Tamil Nadu CM invokes Justice Party legacy, vows to ‘smash Aryan trickery’

Marking the 109th foundation day of the South Indian Liberal Federation — popularly known as the Justice Party — Tamil Nadu chief minister M.K. Stalin on Thursday invoked the ideological roots of the Dravidian movement and issued a sharp call to “smash all the Aryan trickery to pieces”.

The chief minister, also president of the state's ruling DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam), made his remarks in a post on X, tying the government’s present-day policies to the century-old struggle for social justice.

Stalin said the Justice Party, founded on 20 November 1916, represented the first organised political effort in southern India to challenge caste hierarchies and ensure equitable access to education, employment and political power. The party’s Non-Brahmin Manifesto laid the foundation for the social justice architecture later advanced by the Dravidian movement.

“This is the day on which our mother organisation, the Justice Party, was founded to implement the Non-Brahmin Manifesto with a resolve to ensure social justice by securing due share in education, employment and power for the sons of the soil,” Stalin wrote. He asserted that the present DMK government stands firmly in that lineage.

“We will prove that the Dravidian Model government is a continuation of the Justice Party. Let us smash all the Aryan trickery to pieces!”

The chief minister’s comments arrive at a time when debates around federalism, reservations, the caste census and social justice have intensified nationally. Within Tamil Nadu, the DMK has consistently framed its welfare schemes — including urban and rural employment initiatives, women-centric projects and caste equity programmes — as modern expressions of the Justice Party’s founding principles.

The Justice Party, which governed the Madras Presidency for several years before Independence, remains the ideological cornerstone of Dravidian politics. Stalin’s message sought to remind supporters of this legacy while reaffirming his government’s commitment to resisting any perceived attempts to dilute the state’s social justice framework.

With PTI inputs