, the available literature on Dravidian Movement are either biographies of personalities associated with the movement, or historical narratives of events in the political sphere. They also show that no work has seriously related the social, psychological and other factors while discussing the origin and development of the movement. It could be further noted that there is no research work which study the movement in all its aspects on theoretical basis. The present study tries to analyse systematically the various aspects of the Dravidian Movement.

Comparing the number of studies on the Dravidian Movement with that of the Black Movement, it may be observed that numerous historical, political, sociological and psychological studies are available on the Black Movement. Some of them are historical in perspective.9 Some others are biographies of the leaders of the movement. 10 A few works deal with the structural aspects of the different organizations of the movement.¹ 11 Some others analyse the causes of the rise of the protest movements. 12 Of them, Geschwender's article "Social Structure and the Negro Revolt" tries to evolve a theoretical framework for the study of the motivation of the Black Movement. His conceptualization is purely sociological rather than social psychological.

Among the available works on the Black Movement, some deal with the political ideologies, with particular reference to their nationalistic aspirations. 13 Myrdal's American Dilemma 14 discusses the problems of the Blacks in achieving the ideas embodied in the American Constitution. Hence, it gives only passing reference about some of the movement organizations like National Association For the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League but does not deal with the Black Muslims.