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Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party (India)

image by Tomislav Todorovic, 28 April 2008

Description of the flag

See also:

Description of the flag

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Dravidian Progress Party), often abbreviated to DMK, is the current governing party in the state of Tamil Nadu. It was founded in 1949 as the result of a split in the Dravidar Kazhagam. Its founder and first president (1949-1969) was C. N. Annadurai; since 1969, the president is M. Karunanidhi, the current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. [1]

The party flag is black-red horizontal bicolour, which symbolizes "rising sunlight" - the emancipation of Dravidian people [2]. Currently there is no evidence to be found for that, but it is quite possible that the flag was designed by M. Karunanidhi, because he had designed the flag of the Dravidar Kazhagam while he was its member [3], and flags of both parties have the same colours and symbolism.

The shade of red colour seems not to be always the same. The photos from the Hindu images website [4, 5] show the FIAV colour R+, but the party website [6] shows mostly FIAV colour R. The Wikipedia is also divided about this: the page in English [1] shows FIAV colour R, and the page in Catalan [7] shows the FIAV colour R+; the page in Catalan also adds a golden sun in the centre of the flag, but that is obviously incorrect, because the party emblem is rising sun which emerges between two mountains [1, 7], whose disc, if painted, is red [8]. It is possible that the colour was originally intended to be R, but was changed to R+, which seems to be much more used on political flags in India than R, so as to be better distinguished from orange/saffron, a colour more frequently used in India than in other countries.

The aspect ratio also seems not to be always fixed, but the cited sources show that 2:3 prevails, so it is used for the attached images.

The image above shows the flag of the DMK as seen on the photos. The flag as seen on the party web site is shown below.

Sources:

[1] Wikipedia page about the DMK (in English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravida_Munnetra_Kazhagam
[2] Wikipedia page about Dravidian parties and their flags: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_Parties#Flags
[3] Wikipedia page about the Justice Party - transformation into the Dravidar Kazhagam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_Party_%28India%29#Change_of_Name_and_Transformation
[4] The Hindu Images - photo of the flag of the DMK: www.thehinduimages.com:8080/hindu/photoDetail.do?photoId=2393634
[5] The Hindu Images - photo of the flag of the DMK: www.thehinduimages.com:8080/hindu/photoDetail.do?photoId=2343451
[6] The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam web site: www.dmk.in
[7] Wikipedia page about the DMK (in Catalan): http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidar_Munnetra_Kazhagam
[8] The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam web site: www.dmk.in/lot/lindex.html

Tomislav Todorovic, 28 April 2008