Tamil Nadu Timeline

PoliticsNational and Dravidian movements

Periyar calls Independence Day a day of mourning

· Chennai

Periyar calls Independence Day a day of mourning
India Post, Government of India, GODL-India · Wikimedia Commons

Periyar called for 15 August 1947 to be kept as a day of mourning, a stand Annadurai rejected, deepening the rift between them.

In Periyar's view, independence would place South Indians, and Tamils in particular, under Brahmin and North Indian domination. He therefore asked that 15 August 1947 be marked as a day of mourning. C. N. Annadurai objected, seeing independence as something the entire nation had won. Within the Dravidar Kazhagam the quarrel deepened the division between Periyar and Annadurai's followers, a split that produced the DMK in 1949.

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