DMK marks anniv of Kallakudi protest

Though the former CM had participated in the Hindi agitations in his formative years, it was exactly on this day in 1953, a then not so prominent Karunanidhi had defied the diktat of his political mentor CN Annadurai and squatted on the rail tracks at Kallakudi near Tiruchy, becoming a talking point in a fledgling DMK then. Even Karunanidhi had fondly recalled the Kallakudi event in his autobiography as one of the two instances whenhe had defied the instructions of Anna.

The simple agitation against Rajaji’s hereditary education policy, then PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s remark against anti-Hindi agitation and alleged Hindi imposition had snowballed into a disastrous protest and firing which killed two cadre.

Karunanidhi renamed the same Dalmiapuram station he squatted in as Kallakudi Palanganatham during his maiden chief ministership in 1969. The DMK on Monday remembered the event by posting a two-minute video tribute on Twitter. MP Kanimozhi posted an old photograph of Karunandihi standing by the Kallakudi signage with a hashtag #stophindiimposition.