Pattali Makkal Katchi

Pattali Makkal Katchi (பாட்டாளி மக்கள் கட்சி, abbreviated PMK), a Tamil, caste based political party. PMK participated in the National Democratic Alliance until December 2003, and was thus part of the Indian central government 1999-2003. For the 2004 Lok Sabha elections PMK joined United Progressive Alliance.

Now PMK is part of the broad Tamil political front Democratic Progressive Alliance where also Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Indian National Congress, Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Indian Union Muslim League are members.

The PMK founder president is Dr. S. Ramdoss. Ramdoss had earlier worked intensively with the Vanniyar Sangham (Vanniyar Union).

PMK is dominated by the Vanniar caste, an OBC community. PMK has advocated the bifurcation of the state of Tamil Nadu, a proposal that was seen as casteist. PMK is mainly based in the northern half of the state.

Lately, he started a movement to save Tamil.

Dr. Ramadoss, who is a doctor, is the founder of this party. PMK is strongly favouring caste based reservations in education and jobs. PMK could achieve many of their objectives by strong, sometimes violent protests. Statistically, despite reservations in India and in particular in Tamilnadu, social, economical and education profile of all the backward communities did not improve equally. This is clearly visible in the Northern Districts of Tamilnadu, where the PMK party and their supporting caste is dominant. Traditionally, now the members of PMK party were supporting then Congress,DMK and AIADMK. However, the community could not achieve as much development as the other backward communities could achieve, which were having similar backgrounds. Dr Ramadoss realized that this was because, despite the votebank, the Political leaders who hailed from their community did not have the power to demand the requirements of their members.

Apart from the idea of reservation in jobs, they also favour reservation in promotions and are against reservation based on economic criteria.

After the formation of PMK, Under the leadership of Dr Ramadoss, PMK could manage to get strong share of power both in the Regional Government in Tamilnadu and the National Government. Though their share of MLAs / MPs were not large, they were forming the decisive minority, which were badly needed by large parties to form stable Governments. Dr Anbumani Ramadoss is currently the Health Minister in the Government of India. Dr Anbumani, who is also a qualified Doctor, is the son of Dr Ramadoss.

For a long time, the politics in Tamilnadu, like in all other states is dominated by caste affiliations. Most other parties and their leaders were not directly and openly supporting their castes though, it was PMK which has started this trend. The other communities are trying to emulate this model and are not very successful yet.