The Justice Party

Abstract

When a community, such as the non-Brahmins of Madras, is threatened, or feels threatened, its leaders will organize politically to preserve or to establish the identity of the group. At a low level of communication, the leaders alone are likely to be politically articulate, and the party will be élitist in nature, without a mass base, although the party may act in the interests of the community as a whole. Such was the case of the South Indian Liberal Federation. The leadership, financially well endowed, was drawn almost exclusively from a socially stable element of the urban population. While Chetty, Nair, Mudaliar and the early leaders of the movement spoke for the illiterate non-Brahmin masses of Madras, they in no way represented them. This leadership constituted a tightly-knit élite, which, while imbued with social concern, had little contact with the people as a whole. Despite its many publications, its highly articulate propaganda, and its numerous conferences, the Federation made no attempt to draw the mass following of a popular movement. With the franchise limited to but a few hundred thousand, the party made little attempt to aggregate support at any wider level. Its demands were formulated, not so much to attract a following, as to influence the official policy of the British in the Madras Presidency.