How a Chennai park became the birthplace of DMK

A meeting in a park in 1949 spawned a party that would repeatedly rule Tamil Nadu.

Annadurai chose Robinson Park, now known as Anna Poonga, to pitch the DMK's work and ideology.

On September 17, 1948, 23 senior leaders participated in the brainstorming session. First Anna explained what he expected from the party and then the other leaders gave their views.

"Anna wanted to explain the policies of DMK. He organised a meeting at Robinson Park to discuss the kind of work the party should take up...the ideology of the party. Around 23 senior leaders of the party spoke at the meeting. That meeting was to tell what this new party was about," DMK leader TKS Elangovan told PTI.

Located in the Royapuram–Washermenpet area of Chennai, the choice of the park was not just incidental or because it was a convenient place to meet.

"The choice of location was very appropriate because this was a blue-collar working class neighbourhood from which the party would draw several of its cadres," says historian V Sriram.

The park itself has some history behind it being among the earliest ones to come up in Chennai.

"Robinson Park is a very historic location. It is one of the earliest parks of the city...in 1878 the foundation stone was laid by the then head of police force for the whole of the Madras Presidency Sir William Rose Robinson. The garden had been developed by Arumuga Mudaliyar and it would become a green lung of the city," says Sriram.

The meeting at the park happened soon after Anna and Periyar fell out, one reason being the differences over Independence from British.

Sriram says "Periyar had felt that India becoming independent on August 15, 1947 was a day of mourning because the British would have left but they would have handed over the country to the upper castes. Anna, on the other hand, felt that it was a day for rejoicing and that the struggle for class equality ought to continue. Gradually, differences opened up between the two and that is how the DMK came to be founded at Robinson Park."

Today, few visitors to Anna Poonga are aware of this historical idea that germinated into a political force that continues to play an important part in deciding the fate of the state.