With his name being replaced by rebel faction leader S P Velumani on the masthead of the party’s official daily ‘Namathu Amma’, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami decided to strike back on Wednesday with ‘Porvaal’ (meaning battle sword).Neither the name nor the form is new to Tamils, or more specifically long-time followers of Dravidian politics. Before DMK was founded by C N Annadurai in 1949, one of his first recruits, Kanchi Manimozhiyar, had started the magazine ‘Porvaal’ on Aug 16, 1947. Annadurai and Manimozhiyar were in the Dravidar Kazhagam then, founded by Periyar, their mentor.Manimozhiyar started the weekly to espouse the cause of a separate Dravidian land, which was DMK’s war cry in its formative years. In one of its editorials, it announced: “With a vow ‘to get Dravidian land or to rest in graveyard’, thousands of youths will hold this sword to reclaim their lost freedom.”Porvaal, among the earliest in more than 200 Dravidian magazines that were published, broke new ground in publishing. It was one of the first magazines to release ‘special issues’—collector’s editions — on leaders’ birth anniversaries and festivals. There was one when the film ‘Parasakthi’ (1952) hit theatres after a legal battle. It was also the first magazine to publish full blow-up pictures of Dravidian movement leaders.Besides running the magazine, Manimozhiyar also started a publishing house called Pagutharivu Paasarai, to publish books on self-respect and Dravidian ideologies. Through the publishing house, Manimozhiyar had published the ‘DMK diary’ in the 1950s, which contained names and addresses of party members.
Do you believe that the revival of historical publications can help in contemporary political movements?
While Manimozhiyar used ‘Porvaal’ as a weapon for an ideological movement, EPS has unsheathed it for a battle within the party.THE MAN BEHIND DMK’S PORVAALManimozhiyar changed his name from Manikkavasagam after joining DK. Born in Kanchipuram district, Manimozhiyar, a Tamil scholar and teacher by profession, edited magazines such as ‘Bharatham’ and ‘Senguntha Mithran’ in the 1920s and 1930s. It was Manimozhiyar who identified Annadurai’s knack for writing and made him edit ‘Navayugam’, the magazine he founded. Manimozhiyar was also instrumental in establishing the ‘Dravidian Journalists Club’. In 1962, Manimozhiyar was elected to the assembly from T Nagar constituency. In the 1967 assembly elections, on the request of Annadurai, Manimozhiyar withdrew from contesting in Saidapet constituency, paving the way for M Karunanidhi to be fielded. Manimozhiyar launched the weekly ‘Porvaal’ on Aug 16, 1947. It then became a daily until publication ceased in 1958.Some of the copies of the magazine are preserved by the Tamil Virtual Academy in Chennai.
