India’s Post Colonial Movements for Democracy: The Idea Called Ambedkarism
By: Sophia Nynnat
Tags: Politics, Philosophy, Leadership, History, Government

Dravidian Movement and Politics of South

In South India, Ambedkar’s idea of democracy saw a more crude level of implementation. This can be exemplified by the case of Tamil Nadu. The state of Tamil Nadu is situated at the southern tip of India. It is touted as one of the last bastions of democracy in India where people unanimously rejected the theocratic fascism berserk called RSS-BJP.

In 2019, the RSS-BJP unanimously won a gigantic mandate in the Indian general elections. This proved to be a near-complete wipeout of India’s opposition political space. However, in Tamil Nadu, they couldn’t even win one parliamentary seat!

In Tamil Nadu, the alliance called Secular Progressive Alliance (SPA) swept the 2019 election by winning 38 Indian parliament seats of 39. The alliance is led by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) who had a 100% strike rate and won 22 seats of the total 38. The other seats were won by smaller parties.

The politics of Tamil Nadu is called Dravidian Politics. It is the South Indian version of Mandal Politics but more close to Ambedkarite idea of democracy.

In Tamil Nadu, The five steps of democracy were followed in chronological order. Religious democracy was ensured through bold interferences by the radical rationalist, Thanthai Periyar. Contrary to Kanshi Ram, Periyar explicitly disregarded all the Brahmanical texts and questioned their sanctity.

He exposed the valorization of the Upper Caste hegemony in these texts and concluded that they were written by Brahmins. He called all the so-called holy texts of Hinduism as Brahmin written Brahmanical books. The books were written by Brahmins to firmly establish their superiority and hegemony over the rest of the people residing in India. This tore apart religious conservatism and fundamentalism paving the way for religious democracy through rationalism.

Religious justice followed. In time cultural democracy was achieved and cultural justice became one of the norms as Periyar became a cult figure. Periyar championed Social democracy. Due to his efforts, Tamil Nadu today has the most sophisticated and nuanced reservation systems in the country. Ambedkar’s idea of social democracy through reservation was implemented with many of its values intact. This ensured that social justice was achieved.

Tamil is the oldest language of South India. Tamil is a Dravidian language. All other south Indian languages come from Tamil. Hence Periyar named the movement for South Indian people’s emancipation from Aryan North India as the Dravidian Self Respect movement. Periyar drew out the fact that Aryans of the North are dominating the lower caste south Indians through the imposition of Hindi.

Later, his disciple C. N. Annadurai, a lower caste, took this reformation to the next level. Through his exceptional oratory skills and leadership, he championed the cause of the Dravidian movement. He popularized Periyar’s concept of Dravidian identity and the Tamil language. Anna’s capability ensured mass following for the Dravidian movement. This naturally led to economic and political democracy.

In 1967, Annadurai became the first lower-caste Chief Minister of a regional party in India. He was the first CM of Tamil Nadu. The Dravidian Movement and DMK never had to look back since then. Even the opposition space of Tamil Nadu was dominated by a Dravidian political party called All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). This has ensured the RSS-BJP comes nowhere near Tamil Nadu.

In South India, Ambedkar’s vision of democracy saw fruition in cruder form through Dravidian politics. It had the unrelenting rationalism of Periyar and the charisma of Annadurai. It had its own unique take on how to achieve the Ambedkarite idea of democracy.