C N Annadurai (1909 to 1969), popularly known as Anna (meaning elder brother) to millions of Tamils, was the first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (then Madras) in independent India not to belong to the Indian National Congress. He was an accomplished writer who used the medium of cinema successfully to propagate his political philosophy based on social justice and Tamil pride.
Annadurai was born on 15 September 1909 in Kanchipuram, near Chennai, to Natarajan and Bangaru Ammal, in a lower middle class weaver family, but raised by his sister Rajamani. He studied at Pachaiyappa’s High School there and later joined the municipal office as a clerk. He graduated in 1934 from Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras, with a B.A. (Hons). After a short stint as a professor he entered journalism and politics.
Anna played a major role in the Dravidian movement. A good debater from his college days, Annadurai entered politics by becoming a member of the Justice Party, which was established on the basis of opposition to Brahmins in the state. He joined the Dravida Kazhagam led by the iconoclastic leader E V Ramaswami Naicker or Periyar, in 1934. Anna’s rise in the party was meteoric. People thronged to listen to his fiery speeches full of alliteration and verbal fireworks. He led the party’s anti-Hindi agitations in the 1940s and fought to establish a caste-free society of equal opportunity. He had differences of ideology with Periyar who was opposed to entering electoral politics. The differences between mentor and disciple led to the formation of a new party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in 1949, with Annadurai at the helm.
Annadurai won the Kanchipuram seat in the 1957 state assembly elections. In the 1962 election, the DMK fared much better winning 50 seats out of 143, but Anna lost his seat!
He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha the same year, and on May 5, 1962, Annadurai shocked the country by advocating in Parliament the secession of the four south Indian states. His two major grievances against the Centre were discrimination against the southern states and imposition of the Hindi language.
In 1962, Anna became a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. Both, the DMK and the DK fought the imposition of Hindi. Rapidly rising inflation and two wars against Pakistan and China, especially the latter in which India came off distinctly second best, made the prospects of Congress sweeping the 1967 state assembly polls less imminent than in the past. Former Chief Minister K Kamaraj made the rather unwise prediction that Congress would win the election lying down, a humorous reference to his own ill health at the time. Annadurai led his party to a spectacular victory, and was installed as the Chief Minister of the state.
Becoming Chief Minister after winning the 1967 election on the plank of opposition to Hindi imposition by the Centre on his state, he ensured that Hindi was not a compulsory language in schools. His was the first regional party in any major state in India to serve the full term breaking the Congress dominance until then. Congress has never been able to make a comeback in Tamil Nadu, where the Dravidian parties have been very strong since 1967.
Unfortunately, Anna’s tenure as chief minister was extremely short-lived, as he succumbed to cancer in 1969. During his brief reign, he was seen as an astute, if mellowed down leader, that the state badly needed. He made strenuous efforts to uplift the poor and deprived through welfare schemes. He renamed the state of Madras, Tamil Nadu. He was able to gain more power for the south from the Centre and sought greater autonomy for the states in the union, giving up his earlier secessionary stand.
Despite receiving the best medical treatment in the US, Annadurai died on 3 February 1969, just two years after becoming the Chief Minister. An estimated 15 million people attended his funeral, the most for anyone in the world.
Annadurai, who earned the sobriquet Bernard Shaw of South India for his scintillating wit in the short stories, plays and screenplays he wrote, published literary works throughout his public life. He was also active in political journalism. He started the Tamil weekly, ‘Dravida Nadu’, the English weeklies ‘Homeland’ and ‘Home Rule’ in 1957 and 1966. Among his works, “Or Iravu” (One Night) and “Velaikkari” (Servantmaid) were made into movies. Most of his stories had important social messages, voicing strong protests against exploitation of all kinds, based on caste, class or gender. Some of his works were extremely controversial, launching scathing attacks against the upper castes, especially Brahmins. Anna’s writings catalysed a great wave of support for DMK, which gained a substantial number of seats in the 1957 state assembly elections, laying the foundation for its triumph ten years later.
Annadurai was an inspirational leader whose followers were completely devoted to him. Two subsequent Chief Ministers of Tamil Nadu, M Karunanidhi and M G Ramachandran—the founder of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam—were his protégés. J Jayalalithaa, yet another Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, who was groomed by M G Ramachandran, also swears by Anna’s ideals. There are several institutions including corporations and universities in Tamil Nadu named after Anna. He is probably the greatest icon of the Tamil masses.
Anna was an able organiser of agitations but the agitations he conducted were more in the nature of mobilising public support than creating confusion to fish in troubled waters. He can be called a constitutional agitator. He believed in convincing men and not in confronting with impossible demands. He believed in argument and not in aggrandizement. Even when he demanded more powers for the State, he mustered all facts in favour of his cause and presented them in a persuasive manner.
• P C Ganesan in C N Annadurai, in the Builders of Modern India series by the Publications Division of the GOI.
Illustration by S Girish
“If for one reason or another, the public want to bring the Congress back to power, I, as a robust democrat, will not be discouraged or disheartened. Let them have one more chance. If two years in the wilderness has given them sobriety, it is good for the country and democracy”.
“We are in charge of the task of rejuvenating our culture and civilisation—our entire thought. Let us not sit near the shattered ramparts and narrate past glory but scale new heights by persistent and patient search after truth.”