From mass conferences to digital platforms: the DMK’s 77-year journey

Kooli kettan, athan gundadi pattu sethan – My husband asked for wages, but died in police firing – was a popular slogan of the DMK which had captured the imagination of people. Late poet Kudiyarasu, who was with the DMK before shifting to Vaiko’s MDMK, often recalled how the slogan coined by DMK veteran M. Karunanidhi transformed the dynamics of the 1967 Assembly election.

The DMK won the election, consigning the ruling Congress to the margins of Tamil Nadu politics. But the DMK’s march to power was far from an overnight exercise. Founded in 1949, the party had to wait 18 years to taste power. After being subsequently unseated by M.G. Ramachandran (MGR), it was pushed back into the Opposition for 13 years.