Dravida Kazhagam

Dravida Kazhagam (or Dravidar Kazhagam, "Dravidian Organization") was one of the first Dravidian parties in India. The party was founded by Periyar. Its original goals were to eradicate the ills of the existing caste system including untouchability and to obtain a "Dravida Nadu" (Dravidian nation) from the Madras Presidency i.e., a separate nation from India for Dravidian people alone.

Dravidar Kazhagam gave birth to many other political parties including Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. Dravidar Kazhagam is now headed by K.Veeramani.

Foundation and Ideology

The roots of the Dravidar Kazhagam lie in the Self-Respect Movement and Justice party, founded by Periyar E. V. Ramasamy. 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. The Justice Party, formed in 1916, also claimed to promote similar interests. The two entities merged in 1938 under Periyar's leadership. The name was changed to Dravidar Kazhagam in 1944.

Its central theme was to remove the degraded status imposed on Dravidians, and to denote this, the party adopted a black flag with a red circle inside it, the black signifying their degradation and the red denoting the movement for upliftment.It opposed Brahminical social, political and ritual dominance, and aimed to form a separate country of Dravida Nadu, to include either all of South India or the predominantly Tamil-speaking regions.