C. N. Annadurai

C. N. Annadurai

Conjeevaram Natarajan Annadurai (15 September 1909 – 3 February 1969), also known as Arignar Anna or Perarignar Anna (Anna, the scholar or Elder Brother),was an Indian politician who served as the fifth and last Chief Minister of Madras State from 1967 until 1969 and first Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for 20 days (after Madras State was rechristened Tamil Nadu) before his death. He was the first member of a Dravidian party to hold either post.

Quotes

• If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.
  • A.S. Raman, 'A meeting with C. N. Annadurai', Illustrated Weekly of India, 26 September 1965.

• India is a continent; it should be divided into a number of countries. . . . Aryan influence increases within a single country called India. Welfare of the other races is crushed under Aryan rule. Uniting different races under a single country leads to rebellions and troubles. In order to prevent such troubles and bloodshed in India, we should divide India according to racial lines now. . . . The reason one race has not choked another race to death in India so far is the British guns. When the British leave, India will become a killing field.
  • Quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (Princeton, N.J.). (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

Quotes about Annadurai

• There was clearly a foreign hand behind [Dravidian] agitation . . . Some Dravida leaders had been influenced with American money routed through Sri Lanka and they became, if unsuspectingly, ready instruments of destabilizations. Annadurai perhaps did not know it but he was becoming an effective plaything of America's intelligence machinery .
  • biography of T.N. Seshan, the former chief election commissioner of India, Quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (Princeton, N.J.). (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines