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Belongs to Dravidian stock, says M K Stalin's Twitter profile

The phrase comes from a speech by Annadurai that is still quoted by the DMK to assert its Dravidian identity
Last Updated 07 May 2021, 16:18 IST

Fifty-nine years after the legendary C N Annadurai thundered in the Parliament that he belonged to the "Dravidian Stock", DMK President M K Stalin added the phrase to his Twitter profile, minutes after he was sworn in as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu.

“Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. President of DMK. Belongs to the Dravidian stock,” reads the updated biography of the new Chief Minister. The phrase Dravidian stock was first used by Annadurai, the DMK's founder, in his maiden speech in Parliament in 1962.

"I claim Sir, to come from a country, a part of India now, but which I think is of a different stock, not necessarily antagonistic. I belong to the Dravidian stock. I am proud to call myself a Dravidian. That does not mean that I am against a Bengali or a Maharashtrian or a Gujarati. As Robert Burns has stated, ‘A man is a man for all that.”

"I say that I belong to the Dravidian stock and that is only because I consider that the Dravidians have got something concrete, something distinct, something different to offer to the nation at large. Therefore it is that we want self-determination,” Annadurai had said in his speech.

The speech is still quoted by the DMK to assert its Dravidian identity.

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(Published 07 May 2021, 16:18 IST)

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