Century of fighting for social justice

It was on this day a 100 years ago in the old Victoria Hall, a landmark of colonial British era, that Justice Party Leader Sir PT Thiagarajan unveiled the party’s framework for social justice.

The document that went on to become the vision document for the modern-day Dravidian parties, is judiciously followed even to this date. 

This ‘non-Brahmin’ manifesto was the need of the hour as it came at a time when literacy percentage of the country was said to be in single digit. Only a fortunate few could dream of a college education which was a luxury available mostly to a handful of elite OBCs and upper castes. 

Even the fortunate few among the OBCs who broke the shackles and managed to enter elite universities, had no place to stay, prompting Dr Natesan, one of the founding fathers of the Justice Party floated in 1916, to open a hostel for OBC students who were only allowed to dine in the university mess in 1912. This was the first of affirmative actions taken to promote higher education among non-Brahmins. 

After storming to power in 1920 in its maiden election conducted as per Montague-Chelmsford Reform, the Justice Party government headed by A Subburayalu Reddiar had first propounded the rhetoric of the non-Brahmins politics - social justice - by enacting the Communal GO, which provided reservation in education and jobs.

It had extended social justice beyond jobs and education by enacting legislation that allowed Dalits to use common wells, threatening to cancel licences of bus owners who prevented Dalits from boarding buses and denying grants to schools which refused to admit Dalits. 

The party had also constituted selection committees to admit students. In the same breath, it had constituted service commissions, (now better known as TN Public Service Commission) to ensure distribution of jobs to all.

The social justice principles it had espoused went unchallenged in the British era till 1950 when a couple of students successfully challenged the communal GO in the Supreme Court, resulting in the first amendment of the Constitution in 1951 by Prime Minister of Independent India Jawaharlal Nehru who had even attributed the amendment to unrest in Tamil Nadu, which was spearheaded by Dravidian icon Periyar. 

The subsequent Congress government led by C Kamaraj had increased reservation to 31 per cent, and the number was further raised to 49 per cent by M Karunanidhi in the DMK regime later, again staying true to the social justice causes. 

Later, when AIADMK founder, the indomitable MGR tried to introduce a legislation excluding people drawing above Rs 9,000 per annum salary from the ambit of reservation, even he burnt his fingers in the 1980 Lok Sabha election. His party managed to win only two of the 39 seats (Gobi and Sivakasi), courtesy the legislation he had introduced, Dravidar Kazhagam vice president Kalipoongundran who attended the media briefing MGR had organised after chairing an all-party meeting, recalled as a young journalist of Viduthalai, “I asked MGR if an OBC government employee drawing Rs 7,880 per annum in Kancheepuram would become upper caste after being transferred to Chennai where his city compensatory allowance would take his salary above Rs 9,000? A visibly stunned MGR passed the buck on to DK president Veeramani and shortly later, had announced not only the repeal of the law but also increased reservation to 50%.”

This was followed by the sensational Mandal Commission implementation. In Tamil Nadu, the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, had overlooked the Indira Sawhney case fixing 50 per cent as reservation ceiling and got the constitution amended for the 76th time and included the legislation providing for 69% reservation in Tamil Nadu in the 9th schedule of the Constitution, and that too during the tenure of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and President Shankar Dayal Sharma.

Most recently, the 100-year-old manifesto returned to prove its relevance again recently when Dravidar Kazhagam organised its offensive against NEET. “Back then they had insisted on people learning Sanskrit (which was by and large taught only to a particular community then) to learn medicine, now they have introduced NEET. Only the name has changed, but discrimination remains,” Kalipoongundran argued. 

“Though there is little left to reserve, social justice discourse cannot be avoided in toto in contemporary politics. As a political currency, its value might have been reduced, and social welfare might have taken centrestage, but no party, whichever community it stands for, can attempt to operate outside the framework of social justice and secularism in Tamil Nadu,” a Kalaiarasan, associate professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development.

Picture Courtesy: Viduthalai