Its original goals were to eradicate the ills of the existing caste and class system including untouchability and on a grander scale to obtain a "Dravida Nadu" (Dravidian Nation) from the Madras Presidency.

[citation needed] Founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, the roots of the Dravidar Kazhagam lie in the Self-Respect Movement and Justice Party.

Periyar formed the Self-Respect Movement in 1925, breaking in the process from the Indian National Congress party, of which he had been a member until then.

With a straining relationship in the organization and Periyar marrying Maniyammai, who was more than 40 years younger than him, some members of the party broke apart and formed the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam.

[5] From these protests, Periyar gained a large amount of popularity and went onto be elected as the president of the Justice Party a year later.

The design features a red circle with a black background with the colour black representing "the deprivations and the indignities that the Dravidians had to face under the strict Hindu religion" while red represented "the tireless efforts taken to eliminate the ignorance and blind faith among the people and to free them from any kind of mental and materialistic exploitation".

One such incident involved bringing Adi Dravidas into the inner sanctum sanctorum of temples and threatening Brahmin priests to recite hymns in Tamil instead of Sanskrit.

It enthused a new Tamil spirit that later on led to the formation of many parties that would eventually challenge the Indian National Congress stranglehold.