Template:Title override Madras Dravidian Association was an organisation formed in the Madras Presidency, British India, which was the predecessor to the Justice party and thus in a sense mother of all Dravidian parties. It was started in 1912 and paved the road to emergence of Dravidian politics in the state of Tamil Nadu in independent India.

Indian social structure for centuries was based on the caste system. In South India during the early years of the last century caste based society had paved the way for widening of chasm between the Brahmin and non-Brahmin masses. Non Brahmins considered that the Brahmin through his supremacy in the caste based social strata, comparatively formed the part of economically stronger section. This domination of the Brahmins

Most Indian population are classified into two major groups, Aryans and Dravidians.^[1] The racial aspect of this classification is concidered controvertial,^[2][3][4] but the classification stays true on the basis of the language families.^[1] Most northern languages are classified as Aryan, where as most southern are Dravidian languages. Sanskrit, a classical language of the Aryan group, was considered as a sacred language, whereas it was a wide spread opinion in Madras Presidency, that their tongues were treated inferior.^[5] The linguistic divide was even more prominent with political dominance of Brahmins in Northern India as well as in the South. Brahmins occupied the higher strata in the Indian caste system. It was observed by some leaders from the south that Brahmins were Aryans and hence non-natives who had taken away the due place of the sons of the soil. ^[6] The antipathy on Sanskrit compounded with the animosity with the Brahimins in Madras Presidency paved the way to the Dravidian movements.^[6]

The Dravidian politics find their overall origin to efforts taken by Iyothee Thass in late 1800s. He regrouped lower caste Dravidians and established the Dravida Mahajana Sabha in 1891.^[7] The major leap in the Dravidian politics arose with the formation of Madras United League by non-Brahmin intelects, who considered the dominance of Brahmins in civil administration a threat to the non-Brahmin majority.^[8] The Madras Dravidian Association initially started as a workgroup which helped non-Brahmin students in Madras with accommodation. The League then grew into a political party under the effots of leaders like Sir Pitti Theagaroya Chetty and Dr. T. M. Nair. The party was christened South Indian Liberal Federation (S. I. L. F.) - popularly called as Justice party).^[8]

The state of Tamil Nadu was electorally dominated by the Justice Party for the first 17 years since its first legislative assembly election (then part of Madras Presidency) until its defeat in 1937. The Justice Party government spearheaded the implementation of a communal reservation policy, perhaps for the first time in the country, and acted to bring temples under state control. There were agitations across the Province against the introduction of Hindi as a compulsory subject of study in schools by a Congress-led government, which lead to the detainment of scores of Tamil scholars, academics and Justice Party leaders. This and other fights for social justice helped create the social base of what emerged as the Dravidian Movement.^[9] Even after independence, in the first election of the Indian republic in 1952, the final election tally in Tamil Nadu saw an upset, by denying the Congress Party an absolute majority, in contrast to most of the rest of India.^[10] In 1944, the Justice Party, under its then leader Periyar, underwent a name change to Dravidar Kazhagam (Dravidian organisation in English) and withdrew from parliamentary politics.^[11]

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