RE:Periyar had a narrow vision !
by Raju Puducode on May 01, 2007 03:35 AM Permalink
The Dravida Kazhakam, started by social activist E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker, popularly known as Periyar, was very popular, since it gave many angry young men a platform to ventilate their feelings of dissatisfaction with many aspects of society. But Periyar, for reasons of his own, stayed out of politics; this, however, did not please the young Turks, that included Karunanidhi. At one stage, when Periyar, then seventy plus married a young woman in her mid twenties, it gave a chance for the young Turks to breakout and form their own party, though Periyar continued to be their father figure. This party, known as Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or DMK for short, entered politics and in 1967 created a sensation by not only sweeping the polls in Tamil Nadu, but, in the process, edged out the Congress which for decades had ruled the State. Since then, Congress has slipped into oblivion while the DMK and its splinter group ADMK took turns in ruling the state of Tamil Nadu. I should at this point mention that Ms. Jayalalitha leads the ADMK. In earlier times, she was a well known film star, and was the protégé of another famous film star, M.G. Ramchandran, whose name I have already referred to.
