Accounts of Dravidian mobilisation in Tamil Nadu have focused largely on their achievement of economic growth and welfare outcomes. Less recognised is the centrality of urbanisation in distributing the benefits of growth and development relatively more inclusively. T.N.’s urban trajectory has been distinct from most other parts of India on two accounts. One, T.N. has continuously attempted the breakdown of traditional caste-based hierarchies to enable the upward mobility of ordinary people, transforming them into agents of urban transformation. Two, urbanisation is more broad-based, being driven by multiple urban centres rather than a few metropolitan cities, as in the case of Maharashtra or Gujarat.
Over the last 70 years, Dravidian parties have capitalised on historical conditions to adopt what appears to be a multi-pronged strategy to transform ordinary people into agents of urban transformation. This includes the provision of physical and social infrastructure to speed up urbanisation; redistributive policies such as affirmative action, particularly in education; and the diffusion of a productivist ethos. These measures are at least partly responsible for the fact that 48.4% of Tamil Nadu’s population lives in urban areas compared to the all-India average of 34% (2011 Census). Seven out of eight households rely on the non-farm sector. T.N.’s urban character does not rely on a couple of big metropolitan cities as is the case in Maharashtra or Gujarat; there are multiple urban centres undergirded by a network of small towns and a strong rural-urban linkage. It is important to understand how this was enabled.
