Dravidian parties rose to power and prominence in the political stage of Tamil Nadu, a state in India, in the 1960s.
The rise in power and political support was gradual until Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), a Dravidian party, formed the government in the state in 1967.
The series of events climaxed with anti-Hindi agitation which led to the downfall of popularity of the then Indian National Congress government in the state and the eventual rise of Dravidian parties to power.
[8] However, the popularity of the Congress government in Madras started to decline with its head Rajagopalachari proposing the Hereditary Education Policy, which the opposition parties saw as an attempt to perpetuate the social hierarchy of the caste system.
At one point even Jawaharlal Nehru volunteered to resign to strengthen the party, but was advised not to, given the sensitivity of the issue.
The scenario in Madras State, as observed by political analysts, was "frustration without coherence or direction, a revolutionary situation without revolutionists".
Ritually and socially superior to the non-Brahmin masses, a Brahmin commanded a dominant political and economic position in Tamil Nadu.
With the rise of Dravidar Kazhagam and birth of DMK, along with the ascent of Kamaraj in the Congress, the Brahmin dominance was already in the process of being displaced in the Madras State.
Thus the introduction of Hindi as a national language was seen as direct measure of the North to dominate the South culturally, economically, and politically.
Hindi as a suitable candidate for the official language of India after independence was first proposed by the Motilal Nehru Report of 1928.
[13] The support on opposition of Hindi as a national language by the education elite was well evident by the early 1960s where DMK, a champion of this cause, controlled corporations of all the major towns in the Madras State.
While the north was keen on getting the southern curriculum with compulsory Hindi, it was demanded from the south that northern states take on a three-language policy for themselves too, with one of them being a Dravidian language.
[13] DMK and its then ally, Swatantara Party had asked its members to fly black flags in their homes on that day.
The provoked Congress volunteers, who ran back into the Party's office, returned with knives and attacked the students, wounding seven.
As the riot broke out, students set fire to the pandal in the Congress office, constructed for the Republic day celebrations.
Robert Hardgrave Jr, professor of humanities, government and Asian studies, suggests that the elements contributing to the riots were not majorly instigated by DMK or leftists or even the industrialists, as the Congress government of the state suggested, but were genuine frustrations and discontentment which lay beneath the surface of the people of the state.
However, although the party did not instigate the violence directly, it had prepared the scene rather by accident, by nurturing the antipathy of the South to the North.
[9] Nevertheless, the Anti Hindi agitation and the popularity gained through it aided DMK to a great extent to win the 1967 general elections.
[2] When the fourth General Elections (1967) were announced in India, the nation was in a severe state of crisis, both politically and economically.
[2] The All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is an Indian regional political party with great influence in the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry.
[15] The party is adhering to the policy of socialism and secularism based on the principles of C. N. Annadurai (Anna) collectively coined as Annaism by M.G.R.